CAROL’S SUMMARY:

Six states—Connecticut, Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, Texas and Virginia—are looking at how to overhaul developmental education in reading, writing and math at the community college level. Along with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Lumina Foundation, these colleges are realizing that remediation needs to begin and end in high school so that college can emphasize college level learning. Currently, many public high schools students around the U.S. don’t read much while they are in high school. The toll this takes on their reading, writing and thinking skills is huge. While some gains are being made nationally in math, there are still 2.5 million students remediated for math at the college level.

LifeBound’s programs are designed to promote academic, emotional and social intelligence through reading, writing and thinking skills. Many of our books promote reasoning and math learning. If colleges hold the k-12 districts accountable for these outcomes, we will change this community college influx of underprepared students.

ARTICLE
USA Today

Six states that are trying to revamp remedial education are focusing as much on what happens outside of the classroom — in state policies — as inside. Among the targets for change include state funding formulas and individual course rules.

The Developmental Education Initiative, a three-year project funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Lumina Foundation for Education, recently unveiled the state policy framework and strategies that its six participating state partners plan to implement so that they can dramatically increase the number of students who complete college preparatory work and move on to complete college-level work. The six states –Connecticut, Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas and Virginia– were selected for this project because of their prior commitment to community college reform; institutions from these states were first-round participants in Achieving the Dream, a multi-year and -state initiative to improve the success of two-year college students. http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2010-04-14-remedial-college_N.htm

Two weeks ago, I wrote about a trend in the U.S. shows that our math skills among students are outpacing their reading skills. Now, news from an eight-county area in and surrounding Philadelphia shows that more than 40% of the school districts give more than three hours of science to fourth graders compared with 60 to 80 minutes of science in the national average. One school which symbolized patterns in this research is from an all-girl’s private school. Over half of the graduates from this school plan to pursue science or engineering. The same patterns hold true for urban and disadvantaged schools in the same areas.

Early emphasis on science will likely improve critical and creative thinking skills, the ability to analyze, observe and draw inferences. If students master these skills in the fourth and fifth grades, they will have a “thinking” foundation which can allow them continued success as they progress through their middle and high school years whether the pursue science or other fields. For American students to go toe-to-toe with their counterparts in Asia and Europe we need more early success in science, math and reading to create learners with the 21century skills to succeed.

Our two books, CRITICAL AND CREATIVE THINKING and LEADERSHIP FOR TEENAGERS promote cross-disciplinary examples throughout which can help students to connect what they learn in science and their other classes to majors, careers, and fields of study.

ARTICLE
EDUCATION NEWS
4/11/2010

It has taken prodding by industry, business, and government leaders – alarms going off, even – but science education is getting an upgrade in many classrooms across the region.
First graders are watching insect eggs hatch, feeding the larvae and learning words like metamorphosis.
High school students are signing up for course work in marine biology, pharmacology, engineering, and how the brain works. And officials in many schools are adding class time and squeezing dollars out of tight budgets to improve science instruction and laboratories.

The question, not yet answered, is whether the newfound respect for science will boost student achievement to match math and science powerhouses in Asia and Europe.
Many corporate, industry, and government observers view American students – the next generation of workers – as lacking in the math, science, and technical skills that are key to U.S. economic prowess.

To view entire article visit

http://www.educationnews.org/educationnewstoday/88677.html

Carol’s Summary:

Modeled after speed dating, speed mentoring offers a contemporary approach to helping students meet professionals in their fields of interest. Informational interviews, where college students ask pointed questions, offers a real-world view of work and exposes career seekers to options they may not have considered. Although we typically think of matching college students with seasoned professionals, peer mentorship can occur in high school and give students a chance to practice their leadership skills.

LifeBound’s new book, LEADERSHIP FOR TEENAGERS: FROM ANTIQUITY TO THE 21ST CENTURY, addresses peer counseling and other ways high school students can build their leadership strengths. We are seeing interest for this resource from Summer Academies and year-long programs, including Gifted and Talented, Link Crew, student council, athletics and other places where faculty or staff are looking to strengthen leadership potential among students. We have several leadership experts and people from the business world reviewing this new resource, and if you would like to give us feedback because of your role in preparing students to develop leadership habits for our global world, call our national toll free # at 1.877.737.8510, or email contact@lifebound.com, and we’ll email a sample chapter to you.

ARTICLE:

Speed mentoring helps make career matches
By Greg Latshaw
USA TODAY
April 6, 2010

With breath mints laid out on the tables, light jazz playing in the background and an antique school bell keeping the time, the University of Texas-El Paso looked ready to host a speed-dating session.

But this February night wasn’t about making romantic connections. It was a speed-mentoring event staged by the school so that 30 students planning a career in medicine could get four minutes of face time with doctors from a wide range of specialties.

Paloma Sanchez, a 20-year-old studying microbiology at the school, said the event’s timed conversations and musical chairs approach got her results. She met a cardiologist who has agreed to let her do a shadowing program at a hospital this summer.

To view this entire article visit www.usatoday.com

Carol’s Summary:

New research on the value of Advanced Placement programs, offered by College Board in a soon-to-be-released book by Harvard Education Press, AP: A Critical Examination of the Advanced Placement Program, shows mixed results:

Claim: The program helps students save money and graduate on time. This would also encourage more students to go to college.
Counter: According to the Harvard research, this is generally found to have no validity.

Claim: Students in AP classes benefit from smaller class sizes and the school’s best teachers.
Counter: These same acts mean that the rest of a school’s students have larger classes and less time with the best teachers.

The bottom line is that if students don’t build their developmental skills as they move through each grade level, then we are setting them up for failure. It is better to have average students who learn to become strong students even if they are not taking AP courses. Committing to study three hours or more a night, reading for pleasure rather than watching television, and working with tutors, can set them up far more for college success than being in AP courses in which their skills and habits don’t match the content.

When considering AP courses for your child, asking the right questions can help parents decide if an AP course is worth it. Is this course something your son or daughter intends to major in during college? If your child doesn’t know what career path they want to pursue, then taking AP classes may be premature. If they do know, then taking AP classes that connect to these interests makes sense. For instance, if a student wants to become a pharmacist, taking AP history could minimize where she really needs to focus her efforts: on AP chemistry.

Stress is another factor to consider. On a scale from 1-5 (1=rarely stressed and 5=frequently stressed), how healthy is your child at managing stress? If your child is a stress monster, then stacking irrelevant AP classes (ones they don’t intend to pursue for a college major) onto an already demanding schedule could prove counter-productive and lead to burnout. In addition to asking the above questions, here are questions parents can ask the school:

1. How long has this course been taught in this school and by this teacher?
2. What is the teacher’s pass rate? Of those who passed, how many received a 4 or 5 on the test?
3. Are the teacher’s grades for the course related, in any way, to anticipated performance on the AP test?

For more good questions to evaluate the worth of an AP course visit: http://greatcollegeadvice.com/how-good-are-advanced-placement-ap-courses-are-they-worth-taking/

ARTICLE:

USA Today
Advanced Placement: Good for top students, oversold to others?
By Scott Jaschik, Inside Higher Ed
March 30, 2010

The Advanced Placement program is becoming more and more popular, with 25% of high school graduates taking at least one AP examination, elite colleges expecting to see applicants’ transcripts full of the courses, and politicians demanding that more and more high schools offer them. The program has become “the juggernaut of American high school education,” according to the introduction to a new book, AP: A Critical Examination of the Advanced Placement Program.

The book, about to be released by Harvard Education Press, is the result of a 2007 conference at Harvard University that brought together leading education researchers to consider the evidence about AP. Despite the immense popularity of the program, the research evidence on its value is minimal, the book argues. The College Board, the program’s sponsor, publishes or promotes its own research (favoring the program) and promotes “glowing accounts” of AP. But is this really the consensus?

To view this entire article visit www.usatoday.com