Feb. 12: Education News We're Reading This Week
Feb. 12, 2016—Here’s our weekly roundup of the biggest news you may have missed. Racial and socioeconomic segregation of K-12 public schools was a prominent discussion. In addition, the role of community engagement and support continues to be examined at the college level.
Elementary & Secondary Education:
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An advanced-learning revolution is taking off in math programs, says The Atlantic. Bridge to Enter Advanced Mathematics (BEAM), a grantee of the Cooke Foundation, is profiled in the article for its dedication to find and serve low-income students with the talent and passion for solving complicated problems.
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“U.S. public schools are more racially segregated now than they were in the 1970s,” states The Washington Post in its summary of a new report from The Century Foundation. “Segregated, high-poverty schools tend to have fewer experienced teachers, fewer challenging courses, inferior facilities, less access to private funding and higher drop-out rates.”
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An in-depth look at San Francisco’s public schools in the San Francisco Chronicle illustrates the district’s “increasingly segregated” public schools.
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President Barack Obama’s proposed 2017 budget would support a competitive grant program, Stronger Together, to help schools achieve socioeconomic diversity, reports The Huffington Post.
Higher Education:
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Inside Higher Ed looks at two new studies which both demonstrate that “low-income students can graduate at high rates when they receive financial and academic supports from external groups.” The studies looked at members of the Phi Theta Kappa Honors Society and, separately, students in the Dell Scholars program.
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The Higher Education Research Institute at University of California, Los Angeles releases its annual Freshman Survey results, observing “substantial gains in students’ interest in political and community engagement across nearly every item on the survey related to these issues.”
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An opinion piece in The New York Times argues that a more compassionate admissions process, in which community service and engagement bear greater weight, is not likely to level the playing field for low-income students unless higher education is more affordable as well.
Cooke Foundation Highlights:
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Executive Director Harold O. Levy’s Fox News opinion piece lists six of the prominent hurdles low-income students face in college admissions.
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Inspired by findings in our True Merit report, Swarthmore College’s The Phoenix examines the role of athletic recruitment in college admissions.
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In The Exeter Bulletin, Cooke Young Scholar Melanie Duenas describes how her summer volunteer experience at an elephant nature preserve in Thailand has strengthened her interest in veterinary medicine.