January 16, 2015: Education News We're Reading This Week
If you missed the reaction to Friday’s White House announcement about a new plan to provide two years of tuition to select students for community college, here are a few places to start. Check out The Washington Post’s list of six key facts first.
The Chronicle of Higher Education’s Karen A. Stout expressed optimism at the fact that Obama’s plan targets who she considers to be the “neediest students”: those at community colleges.
Of course there are many critiques, for example this one from The Atlantic. The piece outlines why a lack of transferrable credits at many two-year colleges outweighs any benefits the plan foresees.
Shifting gears, The New York Times published this article on “venture and equity financing for ed tech companies.” After years of not investing in education technology, these organizations raised nearly $1.87 billion in 2014.
The U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions issued a press release announcing a plan to fix No Child Left Behind (NCLB). Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) claims NCLB has “become unworkable” and hopes for a bipartisan improvement process to change the law.
The Atlantic suggests that score-heavy emphases for college admission is hurting students from low-income and minority families. Using New York as an example, the authors argue that even students with impressive resumes are hurt by their low standardized test scores.
Learn more about the official introduction of the Financial Aid Simplification and Transparency (FAST) Act via the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators. A discussion draft of the bill was released last summer.
In the pursuit of building “racially and economically diverse” campuses, some colleges find the search for qualified, low-income students quite difficult. Campuslogic offers reasons why many aren’t applying and what schools can do to convince them otherwise.
Various sources have been announcing the Foundation’s new scholarship challenge in partnership with edX—The Maker Mom blog is one of them, as is Education Week.
Caralee Adams also mentions the Foundation in a different Education Week article in a section on virtual college advising.
Cooke alumnus Seth Swingle was featured in Norfolk, VA’s Alt Daily ahead of his musical performance at Virginia Wesleyan College. Swingle specializes in playing the banjo.
Former Undergraduate Transfer Scholar Isa Adney published another article on community college education for Huffington Post on Tuesday.
ABC 7 in the Washington, D.C.-metropolitan area aired a segment highlighting Leon Harris’ heroes from the community. College Scholar Yasmine Arrington features in this edition alongside other fellows and staff at the nonprofit LearnServe.
Graduate Scholar Dr. Ian Ralby wrote this article for Huffington Post on his travel and research surrounding the Treaty of Ghent.