May 20: Education News We're Reading This Week

Posted May 20, 2016 | By Cooke Foundation Staff

May 20, 2016 – Here’s our weekly roundup of education news you may have missed. Stories of K-12 centered on segregation in schools and supporting low-income students. Diversity, affordability, and college pathways made headlines in higher ed.

Elementary & Secondary Education:

“It’s no secret in the advanced-math community that diversity is a problem,” writes Education Week. The article says that “not a single African-American or Hispanic student—and only a handful of girls—has ever made it to the Math Olympiad team in its 50 years of existence.” The article describes how organizations like Bridge to Enter Mathematics, a Cooke Foundation grantee, are creating pathways for low-income students.
“Sixty two years after the Supreme Court ruled that America’s schools must be integrated, campuses across the country are becoming increasingly segregated by race and income,” says an article in the Los Angeles Times.
Summarizing the findings of various recent reports, The 74 Million outlines the academic value of integrating schools.
The New York Times explains the “uproar” over Secretary of Education John King’s plans to increase Title I funding for low-income schools. The article also notes: “Nationwide, districts with high levels of poverty receive $1,200 less per pupil from state and local sources than districts with low levels of poverty.”

Higher Education:

A new report from the Aspen Institute and the Community College Research Center outlines strategies that two-year and four-year institutions can take in order to clarify transfer pathways and requirements. Diverse: Issues in Higher Education shares the organizations’ findings and the full report is available here (PDF).
The Century Foundation makes recommendations to institutions for promoting diversity. Its new report states: “Underrepresented student groups face the risk of being judged by “negative stereotypes”—ones that suggest low-income or racial/ethnic minority students have lesser ability and intelligence—which can diminish their sense of belonging on campus and reduce motivation and academic achievement.”
Before making his commencement address to Rutgers University graduates, President Obama stated: “The basic principle that we should be working towards is that everyone needs more than just a secondary school education, whether it’s a two-year or four-year degree. And that it’s got to be affordable,” The Associated Press reports.

Cooke Foundation Highlights:

Amherst College is the winner of the 2016 Cooke Prize for Equity in Educational Excellence. Columnist Frank Bruni broke the news Sunday in The New York Times. Read more about Amherst’s accomplishments on our blog.
Several community colleges have begun sharing announcements of the Cooke Undergraduate Transfer Scholarship recipients on their campuses, who include: Flavio Pacheco and Tatiana Calvo from Seminole State College of Florida; Miranda Wheeler from Northwestern Connecticut Community College; Derrick Arthur-Cudjoe, Nooshin Bashiri, Shahrozia Imtiaz, and Manisha Khatri from Northern Virginia Community College; Karla Lopez-Sanchez from East Los Angeles College; and Juan Joel Albrecht, Yessica Maltes, and Valentina d’Empaire from Miami Dade College.
Exciting coverage of our College Scholarship Program recipients also continues to be published: Santiago Tobar graduated from Miami-Dade County Public Schools; and Camryn Jackson from the Isidore Newman School in New Orleans is profiled in The Times-Picayune.