College Readiness: What’s Missing from Exams, the Common Core, and Other Teaching Practices

Are public school seniors ready for college? According to the past decade of research, most of them aren’t there yet. In 2014, the college admissions test was overhauled by the College Board, in an effort to respond to the harsh criticisms of the SAT. Only, the average scores of the Class of 2015 showed a massive decline, marking the lowest composite score in 10 years of SAT testing. And last spring, the most alarming data came to light from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), which is conducted by the U.S. Department of Education, and holds up as one…
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First Look at How States Will Get ESSA Off the Ground

The Every Student Succeed Act (ESSA) is finally ready to be implemented in schools across the country, after the past couple of years spent reaching out to educators and creating detailed plans on how to handle effective hiring of teachers, school ratings, education quality, and accountability. 17 states and the District of Columbia are expected to submit their ESSA state plans to the Department of Education between January and April – many of them have already started filing their plans. However, there’s one hitch: On his first day in office, President Trump decided to push back on ESSA. What Could…
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4 Big Problems Created By the Standardized Testing Craze

The Obama administration confirmed what many have been saying for years: U.S. public school students are taking too many standardized tests. This came after a two-year movement to revolt against standardized tests around the country, which is still growing among students, parents, teachers, principals, superintendents, and others. Starting in February 2015, more than a dozen states reported stories of test refusals. There were a number of bills being introduced in 11 states that afforded parents the right to opt their children out of standardized tests. Is there still an argument to be made in favor of standardized testing? They’ve been…
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Few Educators Are Prepared to Teach the Common Core

Even as states first began implementing the Common Core standards, educators knew that it would take several years to fully understand the new guidelines and be able to shift instruction in the new direction. It’s no major feat bringing together parents, teachers, district leaders, policymakers, and communities to work together to make the Common Core a success. At this point, has this initiative been a success? And what could this mean for educators in 2017? This week, we examine the current state of the Common Core State Standards and the challenges for teachers in K-12. Teachers Still Face Challenges with…
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ESSA in 2017: A Challenging Road Ahead for States and School Districts

2016 was a busy year, as the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) first got off the ground. Contrary to its predecessor, the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) from the Bush era, ESSA was an unprecedented step forward in reforming public education, handing over control over education standards to the states. The new law focuses on the need for major school improvements, but without the “test-and-punish” model of prior years – where schools with low test scores received less federal funding and consequently got stuck in this cycle of not having enough resources, but still having a lot of work…
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National Scorecard Ranks 50 States on Education Performance

For more than a decade, American public education has been faced with this fundamental issue: providing the best quality education and proving their accountability in doing so. Last year, the passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) was a breakthrough in prescribing a well-rounded approach in education reform. With the rules put in place, now the hard work of implementation will be up to states in 2017. And with the final rules issued last November, the Department of Education handed over ownership to the states, so they could define their own goals and performance measurement and rely on local…
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The 3 Big Changes That Students Want in Higher Education

As they look to the future, college leaders have to take in a variety of perspectives. What big changes should they be making over the next few years? All over the college campus, everyone has different priorities. Faculty need more resources for their department, CIOs are focused on supporting BYOD on campus, presidents want to improve their school rankings, and academic officers are prioritizing innovation of the curriculum. Today, we’ve taken a look at some of the improvements that are on the top of college students’ wish lists. Increased Use of Student Data Higher-ed experts anticipate that predictive analytics will be…
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A Closer Look Inside the Growing College Readiness Problem

High school graduations have been at an all-time high, a major feat to be certain, but recent research is showing that many of these graduates aren’t prepared for the academic road ahead. The facts on college readiness are startling. The Nation’s Report Card (or NAEP) found that only a third of U.S. high school seniors are prepared for college coursework, and the number of students scoring below the basic level in math and reading are still rising. Last fall’s scores from the ACT college entrance exam showed that many high school students aren’t ready for college-level courses. In reading, only…
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Breaking Through the Iron Triangle in Higher Education

Higher education is up against a myriad of challenges, as their student enrollments decline, their budgets tighten up or remain stagnant, and there’s a greater demand to prove the value of their degree programs. As prospective students and parents are weighing the college options, the conversation around cost keeps getting tougher. College student debt is still spiraling. In the past year, seven in 10 graduating seniors had student loans from public and nonprofit colleges, with an average of $30,100 per borrower, marking a 4-percent increase from the average college student debt reported in 2014.[1] Understanding The Iron Triangle College and…
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The Dropout Epidemic: What We Can Do to Keep Students in School

“Every year, over 1.2 million students drop out of high school in the United States alone. That’s a student every 26 seconds – or 7,000 a day.” I often wonder why ‘dropping out’ of school was given it’s title. The term implies a wilful action on the part of the student, not too far removed from ‘giving up’. With so many students ‘giving up’ on school every day, do we really know the truth behind this phenomenon profoundly affecting the future of our youth? Push, Pull and Falling Out Factors  Research on the topic has identified a framework on which…
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