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Articles of Interest
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The rankings, released Monday, ranked TCC third among all two-year colleges, up from its No. 5 ranking in 2013.
As with all “Best for Vets” rankings, “Best for Vets: Colleges 2015” is an editorially independent news project that evaluates many factors that make an organization a good fit for service members, military veterans and their families. The detailed survey requires schools to meticulously document a tremendous array of services, special rules, accommodations and financial incentives offered to military and veteran students and to describe many aspects of veteran culture on a campus.
Richmond Times Dispatch
November 11, 2014
Virginia’s universities could be made more affordable by limiting the amount of mandatory fees charged for athletics, redirecting state financial aid to schools and students who need it more, and slowing the $7 billion campus construction boom.
Those were among recommendations made Monday to lawmakers in the last of five higher-education reports from the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission, which was mandated by the General Assembly to study key drivers in why average in-state tuition and fees increased 122 percent in a decade.
While Virginia’s 15 public four-year institutions rank second nationally in the average six-year graduation rate, they also have the fifth highest average net cost at $18,530, JLARC said.
Your community — and your schools — will look a lot like this within the next three decades.
The three fast-growing Virginia counties nestled near the nation's capital — Fairfax, Arlington and Prince William — are at the leading edge of a diversity explosion sweeping the USA. Hundreds of thousands of Hispanics and Asians have moved to the area since the 1990s and account for 32% of the 1.8 million people in the three counties, triple the number in 1990. Blacks account for another 12%, and multirace residents, 1%.
But this rapid growth in diversity hasn't arrived without consequences or controversy. Residents have been grappling with everything from a controversial policy to stop illegal immigration in Prince William to a housing squeeze that has pushed thousands of minority families out of Arlington. Fairfax wrestles with finding the funds to teach ever more students who are poorer and need added language training.
Federal Policy
What the Midterms Mean for Early Childhood Education
EdCentral
November 5, 2014
What might GOP control of both chambers mean for early education policy?
Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) easily won reelection last night, making him the likely chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee come January. He’ll be replacing a giant of the early education world, Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA), who is set to retire at the end of the current session. Last year Harkin introduced the Strong Start for America’s Children Act in Senate, which calls for significant federal and state investment in early learning, largely through expanded access to pre-K programs for 4-year-olds from low- and moderate-income families. Alexander doesn’t support the Strong Start Act and is skeptical about more federal government involvement in pre-K. His own early education bill would combine existing programs and give states discretion in determining how to spend the money. He has praised the Child Care and Development Block Grant, which passes federal dollars to states and allows them to distribute the funds with few restrictions, as a successful model for early childhood legislation.
Poor kids who do everything right don’t do better than rich kids who do everything wrong
Washington Post
October 18, 2014
But, of course, it's not just a matter of dollars and cents. It's also a matter of letters and words. Affluent parents talk to their kids three more hours a week on average than poor parents, which is critical during a child's formative early years. That's why, as Stanford professor Sean Reardon explains, "rich students are increasingly entering kindergarten much better prepared to succeed in school than middle-class students," and they're staying that way.
It's an educational arms race that's leaving many kids far, far behind.
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Which do we care more about - academics or athletics?
This week, Dr. Bosher reviewed recent reports of the academic cheating scandal and the University of North Carolina. He notes
"the athletes involved . . . clearly learned something from these experiences. . . Running fast and jumping high is worth more than thinking critically and working hard."
Writing last year in the New Yorker, columnist Elizabeth Kolbert wrote the following under the heading "Have sports teams brought down America's schools?"
"This December, when the latest Programme for International Student Assessment, or PISA, results are announced, it’s safe to predict that American high-school students will once again display their limited skills in math and reading. They will once again be outscored not just by students in Poland but also by students in places like South Korea, Belgium, the Netherlands, Finland, Singapore, New Zealand, Canada, Switzerland, and Japan. Meanwhile, they will have played some very exciting football games, which will have been breathlessly written up in their hometown papers."
[The results of those PISA tests can be found here. The U.S. ranked 27th in math, 20th in reading and 17th in science.]
These two instances point to a long running debate in the American education system - what is the proper balance between academics and athletics?
We're all probably familiar with the frequency with which college coaches turn out to be the highest paid state employees (even if you've heard it before, this map is still interesting to look over.) And it's easy to think about why markets may drive schools to spend more on big-time athletics - academic research has showed that winning a championship can have a significant impact on how many students apply to go to that school. Perhaps because of this incentive, states may need to play an oversight role in keeping universities focused on core academic missions. Yesterday, the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission released a report on higher-education costs that singled out fees to support athletics as one driver of increased costs.
But this question may also come up each Saturday morning when you open the local paper and see a lot of positive local school coverage in the sports section and less (and possibly more negative) coverage in the news section. (In case you missed it, one of the major stories Monday was the release of football playoff pairings.)
Of course there has been significant but sometimes inconclusive academic research into whether participation in athletics helps performance in school. This article reviews a study that showed team sport participation was the only extra-curricular that improved student performance. One recent Liberty University dissertation by Lee Sitkowski found evidence that, at least in one high school, athletes performed better academically when they were in-season than out of season, an effect that Sitkowski suggested resided primarily in male student differences in performance.
The athletics/academics debate also influences questions like whether home-schooled athletes should be able to play on public sports teams - one argument against this is that coaches would have less leverage with home-schooled students because of limited ability to review and restrict them from practicing or playing if their grades suffered.
Our poll snapshot this week takes a look whether the public thinks that home-schooled athletes should be able to play on public sports teams.
We also share another excerpt from Dr. Vacca's most recent Ed Law newsletter which looks at the issue of educators being required to report potential child abuse and how the courts treat their testimony.
Sincerely,
CEPI
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Poll Snapshot: "Tebow Bill"
Whether home-schooled students should be able to participate on local public school sports teams is an ongoing question - legislation to allow such participation is often dubbed a "Tebow Bill" because former standout college athlete Tim Tebow benefitted from similar legislation in Florida. That this piece of legislation is often a hotly debated topic in successive legislative sessions in the commonwealth may be an indication of how much importance athletics are given within the public education system. For a review of some of the views about the Tebow bill, check out this series of opinions compiled by the New York Times, including one by the Instititute's Executive Director, Dr. Bosher.
In our last two CEPI Education Poll's we asked respondents about whether they would support the idea of homeschooled athletes participating on local public school teams (see below).
A strong majority (72%) favor allowing homeschooled athletes to participate on public school teams. This percentage was slightly higher than the previous year in 2013.
Support for homeschool participation in public school athletics was highest among younger respondents - 85% of those aged 18-34 favored the idea whereas support dropped off among each successive age group (35-44 had 79% support; 45-64 had 65% support and among those older than 65 there was only 61% support).
Support was also higher among respondents with some college or a college diploma (77% and 74%) compared to those with high school or less (66%). Support was roughly the same across genders and when comparing responses of whites to those of minorities.
School employees (current or former) were less likely to support the provision however - only 61% favored the potential policy, compared to 74% of respondents who had never worked in the schools.
(To read the full results of all the polls, visit our website. In 2014, question 13 is the question reported above - topline results are on page 32; crosstabs are on page 58.)
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Ed Law: Teacher Methods and Classrooms Discussions - Policy Issues
Excerpted from
Dr. Vacca's November Education Law Newsletter
Ohio Supreme Court Rationale and Decision. The Court begins its rational by making it clear that in the State of Ohio a statutory duty is imposed on all school officers and employees, including administrators and employees of child day-care-centers, to report actual or suspected child abuse or neglect, “because they are among the ‘most likely and qualified persons to encounter and identify abused and neglected children’ and have ‘the necessary training and skill to detect the symptoms of child abuse.’”
Reporting child abuse, said the Court, is a “means of protecting Children.” For, example, the information gathered can be used by child-protection agencies to separate children from a dangerous situation. However, while questioning a child about suspected injury is consistent with a duty to report, the Confrontation Clause analysis requires that the “primary purpose” of the questioning be ascertained. In the Clark case “the circumstances objectively indicate that the primary purpose of the questions asked L.P. was not to deal with an existing emergency but rather to gather evidence potentially relevant to a subsequent criminal prosecution. “L.P.’s teachers did not treat the situation as involving any ongoing medical emergency.” Thus “[w]hen teachers suspect and investigate child abuse with a primary purpose of identifying the perpetrator, any statements obtained are testimonial for purposes of the Confrontation Clause.” The Ohio Supreme Court then launches into an extensive case law documented discussion of the Sixth Amendment which provides in relevant part: “In all criminal prosecution, the accused shall enjoy the right…to be confronted with the witnesses against him….” Also, the Court offers a detailed discussion and clarification of the meaning of the phrase “on-going emergency.”
Applying the primary-purpose analysis to the facts in the Clark case the Ohio Supreme Court concluded that “when questioning a child about suspected abuse in furtherance of a statutory duty, a teacher acts in a dual capacity as both an instructor and as an agent of the state for law-enforcement purposes.” And, because no emergency existed they sought facts concerning past criminal activity to identify the “person responsible,” the person who had “perpetrated the abuse,” “L.P.’s statements identifying Clark as responsible for his injuries are therefore testimonial and should have been excluded from evidence pursuant to the Confrontation Clause.”
Decision. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is affirmed. It should be noted that three Justices were in concurrence.
Dissent. A dissenting opinion was written by Justice O’Connor (two other Justices join in the dissenting opinion). In Justice O’Connor’s view the “majority decision creates confusion in our case law…and threatens the safety of our children. Not surprisingly, it is also wrong as a matter of federal constitutional law.” First, “a teacher is not an agent of law enforcement for the purpose of determining whether a statement is testimonial under the Confrontation Clause merely because that teacher has a statutory duty to report child abuse.” Moreover, “[on] the record before us, there is no basis from which to conclude that an injured child’s teachers acted on behalf of law enforcement.” They questioned L.P. to “protect him” and “to maintain a secure and orderly classroom in which learning could take place. No objective witness could reasonably believe that the interviews served a prosecutorial purpose rather than a protective one.” L.P.’s statements to his teachers are “non-testimonial and thus are not excluded by the Confrontation Clause.”
Following from his extensive and detailed analysis of the facts, the right to confrontation generally, the duty of teachers to report suspected child abuse, and a detailed analysis of the case law explaining the term “testimonial,” Justice O’Connor concludes with the following statements: “”For all these reasons, I would hold that a teacher asking a child questions about an injury is not an agent of law enforcement for the purposes of determining whether a statement is testimonial and thus excluded by the Confrontation Clause merely because the teacher has a legal duty to report child abuse pursuant to State statute.” The majority “fails to account for a teacher’s duty to protect her students and to maintain a secure and orderly classroom where learning can take place.”
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