What value-added models can—and can’t—tell us about teaching and learning
Getting your middle-schooler in front of a high-quality teacher for even one year will improve his or her chances of going to college and earning a good salary later in life, according to a recent study. The study’s authors used value-added modeling—predicting how well a given student will do on a standardized test, controlling for [...]
Radio interview: Funding community colleges based on their success
With the debate continuing about matching graduates’ skills with workforce needs, Hechinger contributing editor Jon Marcus speaks on the Callie Crossley Show on WGBH, Boston, about a proposal in Massachusetts to fund community colleges based on their success in training students for jobs in growing industries. Long-neglected community colleges are being pressed to do more [...]
New report suggests School Improvement Grants are paying off in California
In 2009, the federal government made an unprecedented investment in the country’s lowest-performing schools when it sent them $3.5 billion with an order: turn things around. Sufficient time has now passed for researchers and policymakers to begin examining how well the School Improvement Grant program (SIG) is working. So far, the evidence has been largely [...]
U.S. to fall short of 2025 college grads goal—by 24 million degrees
Despite persistent appeals from policymakers and politicians to increase the number of college graduates in the United States, a new report projects a shortfall of nearly 24 million degree-holders by 2025. The cost to the U.S. economy in lost wages and income taxes? About $600 billion a year. They’re the most dramatic figures yet in [...]
Report: California sees large returns on higher-ed investments
Is it worth it for California to invest in higher education? That’s the central question posed by a new report examining the state’s spending on its university system and how much graduates end up contributing back to the state budget. The answer? “A resounding yes,” said Michele Siqueiros, executive director of The Campaign for College [...]
New report says tuition tax breaks helping wealthier families
Education Sector reports today that federal higher-education tuition-tax breaks are increasingly benefiting wealthier families. The tax breaks, and other aid that goes to students who do not meet the federal definition of financial need, were the subject of this story by The Hechinger Report, which appeared on the front page of USA Today last November. [...]
Will cheating scandals change the focus on high-stakes testing?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has another explosive story out this week about possible cheating on standardized tests. This time, the newspaper looked at suspicious circumstances in nearly 70,000 schools across the country and found “red flags” in about 200 districts, an analysis that “suggests a broad betrayal of schoolchildren across the nation,” the newspaper said. The [...]
Little teacher support for some Obama school-reform strategies
Teachers are skeptical about several of the major reform ideas the Obama administration and education activists are pushing to turn around the nation’s struggling schools, a new survey commissioned by Scholastic and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has found. (Disclosure: the Gates Foundation is among the many funders of The Hechinger Report.) Fewer than a [...]
As India expands higher education, questions remain about quality and competition
Will India’s higher-education system catch up to those of world leaders, and should its economic rivals be concerned? American RadioWorks aired a podcast today that addresses these and other questions about India’s education ambitions. I discussed India’s higher education building boom with host Stephen Smith, and how the country’s open universities fit into plans to expand access [...]
Affirmative action on the docket again: Justice Kennedy’s past opinions hint at outcome
Affirmative action in college admissions is on the Supreme Court docket again this year after a white student named Abigail Fisher challenged a University of Texas program meant to promote diversity on UT campuses. Affirmative-action proponents, including many university leaders, are concerned that if the University of Texas loses, efforts to increase diversity in U.S. [...]
