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. […]
Is the era of teaching to the test nearing an end?
One more state received a waiver from the federal No Child Left Behind Act requirements this week, and the debate about what the waivers will mean for education policy continues. New Mexico, which was left waiting for a verdict on its application after an announcement that 10 other states had been granted waivers last week, […]
Obama’s new teacher plan: Not so new?
U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan made his case yesterday for the $5 billion that he and President Barack Obama want Congress to put toward a new grant competition to overhaul the teaching profession. The program would follow the mold of the administration’s $4.35-billion Race to the Top competition in form and, it seems to a […]
An American problem: Is changing culture enough to stop youth violence?
Halfway into The Interrupters, a documentary airing Tuesday night on PBS’s Frontline, Caprysha Anderson, an 18-year-old teenager from inner-city Chicago, rides a carousel for the first time. The seemingly mundane event is transformative for Caprysha and for the audience’s understanding of the depths of her violent upbringing. She has just gotten out of jail. Her […]
Ten states let off the No Child Left Behind hook
U.S. President Barack Obama announced today that he is letting 10 states off the hook for meeting requirements in the federal No Child Left Behind Act. The law, passed in 2001 with bipartisan support under President George W. Bush, called for all students to reach proficiency in English and math by 2014, a goal that […]
Are school choice and integration the secret ingredients to lowering crime?
Young African-American men at risk of committing crimes were much less likely to do so when they attended higher-performing schools outside their neighborhoods, according to a study published today in Education Next. The study, by David Deming, a professor of education and economics at Harvard, looked at students in Charlotte-Mecklenburg, the North Carolina school district where […]
Bankruptcy attorneys warn that student loans could be the next crisis
A group of bankruptcy attorneys who predicted the mortgage fiasco that helped cause the current economic downturn said today that rising student debt could fuel another crisis just as big. Nearly half the members of the National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys (NACBA) said in a survey conducted last month that the number of their […]
Jon Marcus talks about Arne Duncan and higher-ed costs, accountability
Jon Marcus, who writes about higher education for The Hechinger Report, attended an event yesterday at Emerson College in Boston at which U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and U.S. Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) spoke about higher-education costs and accountability. Marcus appeared on the public-television program Greater Boston on WGBH-TV, Boston, to discuss the issues.
Obama is “incentivizing”—not regulating—universities, ed secretary says
U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said today that the Obama administration isn’t trying to regulate university tuition by linking federal funding to the rate at which college costs increase. In his state-of-the-union address on January 24th, President Barack Obama proposed that federal financial aid be tied to the pace of tuition increases. Institutions whose tuition […]
What will happen with education in the 2012 presidential election?
As the Republican presidential primary rolls on to Nevada, many are already looking toward the general election, discussing what the candidates will have to do to win the White House. A panel held on Wednesday, February 1st, at the American Enterprise Institute, a right-leaning public-policy think tank in Washington, D.C., discussed what role education will […]
