Nine States Collectively Win $500 Million for Race to the Top—Early Learning Challenge Fund

On December 16, 2011, the White House announced that nine states—California, Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio, Rhode Island, and Washington—will collectively receive $500 million to help make pre-kindergarten and other early-learning programs  accessible and better capable of narrowing the achievement gap between students who start kindergarten without prior formal schooling and those who do.

This post is based on a press release by the Office of the Press Secretary of the White House.

HR 3671: Pell Grant Preserved

Congress was working late into the night on Thursday to discuss H.R. 3671, which would preserve the maximum Pell Grant at $5,550, but alter the eligibility criteria. Currently, there are 9 million individuals who benefit from the Pell Grant, and, with the new eligibility criteria, about 100,000 fewer individuals would qualify. Additional changes include offering the Pell Grant for 12 semesters instead of 18, taking effect July 1, 2012 if passed. All other Department of Education programs would undergo a 0.189 percent cut including Federal Work Study Programs and the Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant (SEOG), however the Pell Grant would not be affected.

The post is based on an article that appeared on InsideHigherEd.com.

Welcome to high school: please pick your career.

Conventional wisdom has always stated that college was an exploratory period of time where one could proverbially “find themselves” and their life’s calling. With the current economic conditions playing a significant role in many college graduates’ unemployment statuses, various states have implemented career-oriented education to ensure that high school graduates are at least poised for entry-level jobs in their chosen fields.

South Carolina has budgeted $28.6 million for its career pathways program, while Georgia Department of Education spokesperson, Matt Cardoza, said that funding for the Peach State will come from existing monies. Whether new revenue or not, the idea of having students identify one of seventeen different career fields at the onset of their high school matriculation has mixed reviews.

On the one hand, preparing students for a potential career enables them to remain focused in high school and gain significant skill sets that will give them an edge in the marketplace in terms of employment. Georgia State School Superintendent John Barge and other key policymakers state that this move will help Georgia’s students, since nearly 50 percent of all jobs are forecasted to go to people with associate degrees or occupational certificates.

On the other hand, some parents feel that having students chose a profession at the age of 14 or 15—when most students enter high school—is unrealistic. In all likelihood, the student’s abilities and options will change in the course of the next four or eight years when they graduate from high school and/or college. Moreover, if a student fails to meet all of the career pathways curriculum requirements, their graduation can be delayed.

Another component of the career pathways program is the extra stress it puts on the state’s teachers to not only be teachers but career advisors. Since the new career-oriented curriculum will involve intensive coaching and career immersion in the form of knowledge-based curriculum, teachers will be required to assume the role of career advisor, minimizing the time needed to prepare for classroom instruction.

For or against, the program does have some positives that will change the paradigm of vocational preparation in the state. Georgia lawmakers plan to launch the program in the 2012 or 2013 session.

This post is based on an article that appeared in The Atlanta-Journal Constitution.

Is the Waiting Game Over?

The one decision that hundreds of thousands of college applicants loathe every year—perhaps even more so than the definitive rejection—is the “waitlisted” decision. Ambivalence strikes and leaves many befuddled on what to do next. In a recent article by Kevin Kiley of InsideHigherEd.com, he noted that admissions counselors are trying to amend colleges’ wait-listing practices in order to maintain college decisional transparency. Each year, more and more students are placed on the waitlist with no transparency or idea of whether they will be eventually admitted or cut from the university rosters. Officials at the National Association of College Admissions Counselors (NACAC) are trying to increase institutional transparency so that students who have applied to various institutions—particularly those that have applied early decision or early action—know how they can proceed if their preferred institution decides not to eventually accept them.

For students who are currently in the application cycle—or will be—it is critical to focus on the four major areas that colleges examine for scholastic achievement: grade point average, extracurricular activities, SAT score, and personal statement. Cornerstone Academic Services provides assistance in each of these fields.

Want to get into college? Start forgetting junior year and start thinking middle school.

Everyone is aware of the rising rates of college application and matriculation in the United States. With the recent advent of both increasingly-qualified candidates domestically, and the influx of foreign students coming to the United States to seek excellent post-secondary educational options, needless to say that the typical American high-school student is now subject to forces beyond his or her own control. Or, are they? In this commentary by The Atlanta-Journal Constitution’s education reporter, Maureen Downey, the argument is made that parents should now begin to prepare their middle-school-aged children for post-secondary matriculation if they are to stand a chance in the admissions process.

Before we delve into the preparation part, let’s look at some statistics: according to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics press release on College Enrollment and Work Activity of 2010 High School Graduates, 68.1 percent of the 3.2 million students of the 2010 high school graduating class enrolled in post-secondary colleges or universities in the United States between January and October of that year. That figure, 68.1 percent, is close to the record high of 70.1 percent set in the October of 2009. So, the data reveals that more people are applying to and getting accepted into college.

The article referenced above indicates that Georgia is at the forefront of the college matriculation boom. Applicants into the UGA admissions office have increased by 50 percent since just 2003. Georgia Tech’s applicants have increased by nearly the same, 48 percent, in the last four years. In fact, the boom is substantiated by the fact that for the decade ending in 2009, Georgia’s post-secondary matriculation rate rose nearly 77 percent which is more than double the national increase of 38 percent.

With the BLS data and the reports on matriculation from Georgia’s premier public institutions, there is no doubt that the conventional wisdom which purported students work diligently in their junior year of high school to secure a positive admissions outlook is now outdated indeed. If today’s high-school student, or even—dare we say—middle-school graduate, wishes to be a viable candidate in the meritocratic shifts that are taking place in the college-admissions arena, then they need to get their academic credentials in line well ahead of the norm. Middle school is the new junior year.

This article originally appeared in the GetSchooled AJC blog by Maureen Downey.