Taking diversity to the next level
Diverse Issues in Higher Education
When Colgate University decided to recast its diversity efforts, it joined a small, but growing, number of schools across the country in taking a new approach to a decades-old challenge of how best to make their schools more appealing to people from all walks of life and more compelling to employers as a good place to recruit, Colgate created a high-ranking diversity post with an ambitious mandate to help expand the school's approach to diversity. Today, vice president and dean of diversity, Dr. Keenan Grenell, is working with his colleagues to get through a long to-do list, including a study of campus cultural climate and, separately, the first major evaluation of the school's affirmative action program since 1997.More

Race, class and college access explored in 'strivers' research
Diverse Issues of Higher Education
During a recent policy forum centered on low-income students and college access, researchers declared that despite gains in college access by minorities, the top tiers of higher education are becoming more affluent and more White as the lower tier and two-year colleges increasingly accommodate more low-income minority students.More

To fight 'dropout factories,' school program starts young
USA Today
For years, educators have tried to get more students to graduate from high school on time and boost college-going rates. But few approaches have had much success: Dropout rates in many cities approach 50 percent, and a few cities graduate fewer than 45 percent of students. On a school-by-school basis, recent research suggests that one in eight high schools in the USA — many of them in the nation's biggest cities — are virtual "dropout factories" where fewer than 60 percent of freshmen graduate within four years.More

Economic segregation rising in US public schools
The Christian Science Monitor
More than 16,000 public schools struggle in the shadows of concentrated poverty. The portion of schools where at least three-quarters of students are eligible for free or reduced-price meals – a proxy for poverty – climbed from 12 percent in 2000 to 17 percent in 2008.More

Using evidence for a change: Challenges for research, innovation and improvement in education
Public School Insights
The Knowledge Alliance and Learning First Alliance recently joined forces to explore how research affects policy and practice in education. The two organizations came together June 8 to host a Capitol Hill forum on this timely topic. The forum brought together a group of experts, each of whom sees the issue from a different vantage point. All agreed that we have much to do to bridge the gap between research and practice. But all felt that the nation had some real opportunities to close that gap.More

Ethnic studies thrive in South Florida schools
The Miami Herald
In Florida's public schools, every kid has to learn about African American history, Hispanic contributions to the United States, and the Holocaust. Seem logical? It isn't to everyone. Arizona lawmakers recently passed a law banning ethnic studies from public school classrooms. For better or worse, Arizona is driving the debate over teaching diversity in public schools.More

States and schools: A race against time
Stateline
This year, states are once again pinning their hopes on the Obama administration even as their education budgets have been walloped by disintegrating revenues. The conflict between staggering shortfalls and federal largess has forced upon legislators nationwide a renewed preoccupation with education policy. To many desperate lawmakers, federal aid is their only protection against crushing cutbacks in school programs. And they have been willing to sign off on seemingly radical reforms in order to improve their odds of landing the federal money.More

NEA eyes Congress as high court refuses NCLB case
Education Week
Fresh from a snub by the U.S. Supreme Court, the National Education Association is turning to Congress to address its concerns that the Elementary and Secondary Education Act—in the form of the 8-year-old No Child Left Behind Act—is an unfunded mandate.More

Reaching for a common goal: A conversation with Greenlawn Terrace educators
Public School Insights
Louisiana's Greenlawn Terrace Elementary is a small school achieving big things. It is one of the top-performing schools in its district, a feat made even more impressive given the high rate of poverty of its student population. In fact, the school was recently named a High-Performing High-Poverty School by the Louisiana Department of Education, one of a very few neighborhood schools in the greater New Orleans area to receive the honor. Public School Insights spoke with members of the Greenlawn community to learn how they do it.More