Eideard

Chemistry major?

Studying alone, reading and writing more, are helpful

A new study provides disturbing answers to questions about how much students actually learn in college — for many, not much — and has inflamed a debate about the value of an American higher education.

The research of more than 2,300 undergraduates found 45 percent of students show no significant improvement in the key measures of critical thinking, complex reasoning and writing by the end of their sophomore years.

One problem is that students just aren’t asked to do much, according to findings in a new book, “Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses.” Half of students did not take a single course requiring 20 pages of writing during their prior semester, and one-third did not take a single course requiring even 40 pages of reading per week…

The study, an unusually large-scale effort to track student learning over time, comes as the federal government, reformers and others argue that the U.S. must produce more college graduates to remain competitive globally. But if students aren’t learning much that calls into question whether boosting graduation rates will provide that edge.

I’ve been arguing for a long time that graduation rates, in and of themselves, are meaningless.

Students who studied alone, read and wrote more, attended more selective schools and majored in traditional arts and sciences majors posted greater learning gains.

No surprises here, especially regarding the nonsense that somehow working in groups will magically improve student performance.

Social engagement generally does not help student performance. Students who spent more time studying with peers showed diminishing growth….

Read it all, and see if anything surprises you.

The field of education is full of texts from new faces on the proper way to teach– always some idea that has somehow escaped the imagination of lesser mortals. And there is always some fool ready to buy a couple cases to hand out as required reading for his teaching staff.

17th naturalization ceremony in Iraq for those serving in the U.S. Armed Forces

The US Congress is poised to vote this week on a bill that offers more than 2 million young illegal immigrants a path to citizenship, a move that will re-open the toxic debate on the issue ahead of the November mid-term elections…

The bill is being introduced by the Democratic Senate leader, Harry Reid, and is facing widespread opposition from Republicans.

The Democratic party sees it as a no-lose situation. If the Republicans vote against, the Democrats hope this will cement their position as the party of the Latinos… NSS.

The bill would allow young illegal immigrants to become citizens if they have completed a university or college education or served two years in the military.

Barack Obama promised during this presidential run that he would introduce legislation to provide the estimated 12 to 20 million illegal immigrants, most of them Latinos, with a route to citizenship but has so far failed to deliver. This measure, even if the chances of passage appear at this stage to be slim, would go part way towards achieving that…

The Pentagon, struggling to maintain levels of recruitment in the face of troop demands in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere, is among the backers of the bill.

In a tactical device by the Democrats, the bill has been tacked on to legislation approving defence spending for next year, making it harder for the Republicans to obstruct it. If the defence spending approval is held up the Pentagon will have to seek emergency funding elsewhere…

The proposed measure leaves the Republicans in a bind. If Republicans vote against the measure it will help the Democrats portray them as anti-immigration in the run-up to the elections in November in which a host of Senate and House seats and governorships will be at stake.

Some smart politics by the Dems. For a change. They could have been pushing the Republicans like this for months.

Fits perfectly with the bigotry of the teabaggers, too. As the assorted Tea Party factions continue to gain strength within the Republican Party, their nativist bigotry forces the opportunist Old Guard to move further to the right.

Click on the photo – for a video

There isn’t a lot of research that links early childhood test scores to earnings as an adult. But new research reveals a surprising finding: Students who learn more in kindergarten earn more as adults. They are also more successful overall.

Harvard University economist John Friedman says he and a group of colleagues found that students who progress during their kindergarten year from attaining an average score on the Stanford Achievement Test to attaining a score in the 60th percentile can expect to make about $1,000 more a year at age 27 than students whose scores remain average.

Taking into account all variation across kindergarten classes, including class size, individuals who learn more–as measured by an above-average score on the Stanford Achievement Test–and are in smaller classes earn about $2,000 more per year at age 27.

Moreover, students who learn more in kindergarten are more likely to go to college than students with similar backgrounds. Those who learn more in kindergarten are also less likely to become single parents, more likely to own a home by age 28 and more likely to save for retirement earlier in their work lives…

This new study, funded by the National Science Foundation’s Division of Social and Economic Sciences, examined adult outcomes of nearly 12,000 students who took part in the original study and who are now 30 years old. It allowed the research team to go beyond what children learned during their year in the STAR project to see how their kindergarten learning experiences affected their lives.

Well, rock on, kids!

The last thing they want is better educated voters, people with improved status in their communities – and thinking about changing the politics of the world around them.

The United States used to lead the world in the number of 25- to 34-year-olds with college degrees. Now it ranks 12th among 36 developed nations.

“The growing education deficit is no less a threat to our nation’s long-term well-being than the current fiscal crisis,” Gaston Caperton, the president of the College Board, warned at a meeting on Capitol Hill of education leaders and policy makers, where he released a report detailing the problem and recommending how to fix it. “To improve our college completion rates, we must think ‘P-16’ and improve education from preschool through higher education.”

While access to college has been the major concern in recent decades, over the last year, college completion, too, has become a leading item on the national agenda. Last July, President Obama announced the American Graduation Initiative, calling for five million more college graduates by 2020, to help the United States again lead the world in educational attainment…

William Kirwan, chancellor of the University System of Maryland, who hosted the Washington discussion along with Gaston Caperton, said…“We led the world in the 1980s, but we didn’t build from there,” he said. “If you look at people 60 and over, about 39-40 percent have college degrees, and if you look at young people, too, about 39-40 percent have college degrees. Meanwhile, other countries have passed us by.”

Canada now leads the world in educational attainment, with about 56 percent of its young adults having earned at least associate’s degrees…

“You can’t address college completion if you don’t do something about K-12 education,” Mr. Kirwan said.

The group’s first five recommendations all concern K-12 education, calling for more state-financed preschool programs, better high school and middle school college counseling, dropout prevention programs, an alignment with international curricular standards and improved teacher quality. College costs were also implicated, with recommendations for more need-based financial aid, and further efforts to keep college affordable.

Aside from sound governance – which drained away down sewers of greed in the eight years preceding the present administration – the mediocre stimulus budget approved by Congress doesn’t even keep up with maintaining staff minimums for education around the country. While there are legitimate discussions about the ratios of administrators to students, quasi-pro sports budgets versus the broad range of intelligent curricula, the task still remains to equip the young people of the United States to build a nation that can grow beyond an economy based wholly on consumption and service.

Though I imagine little or no change would please the beancounter breed of reactionary.

American colleges are spending a smaller share of their budgets on instruction, and more on recreational facilities for students and on administration, according to a new study of college costs.

The report, based on government data, documents a growing stratification of wealth across America’s system of higher education.

At the top of the pyramid are private colleges and universities, which educate a small portion of the nation’s students, while public universities and community colleges serve greater numbers, have fewer resources and are seeing tuitions rise most rapidly…

Community colleges, which enroll about a third of students, spend close to $10,000 per student per year, Jane Wellman said, while the private research institutions, which enroll far fewer students, spend an average $35,000 a year for each one…

Tuition, on average, rose more rapidly over the decade at public institutions than it did at private ones. Average tuition rose 45 percent at public research universities and 36 percent at community colleges from 1998 to 2008, compared with about 21 percent at private research universities.

But the trend toward increased spending on nonacademic areas prevailed across the higher education spectrum, with public and private, elite and community colleges increasing expenditures more for student services than for instruction, the report said…

“This is the country-clubization of the American university,” said Richard Vedder, a professor at Ohio University who studies the economics of higher education. “A lot of it is for great athletic centers and spectacular student union buildings. In the zeal to get students, they are going after them on the basis of recreational amenities…”

Yes, truly American standards prevail. Let’s send our kiddies to country club-colleges where they can expand their recreation skills. Spend the dollars for bragging rights to the best basketball or football team money can buy – instead of outfitting student brains and bodies with lifetime sports.

The biggest University in New Mexico spent $650,000 for a football coach who gave us a winning season – whoop-de-doo! He got into fights with staff which required a 6-figure PR consultant to gloss over in the media. All important parts of a collegiate education.

Parental influence and access to mathematics courses are likely to guide students to careers in science, technology, engineering, mathematics or medicine (STEMM), according to research from Michigan State University.

The findings of Jon Miller, MSU Hannah Professor of Integrative Studies, and colleagues were presented at a symposium titled “Tomorrow’s Scientists and Engineers” at this year’s meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science…

“Failure to build and maintain a competitive scientific work force in the decades ahead,” Miller said, “will inevitably lead to a decline in the American standard of living.”

Miller used data from the Longitudinal Study of American Youth, which kept track of nearly 6,000 students from middle school through college, attempting to determine what led them to or guided them away from STEMM careers.

According to Miller, “The pathway to a STEMM career begins at home (.pdf).” He said this is especially true in families in which children were strongly encouraged to go to college.

“Only four percent of students who experienced low parent encouragement to attend college planned to enter a postsecondary program and major in a STEMM field,” he said. “This compares to 41 percent of students whose parents strongly encouraged college attendance…”

The research also reinforced the role mathematics plays in the pursuit of a STEMM career.

“Mathematics is a primary gateway to a STEMM career,” Miller said, “beginning with algebra track placement in grades seven and eight, and continuing through high school and college calculus courses.”

Makes sense to me. Reflecting on the article, I can still hear my father encouraging me to go to night school to study engineering even I had to start work at 17 as an apprentice machinist to contribute to the family income.

For a kid growing up in the downhill end of a New England factory town, I think I received solid support for STEMM.

Officials at three Texas universities say they have serious concerns about a bill to let students carry guns on campus.

“As one faculty person told me, ‘Do you think I want to pass out those Fs and Ds with somebody in the classroom having a gun?’ ” state Rep. Lon Burnam, D-Fort Worth.

The bill, backed by the National Rifle Association, would be limited to students 21 and older, said the bill’s sponsor, state Rep. Joe Driver, R-Garland, who argues such a law would make campuses safer.

More than 70 Texas House members have signed on as co-sponsors to the bill, Driver said, noting 76 are needed to pass the legislation.

Next year, they’re gonna let ‘em have books.