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New York Times
February 18, 2010
Plan Would Let Students Start College Early
By SAM DILLON
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/d/sam_dillon/ind
ex.html?inline=nyt-per>
Dozens of public high schools in eight states will introduce a program next
year allowing 10th graders who pass a battery of tests to get a diploma two
years early and immediately enroll in community college
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/c/community_co
lleges/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier> .
Students who pass but aspire to attend a selective college may continue with
college preparatory courses in their junior and senior years, organizers of
the new effort said. Students who fail the 10th grade tests, known as board
exams, can try again at the end of their 11th and 12th grades. The tests
would cover not only English and math but other subjects like science and
history.
The new system of high school coursework with the accompanying board
examinations is modeled largely on systems in high-performing nations
including Denmark, England, Finland, France and Singapore.
The program is being organized by the National Center on Education and the
Economy, and one of its goals is to reduce the numbers of high school
graduates who need remedial courses when they enroll in college. More than a
million college freshmen across America must take remedial courses each
year, and many drop out before getting a degree.
"That's a central problem we're trying to address, the enormous failure rate
of these kids when they go to the open admission colleges," said Marc S.
Tucker, president of the center, a Washington-based nonprofit. "We've looked
at schools all over the world, and if you walk into a high school in the
countries that use these board exams, you'll see kids working hard, whether
they want to be a carpenter or a brain surgeon."
The Bill and Melinda
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/g/gates_b
ill_and_melinda_foundation/index.html?inline=nyt-org> Gates Foundation has
provided a $1.5 million planning grant to help the national center work with
states and districts to get the program up and running, Mr. Tucker said. He
estimated that start-up costs for school districts would be about $500 per
student, to buy courses and tests and to train teachers.
To defray those costs, the eight states intend to apply for some of the $350
million in federal stimulus funds that Education Secretary Arne Duncan
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/d/arne_duncan/in
dex.html?inline=nyt-per> has designated for improving public school
testing, Mr. Tucker said.
High school students will begin the new coursework in the fall of 2011 in
Connecticut, Kentucky, Maine, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Rhode
Island and Vermont. The education commissioners of those states have pledged
to sign up 10 to 20 schools each for the pilot project, and have begun to
reach out to district superintendents.
The project's backers hope it will eventually spread to all schools in those
states, and inspire other states to follow suit. Supporters include both the
National
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/n/nationa
l_assn_of_manufacturers/index.html?inline=nyt-org> Association of
Manufacturers and the National Education Association, the nation's largest
teachers union.
Kentucky's commissioner of education, Terry Holliday
<http://www.education.ky.gov/KDE/Administrative+Resources/Commissioner+of+Ed
ucation/> , said that high school graduation requirements there had long
been based on having students accumulate enough course credits to graduate.
"This would reform that," Mr. Holliday said. "We've been tied to seat time
for 100 years. This would allow an approach based on subject mastery - a
system based around move-on-when-ready."
The new system aims to provide students with a clear outline of what they
need to study to succeed, said Phil Daro, a Berkeley-based consultant who is
a member of an advisory committee for the effort.
School systems like Singapore's promise students that if they study
diligently the material in their course syllabuses, they will do well on
their examinations, Mr. Daro said. "In the U.S., by contrast, all is murky.
Students do not have a clear idea of where to apply their effort, and the
system makes no coherent attempt to reward learning."
Its backers say the new system would reduce the need for community colleges
to offer remedial courses because the passing score for the 10th-grade tests
would be set at the level necessary to succeed in first-year college
courses. Failure would provide 10th graders with an early warning system
about the knowledge and skills they need to master in high school before
seeking to enroll in college.
Currently, many high school graduates enrolling in community colleges are
stunned to find that they cannot pass the math and English exams those
colleges use to determine who need remediation.
Four years ago, a bipartisan panel of national education and other policy
experts, assembled by the national center, recommended a far-reaching
redesign of the American educational system, including the adoption of board
examinations in high schools.
Other recommendations of the 2006 panel included giving states, rather than
local districts, control over school financing, and starting school for most
children at age 3. Mr. Tucker said that the board examination project was
the broadest effort at putting the panel's proposals into effect so far.
"One hope is that this board exam system can prepare students to move on to
careers, to higher ed and technical colleges and the workplace, sooner
rather than later," said Howard T. Everson
<http://www.senate.ucsb.edu/meetings/townhall/sat/bios/Everson.pdf> , a
professor of educational psychology at the City University of
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/c/city_un
iversity_of_new_york/index.html?inline=nyt-org> New York, who is
co-chairman of the advisory committee.
States that participate in the pilot project on board examinations will pick
up to five programs of instruction, with their accompanying tests, for use
by the participating high schools. Those programs already approved by the
national center include the College Board
<http://www.collegeboard.com/student/testing/ap/about.html> 's Advanced
Placement, the International <http://www.ibo.org/> Baccalaureate Diploma,
ACT's QualityCore <http://www.act.org/qualitycore/> and the International
General Certificate of
<http://www.britishcouncil.org/thailand-exams-school-exams-igcse.htm>
Secondary Education programs offered both by Cambridge International and by
Pearson/Edexcel.
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/18/education/18educ.html
Published online Feb 17, 2010
education
Pilot will give R.I. 10th-graders diplomas
By William Hamilton <mailto:[log in to unmask]>
PBN Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE - One or two Rhode Island high schools will participate in a
high-profile national pilot program next year that will allow 10th graders
who pass stringent exams to get a diploma immediately and enroll in the
Community College of Rhode Island.
Rhode Island is one of eight states that have signed on to the program,
which was organized by the National Center on Education and the Economy
(NCEE) with the goal of reducing the percentage of high school graduates who
need remedial courses as college freshmen. Massachusetts was the only New
England state that did not sign on.
The R.I. Department of Education said Wednesday it has not identified which
schools will participate in the program, which will begin a year and a half
from now at the start of the 2011-12 school year.
Education Department spokesman Elliot Krieger said the state might attempt
to tweak another aspect of the NCEE program that calls for early high school
graduates to enroll at open-admission schools.
CCRI is the only open-admission college in Rhode Island, but Krieger said
the department plans to talk with the R.I. Office of Higher Education about
the possibility of the University of Rhode Island and Rhode Island College
participating, too.
High schools in Connecticut, Kentucky, Maine, New Hampshire, New Mexico,
Pennsylvania and Vermont also are expected to participate.
Pilot schools will use a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to
institute new instructional systems and exams that meet international
standards, according to NCEE, a Washington-based nonprofit.
Similar exams - called Board Examination Systems - are in use in Australia,
Denmark, England, Finland, France and Singapore, NCEE said.
Participating states are expected to pick up to five instruction programs,
and accompanying exams, for use in the pilot schools.
"By introducing these Board Examination Systems in pilot high schools in
these states as early as the 2011-2012 school year, we will begin a process
that will ultimately prepare dramatically more students for college success
and greatly reduce the high number of students who now take remedial course
in college," NCEE President Marc Tucker said in a statement.
Students who pass the exams at the end of their sophomore year but want to
enter a selective college can remain in high school and take college
preparatory courses instead. Students who don't pass will be allowed to
retake it as the end of their junior and senior years.
Source: http://www.pbn.com/detail/48022.html
Rootage for both articles: Google News Alert for: Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation application New Gates Grants for Remedial Ed at Community
Colleges
Dan Kern
CC12, Reading
East Central College
1964 Prairie Dell Road
Union, MO 63084-4344
Phone Direct: 636-584-6607
Fax: (636) 584-0513
Email: [log in to unmask]
ECC main phones: 636-583-5193 & -5195
ECC web address: www.eastcentral.edu
http://www.studentveterans.org/
www.vietnamwomensmemorial.org
Veterans Day 2009: http://www1.va.gov/opa/vetsday/
Do not condemn the judgment of another because it differs from your own. You
may both be wrong. (Dandamis, sage [4c BCE])
Cowardice asks the question, 'Is it safe?' Expediency asks the question, 'Is
it politic?' Vanity asks the question, 'Is it popular?' But, conscience asks
the question, 'Is it right?' And there comes a time when one must take a
position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but one must take it
because one's conscience tells one that it is right. (Martin Luther King,
Jr.)
Instruction begins when you, the teacher, learn from the learner. Put
yourself in his place so that you may understand what he learns and
the way he understands it. (Kierkegaard)
To freely bloom - that is my definition of success. -Gerry Spence, lawyer
(b. 1929) [Benjamin would be proud. I think, I question, I bloom.]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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