Higher Education Key to Better Incomes
Posted on April 5th, 2010 by Jaimie Schock
The best way to combat income inequity in America is to expand economic opportunity via higher education, according to two Brookings Institution economists in their new book, Creating an Opportunity Society. To start preparing more children of poor families for college, authors Ron Haskins and Isabel V. Sawhill say increased emphasis should be placed on preschool education.
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Tags: College, Education Policy, Grades Pre K-2, Public Policy
Propel McKeesport is a charter elementary school in suburban Pittsburgh with a rather impressive record. Last year, 100 percent of its 5th and 6th graders scored proficient or advanced in math on state assessment tests. That would be a great result in just about any school. But, 85 percent of Propel’s 385 students are from low-income families, 73 percent are minorities, and 13 percent have special needs.
Around half of all high school graduates who enroll in college don’t finish, and a recent poll of employers found that 40 percent of the new grads they hire don’t have the skills necessary to advance in their jobs. But experts agree that, so far, there is no good way to measure how college- and career-ready students are; hence the White House making $350 million available to states to develop new assessments.
Do American schoolkids need to spend more time at school? Yes, argues Charles E. Finn Jr., a former assistant secretary of education. Chinese students spend 41 more days a year in school than does the average American, but change is reaching our shores. 
Robert Goodman, a science teacher at Bergen County Technical School in Paramus, N.J, always felt that teaching 9th graders biology, but not chemistry and physics, was the wrong approach. So, he devised a curriculum for teaching physics that conformed with 9th graders’ math knowledge. His method is now being piloted in 21 schools.
Congress is gearing up to reauthorize Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which channels funding to K-12 education and which was last reauthorized during the Bush Administration, when it was re-dubbed No Child Left Behind (NCLB). President Obama’s version, unveiled last week, would greatly overhaul NCLB. 
Many schools include project-based learning in their classes, but few have embraced the concept quite as completely as the Da Vinci Science and Design schools in Hawthorne, Calif. “Actually, PBL is not worked into the curriculum, it is our curriculum,” says Nicole Tempel, Da Vinci Principal. Nearly every aspect of learning is tied to a project.
Last week, 40 states and the District of Columbia applied for the $4.35 billion Race to the Top competition. The Obama Administration’s pet education program, the competition will award grants to states that overhaul and upgrade their schools systems to encourage more classroom innovation. It gives priority to those states whose reforms emphasize STEM education.
An LA Times study of test results of 152 charter schools, 161 magnets and all nearby traditional schools found that magnets were the clear leaders. Charters also outperformed traditional schools. African American students were especially benefited by magnets and charters, with 76 percent proficient or better in math at magnets and 57 percent at charters, as opposed to only 40 percent at traditional schools.
