There's good news this week on getting more young people through high school – and bad news on getting them beyond it.
New York and Los Angeles are moving ahead with plans to use standardized testing designed to grade teachers as well as students. In Public Agenda's research, we've found that it isn't so much that teachers don't think tests can play a role in grading teachers – but they do say other ideas are more effective.
The Chronicle of Higher Education is calling its new major survey of the public and college presidents "A Crisis of Confidence," but Public Agenda co-founder Daniel Yankelovich has a different take. He argues that data shows more complacency among college presidents than crisis.
Part of leadership is conveying an air of optimism and confidence. Any management book, any memoir by a general, politician or basketball coach will tell you that. But what does it mean when leaders are more optimistic than the people they're supposed to be leading?
A USAToday/Gallup poll this week reached a milestone, and not a good one: for the first time in nearly 30 years, most Americans say today’s youth won’t be better off than their parents.
The survey found only 44 percent of the general public believe today’s young people will be better off, and there’s even greater doubt among older people (only 36 percent of those aged 50 to 64, for example) and among those who make more than $75,000 a year.
The killing of Osama bin Laden is a huge victory for the United States in the struggle against al Qaeda – a measure of justice for 9/11, a display of resolve and skill by our armed forces, and an action greeted with enormous relief by the public. It’s impossible to say what all the implications will be, but perhaps there’s an opportunity to change the debate about one of the biggest challenges facing our nation.
One of the big opportunities in turning around the nation's dismal college completion numbers is engaging faculty members in changing institutions. And that means both full-time and adjunct faculty, who bear a lot of the teaching load but who are often overlooked when it comes to attacking this problem.
A new survey underlines one of the increasingly important problems surrounding education: are students getting the help they need to make the right decisions?
An AP-Roper survey of 18-to-24 year-olds released this week found that most gave their schools low marks for helping them find the right college, choose a field of study, or come up with ways to pay for their schooling.
Student loan debt is expected to top $1 trillion this year, a new record, and it comes at a time when the public is increasingly concerned that higher education is increasingly necessary – and increasingly out of reach.
The New York Times reported that student loan debt outpaced credit card debt for the first time last year, and two-thirds of bachelor’s degree recipients graduated with debt in 2008, compared with fewer than half in 1993.
Getting college faculty engaged in reform -- both full time instructors and adjuncts -- is critical for student success, but also a big challenge. But we've managed to boil it down to 10 slides in this presentation prepared for the American Association of Community Colleges conference.
