Black Student College Graduation Rates Inch Higher But a Large Racial Gap Persists

Nationwide, the black student college graduation rate remains at a dismally low 43 percent. But the college completion rate has improved by four percentage points over the past three years. As ever, the black-white gap in college graduation rates remains very large and little or no progress has been achieved in bridging the divide.

Throughout the nation, black enrollments in higher education have reached an all-time high. But a more important statistical measure of the performance of blacks in higher education is that of how many black students are completing school and earning a college degree.

The economic gains that come from a college degree are transparently obvious. Department of Education data shows that, as expected, black students who earn a four-year college degree have incomes that are substantially higher than blacks who have only some college experience but have not earned a degree.

Sayings of Krisnamurti

"A confused mind seeking clarity will only further confuse itself, because a confused mind can’t find clarity. It’s confused; what can it do? Any search on its part will only lead to further confusion. I think we don’t realize that. When it’s confused, one has to stop—stop pursuing any activity. And the very stopping is the beginning of the new, which is the most positive action, positive in a different sense altogether. All this implies that there must be profound self-knowing: to know the whole structure of one’s thinking-feeling, the motives, the fears, the anxieties, the guilt, the despair. To know the whole content of one’s mind, one has to be aware, aware in the sense of observing, not with resistance or with condemnation, not with approval or disapproval, not with pleasure or nonpleasure, just observing. That observation is the negation of the psychological structure of a society which says, “You must, you must not.” Therefore, self-knowledge is the beginning of wisdom, and also, self-knowledge is the beginning and the ending of sorrow. Self-knowing is not to be bought in a book, or by going to a psychologist and being examined analytically. Self-knowledge is actually understanding what is in oneself: the pains, the anxieties—seeing them without any distortion. Out of this awareness clarity comes into being. "
"A confused mind cannot find clarity"

- Collected Works, Vol. XVII (21

....From the Flame

I am back after a brief hiatus and I have learned a few things during that time.

• Success is often a matter of routine and culture, grounding oneself to the basics is necessary especially when dealing with situations of transition and change. Sound principles and fundamentals are launching pads from which evolution can occur.

• Within change and evolution, it is important to know and understand who you are and what makes you unique. One can lose himself/herself in the dynamics of change if the uniqueness of one's character is not embraced. Even the tornado has a tranquil core.

• Nothing takes the place of refining and honing one's knowledge base, skill and belief. The hard work of introspection and practice can never be substituted by external acquirments. Growth cannot be purchased. Security cannot be bought. Tranquility cannot be acquired.

.....of course it is my belief that education plays a part in the enlightenment of the mind. One should never forget that education is accompanied just as often by sweat and pain as it is by introspection and reflection.

Money would make the Knowledge Is Power Program, which runs three schools in Washington, the largest charter school organization in the country. The charter school movement, begun 16 years ago as an alternative to struggling public schools, will today make its strongest claim on mainstream American education when a national group announces the most successful fundraising campaign in the movement's history -- $65 million to create 42 schools in Houston.

EdNews.org

An Interview with Michael Feinberg: About KIPP

Moment of e-lightenment

"If one can really come to that state of saying, "I do not know," it indicates an extraordinary sense of humility; there is no arrogance of knowledge; there is no self-assertive answer to make an impression".

J. Krisnamurti

QUALITY AT A DISTANCE?

The Chronicle of Higher Education

Robert W. Mendenhall, president of Western Governors University, an online, nonprofit institution, will answer questions about the quality of distance education and the idea of awarding degrees based on competency assessments instead of traditional measures of grades and seat time.

Software eases NMC teacher shortage

The cash-strapped Northern Marianas College is getting some help in mitigating the shortage of teachers at the lone community college in the CNMI. That help, though, comes not in the form of a person but through a software called Elluminate Live.

Discomfort Does Not Mean Dysfunctional

I have accepted a new job, which will take me far from family in Ohio. Many emotions have been swirling around my head as of late, one of which is a deep sense of uncertainty. I found myself pushed outside of my comfort zone forced to deal with new realities and challenges. Though uncomfortable, I felt as if I had been catapulted to a greater level of self-reliance and proficiency.

This experience has led me to reflect upon education and academic experiences. Should not learners also be encouraged to transcend current levels of understanding and proficiency within the context of education?

At first, my levels of discomfort I perceived as an annoyance. I have now come to view them as a necessary and desirable part of the growth process. Struggle and uncertainty I have come to view as natural parts of any learning cycle. Discomfort does not necessary mean dysfunctional, these moments often prove be times of great insight.

Futurist: To fix education, think Web 2.0
By Martin LaMonica, CNET News.com
Published on ZDNet News: December 1, 2006, 1:07 PM PT

A consultant and former chief scientist at Palo Alto Research Center, Seely Brown spoke at a conference on technology and education at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The conference was organized to mark the end next year of an eight-year partnership between Microsoft and MIT to explore the use of technology in learning.

Seely Brown argued that education is going through a large-scale transformation toward a more participatory form of learning.

Group wants Blackboard patent nulled


CNET reports that the Software Freedom Law Center has asked the United States Patent Office to re-examine a patent awarded to Blackboard. The open-source group claims that Blackboard's patent is bogus and that it could undermine other education projects that the center represents. Sakai, Moodle, and ATutor could all be adversely affected by the patent.

An Interview with Ronald Ferguson

For more than a decade, economist Ronald Ferguson has studied achievement gaps. In 2002, he created the Tripod Project for School Improvement, a professional development initiative that uses student and teacher surveys to measure classroom conditions and student engagement by race and gender. The findings inform strategies to raise achievement and narrow achievement gaps. A senior research associate at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, Ferguson is director and faculty cochair of the Achievement Gap Initiative at Harvard University. He spoke with the Harvard Education Letter about the most recent findings from the Tripod Project surveys.

The Way I See It ... Positive Attitude Training

Annie Lawler of Breathing Space for Business explains how to instil positivity in the workplace by training the mind.

TrainingZone

The mind is incredibly powerful and our thoughts and beliefs influence our words and actions either positively or negatively. If we’re aware of the influences and conditioning that affect our behaviour, we can take positive action to reverse negative trends.

Naturally, we all have certain periods in our lives which are challenging and provide us with some serious hurdles to overcome. This is the nature of life. And, some people's genetic make-up makes them more susceptible to periods of anxiety than others. It’s also true that a lot of our 'conditioning' or learned behaviour as children and from those in authority throughout our lives can affect how we feel and how we respond to situations.

Add to that the many external influences which affect our moods and create anxious states, such as TV programmes, news reports in papers, periodicals and on TV, films, video games and so on and you can start to see what we have to contend with every day of our lives.

Do these really affect our moods and behaviour? Well the short answer is a resounding ‘yes’ and that’s why marketers, politicians et al spend so much money and time on advertising and PR campaigns. Repetition of messages and images start to infiltrate our subconscious (and sometimes conscious) thoughts and behaviour and there’s lots of research and books which confirm this school of thought.

Learning from Failure

Today has been a relaxing day of watching college football and cheering for my favorite teams. I have especially been impressed by the recent rising of teams that had suffered devastating set backs last year only to make emboldened drives for success this season. I wondered to myself could this success have been possible if these teams would have not suffered the pain of setback I then wondered how this principle could fit into an educational environment.

In an age where we want to protect, shield and hide students from the unpleasantness of temporary set-back, this is doing a great disservice to the student and is detrimental to the learning process.

The discomfort of setback offers us a time of deep and serious reflection; reflection which might not have occurred if the discomfort were absent. In our collective realities that we call life, discomfort and setback are entities which we must contend with. By not allowing learners the opportunity to engage with these entities their capacities to deal with them in the real world would be severely hampered.

Competition offers a controlled environment in which important human capacities can be honed and trained. Yes success and failure are a part of the dynamic of competition. Setbacks humble us in the face of future success, making us good stewards of the gifts we oft receive.

Rising from the ashes of perceived defeat is an essential skill invaluable to human development. Perseverance in the face of perceived failure is the key to a fruitful and successful life. We should not rob learners of the opportunity to discover something truly timeless and invaluable within themselves.

Powerful Forces Draw Academe Into the Fray
Economic fears and the high-school-reform movement have colleges under pressure to help improve the education of children

The Chronicle of Higher Education

By PETER SCHMIDT

After two decades, the revolution in the nation's elementary and secondary schools has finally reached academe's ivory towers. If college administrators listen beyond their institutions' walls, they can hear crowds of students and parents voicing frustration over colleges' high remediation rates and low graduation rates, visionaries urging the creation of entirely new education systems that would closely link schools and colleges, and political leaders issuing an ultimatum: Tend to the education of the masses, or the next thing you will hear will be battering rams.

For years most higher-education leaders thought they could stay above the fray, neither joining nor opposing the forces marching under the banner of education reform. With one public-opinion survey after another showing that people thought favorably of colleges — even as they were calling for the heads of schoolteachers, principals, and superintendents — it had seemed that colleges were safe from the forces of change unleashed by the 1983 publication of "A Nation at Risk," a highly critical federal report on the need for school reform

Large Numbers of Highly Qualified, Low-Income Students Are Not Applying to Harvard and Other Highly Selective Schools

The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education

An impressive new study finds that there is no shortage of academically strong students from low-income families. As a result, colleges and universities setting plans to enroll more low-income applicants need not relax admissions policies, which may result in lower mean SAT scores and other qualifications of entering students.

Fears are unwarranted that efforts to increase the number of low-income students will produce a lowering of their U.S. News & World Report rankings. Rather than lowering their academic standards, the nation's selective colleges and universities need to do a better job at identifying high-achieving, low-income students and convincing them to apply.


A solid and carefully researched new study conducted by the National Bureau of Economic Research establishes that there are a sizable number of low-income students in the United States with high academic qualifications who are not applying to the nation's highest-ranked colleges and universities. The researchers, including Harvard University economist Caroline Hoxby, examined data from The College Board for all students who had grade point averages and standardized test scores that were high enough for Harvard's academic standards. In this pool of potential Harvard students, they found thousands of low-income students who did not consider applying to Harvard.

Harvard to Drop Early Admissions Program
University Says It Disadvantages Minority and Poor Students
By JUSTIN POPE, AP

BOSTON (Sept. 12) - Harvard University will eliminate its early admissions program because it puts poor and minority students at a disadvantage, school officials planned to announce Tuesday. Under the surprise move, the Ivy League school will discontinue its "early action" round of admissions, in which high school seniors can apply by Nov. 1 and receive a decision - accept, reject or defer - by Dec. 15.

The change will take effect for students applying to enter Harvard in the fall of 2008. All applications for that class will be due Jan. 1.

Wisdom's Jewel


"If you always put limit on everything you do, physical or anything else. It will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them".

-Bruce Lee

Wisdom's Jewel

"I do not know if it is clear to each one of us that we live in a state of contradiction. We talk about peace, and prepare for war. We talk about nonviolence, and are fundamentally violent. We talk about being good, and we are not. We talk about love, and we are full of ambition, competitiveness, ruthless efficiency. So there is contradiction. The action that springs from that contradiction only brings about frustration and further contradiction.…

- J. Krishnamurti

"There Is No Freedom of Thought" - The Book of Life

Daily Insight


On the Role of Relevance and Education

A recent study by the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education found that U.S students between the ages of 25-34 year olds are lagging behind the rest of the world in college enrollment and completion rates. This is troubling as the next generation of decision makers within the country will come from this group. What is the cause behind this lack of academic involvement? There are a myriad of possibilities but one stands out to me, and that it is a waning level of personal commitment to education on the part of aspiring students. Exceptional achievement in any endeavor is dependent upon what a person finds to be valuable. Typically we find valuable that which directly impacts our lives.

In my view education should seek to enlighten students, by directly connecting learning to the dynamic world in which they live. This action would offer the student greater clarity and understanding of life. Education, if viewed as a tool in which students can gain an understanding and mastery of themselves and their world around them, can truly be a powerful thing. Education when divorced from the real world is merely a mental exercise and lends no perceived value to lives of students. It is in this environment that we find ourselves, in a situation of declining student enrollment and completion rates. Many students find no practical value in the learning they are asked to endure, so many choose to forgo the experience. Learning must be made real and relevant to students seeking education. It is in an environment of relevance, that a commitment to learning be established.

Report Finds U.S. Students Lagging in Finishing College
New York Times
By TAMAR LEWIN

The United States, long the world leader in higher education, has fallen behind other nations in its college enrollment and completion rates, as the affordability of American colleges and universities has declined, according to a new report.

The study, from the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, found that although the United States still leads the world in the proportion of 35- to 64-year-olds with college degrees, it ranks seventh among developed nations for 25- to 34-year-olds. On rates of college completion, the United States is in the lower half of developed nations.

“Completion is the Achilles’ heel of American higher education,’’ said Patrick M. Callan, president of the center, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization based in San Jose, Calif., and Washington.

One particular area of concern, Mr. Callan said, is that younger Americans — the most diverse generation in the nation’s history — are lagging educationally, compared with the baby boom generation.

“The strength of America is in the population that’s closest to retirement, while the strength of many countries against whom we compare ourselves is in their younger population,’’ he said. “Perhaps for the first time in our history, the next generation will be less educated.’’