The states with the highest concentration of rural students
According to Rural Policy Matters for November, 2009 the five states with the highest percentage of students enrolled in rural school districts are:
Maine 54%
Vermont 53%
South Dakota 51.3%
North Carolina 47.8%
Mississippi 47.1%
Alabama is a close 6th with 41.4%
I would not have picked all of them. It is interesting that North Carolina, Mississippi and Alabama are among the states with the highest number of students who do not complete high school. Is there a correlation?
What would happen if we reduced dropouts in America’s 50 largest cities?
In a report issued by the Alliance for Excellent Education, which calculates what the dropout problem costs the country and each of the 50 largest metropolitan areas. Check their website to see your city’s statistic.
If half the students who dropped out of the class of 2008 had graduated, they would have generated $4.1 billion more in wages and $536 million in state and local taxes nationally in one average year of their working lives, according to the new analysis.
The numbers vary depending on each region’s peculiarities. Bob Wise, the president of the alliance, noted that 84 percent of high school graduates in Honolulu go on to some kind of postsecondary education, compared with 47 percent in Memphis. For the area that includes Los Angeles and Long Beach, Calif., for instance, the study finds that if half of the 70,929 students who dropped out of the class of 2008 had earned diplomas, they would have contributed $575 million more in wages and $79 million in property, sales, and income taxes during an average year, which the alliance defines as when a graduate is about 39 years old.
“Nearly 600,000 students dropped out of the class of 2008, at a great cost to themselves,” he said, “but as this study demonstrates, also to their communities.”
In a time when the nation is straining to pay for two wars, the health care crisis, a recession, one would think that the business community as well as the politicians would see that increasing our nation’s graduation rate would have a dramatic effect on our nation and our economy.
It’s our anniversary
Two years ago today, December 15, 2007, this website went live. I had no idea if people would visit it or not. In the past 2 years, 187,871 people have visited the site. Between 750-1000 people a week view something on it. One hundred, unique, first time hits, are registered every week.
The most viewed page visited (0ver 8,000 times) was “25 Things Which Will be Extinct in 25 years”. If you did not see it you can check the website archives.
Two thirds of the views have come from the United States. Canada is the next highest. Rounding out the top 20 are Morocco, the Philippines, Spin, India, United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, Republic of Korea, Brazil, Maylasia, Singapore, the Netherlands, Ireland, France, South Africa, Indonesia, and Mexico. There is a global crisis of children not completing school.
To my loyal supporters, please keep me informed of what you wish me to gather information about. This website will be as valuable as you and I can make it by working together.
Thank you for your inspiration and for making a difference.
What are the hardest jobs to fill?
Manpower Magazine has released a list of the 10 hardest jobs to fill. For the past four years the jobs are the same. In preparing students for the world of work, educators from all levels should be aware of the gaps which exist between jobs and applicants. The U.S. findings are part of a Manpower global study that surveyed more than 39,000 employers across 33 countries and territories in January 2009. Positions in the skilled trades, sales, technical work and engineering remain the most difficult for employers to fill globally.
The 10 Hardest Jobs to Fill, as reported by U.S. employers for 2009, are:
1. Engineers
2. Nurses
3. Skilled/Manual Trades
4. Teachers
5. Sales Representatives
6. Technicians
7. Drivers
8. IT Staff
9. Laborers
10. Machinist/Machine Operators
Educators, business people and government officials need to take action so that people are enticed to take these jobs.
GRANT ALERT
Press Release: Applications Now Available for $3.5 Billion in Title I School Improvement Grants to Turn Around Nation’s Lowest Achieving Public Schools
Today, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced the final requirements for $3.5 billion in Title I School Improvement grants to turn around the nation’s lowest performing schools. The applications are now available and are due into the Department of Education by Feb. 8, 2010.
These funds are made available to states by formula and competed for by school districts. As they compete for the funds, school districts (LEAs) must identify the schools they want to transform, and then determine which of the four following models is most appropriate. If a school has begun implementation of one of these four models or components of one of these models within the last two years, it may apply to use SIG funds to continue to implement the full model.
Turnaround model: Replace the principal and rehire no more than 50 percent of the staff and grant the principal sufficient operational flexibility (including in staffing, calendars/time, and budgeting) to implement fully a comprehensive approach to substantially improve student outcomes.
Restart model: Convert a school or close and reopen it under a charter school operator, a charter management organization, or an education management organization that has been selected through a rigorous review process.
School closure: Close a school and enroll the students who attended that school in other schools in the LEA that are higher achieving.
Transformation model: Implement each of the following strategies: (1) replace the principal and take steps to increase teacher and school leader effectiveness; (2) institute comprehensive instructional reforms; (3) increase learning time and create community-oriented schools; and (4) provide operational flexibility and sustained support.
The full list of requirements and final application can be found at:
http://www.ed.gov/programs/sif/applicant.html
We’ve got troubles
Education Week reports. Hard Times Hit Schools by Michele McNeil, that “states are already racking $40 billion shortfalls so far this year (or the equivalent of the K-12 education budget of Texas. The number keeps rising as (schools) start the 2008-2009 school year.” In other words, when the stimulus checks stop, states and schools will need to find some way to continue to fund the programs and salaries that the Federal Government funded.
When the economy takes a hit, whether caused by high gas prices or the sub-prime mortgage crisis or the falling stock market or the phases of the moon, schools sustain the largest hit. For example, in Hawaii, in order to make up for the shortfall in the state budget schools are being closed every other Friday and teacher furloughed. Little or no thought was given to the impact on learning or the impact on families. Parents now have to scramble to provide day care services or miss work. The Law of Unintended Consequences comes into play now that the rest of the state’s economy is hit by parent workers not showing up for work.
Politicians like to speak about the critical role that schools play in building America’s role in the global economy yet education budgets are frequently sacrificed in pursuit of ‘instant fixes” in the war on declining state revenues.
The media frequently point to the growing success of the Chinese and Indian economies which have succeeded by a focused effort to improve their educational systems and increased spending of additional funds.
We cannot raise educational achievement by cutting funding. Politicians and the media need to be reminded that while money will not solve all of education’s problems, the lack of funding will solve none of the problem.
I’m sorry– but colleges are businesses
Colleges continue to accept sub-standard students who require remediation and then complain that the K-12 system hasn’t adequately prepared them. The college dropout rate is higher than the K-12 dropout rate and this is with students who have succeeded in the K-12 system.
Universities continue to build new buildings and add additional seats and then accept even more ill-prepared students. They raise their tuition and fees faster than inflation thinking that parents and federal loans will cover the additional costs.
If they didn’t accept these poorly prepared students, than the students and their parents would recognized that students had to be better prepared for the post-K-12 environment or the K-12 schools would have to raise their teaching-learning requirements when giving grades.
But colleges and universities continue to build more buildings, creating more empty seats which they need to fill. At the same time, they seek to fill these seats lowering their requirements to equal the number of available seats.
Wouldn’t it make more sense, if they were interested in producing quality students to validate the products of the k-12 system by refusing to accept below average students.
