Postsecondary Preparation and Remediation: Examining the Effect of the Early Assessment Program at California State University
Jessica S. Howell, Michal Kurlaender, and Eric GrodskyCalifornia State University, SacramentoApril 2009
Jessica S. Howell, Michal Kurlaender, and Eric GrodskyCalifornia State University, SacramentoApril 2009
Anna NicoteraNational Alliance for Public Charter SchoolsApril 2009
Say you're a parent in a school district whose population is largely Haitian, African-American, and Hispanic. And say this district's board is dominated by Orthodox Jews who don't send their children to public schools and aren't happy about paying both high taxes and huge private school tuition bills. And say the board just voted to close an under-enrolled district school to curb costs.
The Advanced Placement (AP) Program is enjoying a growth spurt in the United States. Over the past five years, the number of high-school students taking at least one AP exam increased more than 50 percent. There's probably no education program in America that's been expanding faster.
What's the best way to improve a negative perception? Change the reality feeding it. That's the constructive tack being taken by the new leaders of the Arizona Charter Schools Association (ACSA) as they crack down on their state's surfeit of low-performing charters.
Within the education establishment, it's taken as an article of faith that schools should face budget cuts only after all other options have been exhausted. How about public safety? That's the debate playing out in Prince George's County, Maryland, a big Washington suburb now facing a massive budget shortfall.
Over the past five years, the number of students taking at least one Advanced Placement exam rose by more than half. This news is celebrated but is there a downside? To find out, Fordham commissioned the Farkas Duffett Research Group to survey AP teachers in the US. The AP program remains popular with its teachers. But there are signs that the move toward "open door" access to AP is starting to cause concern.
Fordham's latest report is out this morning; it focuses on the dramatic expansion of the Advancement Placement program in recent years. In 2002-2003, 1 million students participated in AP by taking at least one exam. Five years later, nearly 1.6 million did???a 50+ percent increase.
Certain segments of the edu-sphere like to call those of us at Fordham silly (though, I'll admit, colorful) names, like "
President Barack Obama's "first 100 days" come to an end today, as you may have noticed from the barrage of fawning press coverage (
NAEP long-term trend scores were released yesterday, and the results are quite positive.
Maybe the Obama administration has brought bipartisanship to Washington...just not the kind they had in mind. In this letter, a bipartisan group of US Senators chastises Secretary Duncan for denying DC scholarships to new students and urges ED to reconsider.
Read more about our new Advanced Placement Program report in this piece in the New York Times.
An interview with Steve Farkas, President of the Farkas Duffett Research Group . Fordham commissioned the FDR Group to research and write its latest report "Growing Pains in the Advanced Placement Program: Do Tough Trade-Offs Lie Ahead?"
Yesterday in the Ohio Senate Education Committee, school funding expert and Buckeye (OSU class of '66 and '72) Paul Hill offered testimony about how Ohio can go about reforming its system of school funding while at the same time raising student perf