Six states—Connecticut, Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, Texas and Virginia—are looking at how to overhaul developmental education in reading, writing and math at the community college level. Along with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Lumina Foundation, these colleges are realizing that remediation needs to begin and end in high school so that college can emphasize college level learning. Currently, many public high schools students around the U.S. don’t read much while they are in high school. The toll this takes on their reading, writing and thinking skills is huge. While some gains are being made nationally in math, there are still 2.5 million students remediated for math at the college level.

LifeBound’s programs are designed to promote academic, emotional and social intelligence through reading, writing and thinking skills. Many of our books promote reasoning and math learning. If colleges hold the k-12 districts accountable for these outcomes, we will change this community college influx of underprepared students.

ARTICLE
USA Today

Six states that are trying to revamp remedial education are focusing as much on what happens outside of the classroom — in state policies — as inside. Among the targets for change include state funding formulas and individual course rules.

The Developmental Education Initiative, a three-year project funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Lumina Foundation for Education, recently unveiled the state policy framework and strategies that its six participating state partners plan to implement so that they can dramatically increase the number of students who complete college preparatory work and move on to complete college-level work. The six states –Connecticut, Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas and Virginia– were selected for this project because of their prior commitment to community college reform; institutions from these states were first-round participants in Achieving the Dream, a multi-year and -state initiative to improve the success of two-year college students. http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2010-04-14-remedial-college_N.htm

Two weeks ago, I wrote about a trend in the U.S. shows that our math skills among students are outpacing their reading skills. Now, news from an eight-county area in and surrounding Philadelphia shows that more than 40% of the school districts give more than three hours of science to fourth graders compared with 60 to 80 minutes of science in the national average. One school which symbolized patterns in this research is from an all-girl’s private school. Over half of the graduates from this school plan to pursue science or engineering. The same patterns hold true for urban and disadvantaged schools in the same areas.

Early emphasis on science will likely improve critical and creative thinking skills, the ability to analyze, observe and draw inferences. If students master these skills in the fourth and fifth grades, they will have a “thinking” foundation which can allow them continued success as they progress through their middle and high school years whether the pursue science or other fields. For American students to go toe-to-toe with their counterparts in Asia and Europe we need more early success in science, math and reading to create learners with the 21century skills to succeed.

Our two books, CRITICAL AND CREATIVE THINKING and LEADERSHIP FOR TEENAGERS promote cross-disciplinary examples throughout which can help students to connect what they learn in science and their other classes to majors, careers, and fields of study.

ARTICLE
EDUCATION NEWS
4/11/2010

It has taken prodding by industry, business, and government leaders – alarms going off, even – but science education is getting an upgrade in many classrooms across the region.
First graders are watching insect eggs hatch, feeding the larvae and learning words like metamorphosis.
High school students are signing up for course work in marine biology, pharmacology, engineering, and how the brain works. And officials in many schools are adding class time and squeezing dollars out of tight budgets to improve science instruction and laboratories.

The question, not yet answered, is whether the newfound respect for science will boost student achievement to match math and science powerhouses in Asia and Europe.
Many corporate, industry, and government observers view American students – the next generation of workers – as lacking in the math, science, and technical skills that are key to U.S. economic prowess.

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