High School » Carol J. Carter

The Complicated Task of Simplifying Student Aid

The FAFSA form, which is how students and families apply for financial aid, is a long cumbersome form which baffles and stymies many families. Nationally, 8 million people fail to file the FAFSA form. As the article below indicates, many people feel that this form is longer and more complex than the 1040.

So, what can be done to make this form more simple and straight-forward for people to complete? Many ideas are being considered including linking this to tax information. Along with privacy issues, opponents argue that by the time that tax information would be considered, it is two year old. It seems like whatever is done to streamline this process, more disadvantaged populations will gain access to Higher Education. Currently, only 7% attend college from the lowest socioeconomic realms representing the most “at-risk” populations, while 60% of students attend college from the middle to upper class population. While the latter may not be at-risk economically, they are often at-risk emotionally and socially as they begin college. No matter what, a shorter FAFSA would provide more access for all and less family stress in considering how to get in to and pay for college.

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ARTICLE:

The U.S. Education Department examines 2 ways to make it easier for families to apply
By KELLY FIELD

The first time Kathy Peterson saw the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, the six-page form that the government uses to assess student need, she felt overwhelmed.

“I just kept going from one screen to the next, wondering, ‘When is this going to end?'” said Ms. Peterson, an office manager for a telecommunications trade association, whose son will attend Old Dominion University in the fall.

She says she spent at least 20 hours completing the electronic form, 20 times as long as the government estimates it should take.

Ms. Peterson was one of the persistent ones. Each year more than 40 percent of college students, nearly eight million, fail to file a Fafsa, even though most of them would be eligible for aid, according to the U.S. Education Department. The agency doesn’t know how many students start the process and give up, or how many never even begin because they’re intimidated by the form’s length and bureaucratic language.

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Get Smart

CAROL’S SUMMARY: Is IQ hereditary or environmental? Is there any correlation between intelligence and creativity or genius? As the article below suggests, if IQ differences are indeed largely environmental, what might eliminate group disparities? IQ tests which traditionally measure â€œfluidâ€ intelligence(the ability to abstractly reason) and â€œcrystallizedâ€ intelligence (knowledge) donâ€™t always correlate to skills, abilities and outcomes. What role do habits of success like conscientiousness and perseverance play in raising intelligence and the ability to actually accomplish thingsâ€”in the words of Howard Gardner, â€œ to make things happenâ€? What programs can schools put in place to level the playing field and help all kids learn more and do more, regardless of their economic background?

As Title 1 programs strive to be more effective at helping at-risk populations, these questions are crucial to figure out the best programs to propel kids forward with the global skills needed to be successful in our interdependent world. Measurements which can provide hard data will be essential in evaluating progress and determining next steps.

ARTICLE:

By JIM HOLT
Published: March 27, 2009

Success in life depends on intelligence, which is measured by I.Q. tests. Intelligence is mostly a matter of heredity, as we know from studies of identical twins reared apart. Since I.Q. differences between individuals are mainly genetic, the same must be true for I.Q. differences between groups. So the I.Q. ranking of racial/ethnic groups â€” Ashkenazi Jews on top, followed by East Asians, whites in general, and then blacks â€” is fixed by nature, not culture. Social programs that seek to raise I.Q. are bound to be futile. Cognitive inequalities, being written in the genes, are here to stay, and so are the social inequalities that arise from them.

To view this entire article visit www.nytimes.com

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The Global Campus Meets a World of Competition

CAROL’S SUMMARY: Private career colleges like University of Phoenix have pioneered in the on-line learning environment because they are completely-student centered. In their language, they might say “customer-centered.” Traditional colleges who are still under pressure for high academic and research standards often
struggle to make students a top-priority with so many competing priorities to juggle.

In the on-line world, traditional colleges have lagged behind the private career colleges and it is costing traditional universities a bundle. In the article below, the cost issues, especially, are laid out during these very
difficult economic times. The on-line option in addition to student success, retention, research and fund-raising, has become onerous but necessary as our world marches towards a whole new learning and teaching model in the on-line learning world.

ARTICLE:

Online-education venture at the U. of Illinois tries to distinguish itself from other distance-learning programs

By DAN TURNER

The University of Illinois Global Campus, a multimillion-dollar distance-learning project, is up and running. For its March-April 2009 term, it has enrolled 366 students.

Getting to this point, though, has looked a little like the dot-com start-up bubble of the late 1990s. Hundreds of Internet-related companies were launched with overly ambitious goals, only to later face cutbacks and other struggles to stay alive. Most crashed anyway. Some observers now say the Global Campus must try to avoid the same fate of churning through a large initial investment while attracting too few customers.

The project, planned about four years ago, was designed to complement existing online programs offered by individual Illinois-system campuses at Urbana-Champaign, Springfield, and Chicago. Those programs primarily serve current students as an addition to their on-campus course work. The Global Campus, in contrast, seeks to reach the adult learner off campus, who is often seeking a more focused, career-related certification or degree, such as completing a B.S. in nursing.

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Does Experience Trump Higher Education?

CAROL’S SUMMARY: Does experience trump education? It certainly can. That is why it is more important for students to plan interesting and different ways to spend their summer or winter breaks in high school than overly obsessing about their SAT score. In life, as Dr. Robert Sternberg says, you need Successful Intelligenceâ€”the ability to be analytically, creatively, and practically intelligent. Schools foster analytical skills, which are important, but the other skills you need for life success like taking calculated risks, learning new skills, stretching beyond your comfort zone and learning to work with people who arenâ€™t like you, can propel you to job success and security.

Questions to consider:
1. What are all the things you could imagine for yourself if things could go as well as possible?
2. What are the successes as well as failures that have been your greatest life teachers?
3. How can you think about your future as a balance of education and experience?

ARTICLE:

By Matthew Vuturo
Wall Street Journal
March 27, 2009

I wouldnâ€™t trade my education for anything. All of my educational experiences have shaped the person I am today, high school on through my business degree. Educating their children was my parentsâ€™ top priority, for which I will be eternally grateful.

But, these days, as I look around, I canâ€™t help but feel like education is the biggest scam going. With so many accredited institutions minting fresh undergraduate and graduate degrees, the perceived value of formal education has become greatly diminished. An undergraduate degree used to represent a real achievement in life, whereas now it seems to be mere proof one has a pulse.

Like many others who went through a traditional M.B.A. program, I dedicated serious time and money to completing my degree. With a full time job and classes most nights of the week, the two years I spent dedicated to the cause was a grind to say the least. I remember a year ago now how much I believed my advanced degree would help me get my foot in the door, and in front of the right audience. I knew it didnâ€™t guarantee me anything, but I did think it would help me stand out and get my shot.

Visit http://blogs.wsj.com for the entire article

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Proximity to Fast Food a Factor in Student Obesity

CAROL’S SUMMARY

The study below shows that fast-food restaurants nearÂ schools is linked to obesity among students. But the issue doesnâ€™t stop there. Many school cafeterias serve high sugar, high carb menus with a plethora of soft drinks available from vending machines for purchase throughout the day. Data suggests that students who have diets high in sugar and carbs with very little protein have a hard time focusing, staying awake and keeping their attention on the subject matter at hand.

The Steamboat Springs school district in Colorado just banned these types of foods and beverages from their schools. No doubt with the obesity link and the even greater risk of students with attention problems, more districts around the country will follow suit. Parents would do well to think of ways that students can reduce sugar dependence and experiment with meals that feature protein and vegetables, which can form lifelong patterns of health. The alternative is a large crop of emerging students who become adults that tap out our healthcare system because they didnâ€™t form healthy eating habits in their youth.

ARTICLE
New York Times
By RONI CARYN RABIN
Ninth graders whose schools are within a block of a fast-food outlet are more likely to be obese than students whose schools are a quarter of a mile or more away, according to a study of millions of schoolchildren by economists at the University of California and Columbia University.

To view the entire article visit
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/26/health/nutrition/26obese.html?emc=eta1

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Our Students Need More Practice in Actual Thinking

CAROL’S SUMMARY: To be ready for the challenges of the global world, students need to have highly developed critical and creative thinking skills, problem-solving and decision-making to name a few. The trouble is, the standardized testing pattern rarely promotes critical and creative thinking.

How can you as a parent promote critical and creative thinking skills at
home?
* Ask questions of your child. Question-asking is one of the most prized
skills and helps you as a parent to be a coach for your child as they grow
older and need more complex thinking skills at their disposal.
* Do creative and different things together as a family. Spend time asking your
kids what they would do in the world if they could do anything–get them to
think big. Whatever they share, ask them to come up with small steps that could move them closer to their big dream. As much as possible, spend time at home imagining, creating and sharing your vision.
* Ask what else. If your child suffers a disappointment or a setback, ask what other good can come from that door closing. What will this setback
do to provide a stepping stone to a new experience?

The more you demonstrate thoughtful, probing and interesting behaviors with
your child, the more they will see critical and creative thinking first-hand
from you.

ARTICLE:

By ROB JENKINS

During a recent meeting of a committee charged with reviewing my state’s higher-education core curriculum, a committee member asked, “Do students really need two math courses?”

In a word, yes.

Admittedly, as an undergraduate English major, I may have asked the same question myself a time or two. And certainly it’s true that, in the nearly three decades since I sweated through pre-calculus, I’ve never once had to factor an equation â€” nor, frankly, do I remember how. (Just ask my teenagers, who’ve occasionally been misguided enough to ask me for help with their algebra homework.)

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Guiding Hands Find New Ways

CAROL’S SUMMARY:
Counselors these days are re-inventing themselves, stepping up to the challenges they face as are their counterparts in the world of business. One of the ways counselors are multiplying their efforts and expanding their leadership is through taking full responsibility for the advisory classes, grades 5-12. These advisory classes are becoming the backbone of academic, emotional and social intelligence for students. Counselors can make themselves indispensable to their principal, the teaching team and the district as a whole by taking the lead on the advisory courses, measuring data and providing the passion and the purpose behind full school compliance. Counselors are setting the standard by helping their management team to analyze these success factors:

1) Attendance

2) Critical and creative thinking skills

3) Grades

4) School involvement

5) Use of resources, including tutors and others who can help in learning

6) Planning and strategy for the future.

The more that counselors become strong leaders and coaches, the more they will lead their schools and districts to new, measurable outcomes of achievement. Thatâ€™s job security.

ARTICLE

Washington PostÂ

By Michael Birnbaum

Washington Post Staff Writer

They don’t just wait for students to come to their offices in search of college brochures, health pamphlets or other help. These days, counselors are scouring schools for at-risk kids to prevent personal or academic troubles before they arise. In tough economic times, students and families need the guidance more than ever.Â Â

To view entire article visit http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/22/AR2009032201899.html?referrer=emailarticle

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Researchers Propose 6 Ways to Keep Community-College Students Beyond the First Few Weeks

CAROL’S SUMMARY:
Community colleges lose almost half of their freshmen before their first year is over. Administrators are carefully observing, for the first time ever, what maze of experience a typical incoming students goes through in their first three weeks on campus. Many students don’t have the coping skills to negotiate finding the right people, getting the right signatures or even finding the right classroom on time. So, what can community colleges do to streamline the process, make the steps more simple and provide more direction in that first month of school?

Additionally, how can we better equip most community college students with the wherewithal to persevere beyond the things which daunt them, intimidate
or stymie them? Certainly, many things in life are frustrating and perplexing and hard to figure out. Those who use their minds and abilities to work through road blocks, can make their way safely to the other side, ready for even more complex challenges next time. So, how do students need to be challenged more in high school to develop college and life coping skills?

ARTICLE

By STEVEN BUSHONG
March 18, 2009
Chronicle of Higher Ed

Thanks to online video sharing, academics’ lecture missteps, intentional and otherwise, are sometimes preserved for posterity.

Some students at community colleges never make it into the enrollment statistics. They drop out before the first count is taken, usually a few weeks into the semester.

A report to be released today by the Center for Community College Student Engagement seeks to help officials understand the student experience in those critical first three weeks, and how they might engage those at-risk students and prevent them from becoming dropouts.

The report, “Imagine Success: Engaging Entering Students,” is based on data from the Survey of Entering Student Engagement, or Sense, conducted this fall. Its findings come at a time when community colleges are being called on to help achieve a national goal set by President Obama: to have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world by 2020.

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Is It Time to Retrain B-Schools?

CAROL’S SUMMARY: With the current financial downfall, some blame the way business schools are taught. Schools like the University of Phoenix have become a popular alternative in the last decade because their classes are taught by business professionals, not professors studying business.Â Certainly, if traditional business schools emphasized more leadership, initiative and project-based learning more students would be â€œdoingâ€ business than studying about how to do business. Some of the case-based and project-based learning should involve consequences of poor actions as the ones we are living out right now in this depressed economy.Â If students could have a sense of the fallout of their actions, they would likely behave differently.

Questions to consider:
1. Do you agree?
2. What fundamental aspects are business schools neglecting?
3. How can business schools team up with more people from the world of business?
4. What experiences do business studentsâ€”or any student who wants to enter businessâ€”need to be a responsible, measured leader?

ARTICLE:

By KELLEY HOLLAND
Published: March 14, 2009

JOHN Thain has one. So do Richard Fuld, Stanley Oâ€™Neal and Vikram Pandit. For that matter, so does John Paulson, the hedge fund kingpin.

Yes, all five have fat bank accounts, even now, and all have made their share of headlines. But these current and former giants of finance also are all card-carrying M.B.A.â€™s.

The masterâ€™s of business administration, a gateway credential throughout corporate America, is especially coveted on Wall Street; in recent years, top business schools have routinely sent more than 40 percent of their graduates into the world of finance.

Visit www.nytimes.com to view the entire article

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Helping Students Find a Sense of Purpose

Motivated by the increased coverage of student misbehavior, the school-reform movement is working to bring back moral education to the intellectual learning students do today. Bringing moral, or character education, back will help students see the purpose to their studies. Even lack of purpose has a deep impact on the character education of youths, showing just how important these are.

Questions to consider:

1. Do you know the importance of what is taught in each of your classes?
2. Does this or would this help you become more invested in your education?
3. What are the pros of character educationâ€”academic, emotional and social intelligence? What are the best ways to promote these issues in and out of class?
4. What are the potential costs short term and long term to avoiding the character education piece of learning?

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ARTICLE:

A Q&A With William Damon

By SUSANNAH TULLY
March 13, 2009

William Damon, a professor of education at Stanford University, has long advocated “character education” as a key component of school reform. The author of several books on the subject, his latest is The Path to Purpose: Helping Our Children Find Their Calling in Life (Free Press, 2008). The Chronicle Review asked him to discuss the role of schools in moral development and how they can encourage students to define their goals and aspirations.

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