October 2009
In this issue:
Overcoming the barriers
The buzz
From our guest bloggers
Keep up with the headlines
New research highlights
Share your resources
Overcoming the barriers
Two new Twin Cities Public Television (TPT) education-focused programs are airing this fall. "Challenging Expectations," a new TPT program, explores barriers to education from the perspective of students, educators and the state’s leading thinkers. View clips from the program, or join the conversation on the LearnmoreMN blog. Another program, College IS Possible, a joint TPT-Admission Possible production, shows how coaching and committed support are helping low-income high school students.
The buzz
People are talking about the education and workforce challenges facing Minnesota and the nation:
- In “A goal worth studying,” Growth & Justice’s Dane Smith suggests that gubernatorial candidates set a goal of increasing in the percentage of our young adults who have some sort of higher-education credential.
- From a recent speech by education secretary Arne Duncan: “…we need to bring 5 million more Americans into higher education and ensure that future generations will have the same opportunity for a college education and success in the work force."
Browse these and other examples of what others say.
From our guest bloggers
Each month, the LearnmoreMN blog features a different community member sharing their perspective about school success and the educational challenges we face in Minnesota. Our October blogger, Frank Hernandez from Hamline University’s Center for Excellence in Urban Teaching, writes that community organizations can be key for kids. So why, he wonders, aren't more P-12 schools working closely with them? Read his post, The Missing Partner.
In September, Kent Pekel from the College Readiness Consortium at the U of M posted Motivating kids is key to their success in response to the “Challenging Expectations” program. Keep this conversation going and post a comment.
Keep up with the headlines
A selection of the top education stories from national and local media outlets are added to LearnmoreMN each weekday. Subscribe to the RSS feed for the top three stories of the day along with other new LearnmoreMN content. Or, view all stories for the week on the news headlines. (The previous week’s stories are on the headlines archive page.)
New research highlights
Here are a few examples of recent studies and presentations featured on LearnmoreMN:
- But…what about tomorrow? is a presentation by state economist Tom Stinson and state demographer Tom Gillaspy at the Sept. 8 Minnesota Leadership Summit. They project that as boomers retire, the remaining workforce will be slower-growing and less-well-educated.
- Promoting Economic Mobility by Increasing Postsecondary Education finds that low-income children benefit enormously when they attain a college education, but they are less likely to enroll and complete a degree than their higher-income peers. Reasons include the cost of college, lack of information about colleges and student aid and insufficient social and scholarly support.
- Education at a Glance 2009, an annual report from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, shows that the U.S. is losing ground among the group's 30 member countries. In 1995, the U.S. ranked second in college completion, now its 14th.
Share your resources
Check out the latest tool in the What you can do section: “Helping Students Navigate the Path to College: What High Schools Can Do.” This guide from the U.S. Department of Education helps schools and districts develop practices to increase access to higher education by low-income and first-generation students.
Have you used a tool or strategy in your school or community that’s helping more kids succeed in school? If so, send us a note to tell us about it. We’ll share the best ideas and tips on LearnmoreMN.
