Biden and Duncan Talk College Affordability at Ohio High School

By Mary Ellen Flannery In Ohio, where Vice President Joe Biden visited a high school on Thursday to promote the issue of college affordability, more than two-thirds of college students borrow money to pay for their education. Last year, thanks to rapidly rising tuition costs, each owed an average $27,000-plus upon graduation—a record-setting, dream-shattering level [...]

Duncan Stresses Student Aid, College Graduation in Twitter Town Hall

By Kevin Hart Getting America’s students to college isn’t enough – we need to make sure they complete programs and leave with degrees. That was the message delivered by U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan in a Twitter town hall hosted by veteran journalist John Merrow on November 14. The event (see video here) marked [...]

Community Colleges Need School Modernization Funds

By Mary Ellen Flannery It’s hard to prepare students for 21st century careers when they’re sitting in 20th century classrooms, laboratories, and job-training facilities at aging community colleges across the country. That’s why educators like Derrick Griffey, a math instructor at Gadsden State Community College in Alabama, so strongly support President Obama’s Fix America’s Schools [...]

Census: Education Level Main Factor in Determining Income

By Robert McNeely A new Census Bureau study shows how education levels had more of an effect on earnings over a 40-year period than any other factor, including gender and race. The study, Education And Synthetic Work-Life Earnings, highlighted data that was compiled from 2006 to 2008 and found the difference between students who earned [...]

Is the U.S. Falling Behind in Higher Education?

By Mary Ellen Flannery The United States, once the global leader in the production of a most singular resource—its talent pool of college graduates—is losing ground to emerging nations like South Korea and China. The recent, “Education at a Glance,” an annual report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), found that about [...]

NEA’s Eskelsen to Serve on White House Commission on Hispanic Education

By Mary Ellen Flannery In August, President Barack Obama appointed Lily Eskelsen, vice president of the National Education Association, to the White House Commission on Educational Excellence for Hispanics, a high-powered panel that will advise him on creating vital learning opportunities for the nation’s growing population of Hispanic students. “I’m not really into titles, but this [...]

Red Flag: Public Colleges Hiring Too Many Part-Time Faculty

By Mary Ellen Flannery A recent red-flag letter to Miami Dade College from its accreditors, which warned that administrators have relied too heavily on part-time faculty, isn’t so much an indictment of the college as it is of the state’s right-wing governor and state legislators. This year, even while handing away billions of dollars in [...]

Protect Pell Grants: Protect the Middle Class

By Mary Ellen Flannery Cutting the Pell Grant program – the ticket to the American Dream for 9.4 million college students this year alone – is exactly what you don’t want to do in an economic recession, said a panel of U.S. Senators, college presidents, and students on Tuesday. “This is America’s future,” said Sen. [...]

How to Make Better Math and Science Teachers

By Mary Ellen Flannery There was one kid who never showed up to algebra class at his Washington State middle school. Then one day, he sidled in and his classmates showed him how to use the classroom’s new hand-held technology. “He’s been coming to class every since,” his teacher said. It’s hard to resist a [...]

DREAM Act Supporters Make Their Case to the US Senate

By Mary Ellen Flannery “I am an American in my heart,” Michigan student Ola Kaso told Senators on Tuesday in the first-ever hearing on the DREAM Act, a bill that would provide a much-needed pathway to citizenship for some undocumented students who attend college or serve in the military. The hearing, available on webcast and [...]

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