(The trends in child well-being are well worth watching, as they reflect larger social and economic changes.
While studies are often just a starting point for journalists, it was surprising to find so little coverage of the new Duke University “>study of children’s well-being underwritten by the Foundation for Child Development.
The study, released at the New America Foundation in Washington D.C. last week, found that progress in American children’s quality of life has stalled after an eight-year upward trend — and that a worsening economy is likely to negatively affect U. S. children for years to come. Areas to watch range from infant mortality rates to publicly financed childcare and health and education programs.
One interesting finding — the eight year upward improvement trend may have been related to a post 9/11 sense of common purpose in the country. Another important — and somewhat frightening — trend to watch will be the many ways an economic downturn may worsen conditions for children.
The study is an excellent starting point, and hopefully will spur coverage and original reporting about these trends throughout the U.S. One mention came in a Houston Chronicle blog item. The study raises critical questions and introduces data that should be localized by journalists.
At the very least, much of the data can be incorporated into important stories on everything from birth rates and infant mortality to pre-school enrollment — which, by the way, improved according to the report.
Hechinger blogs
How will NYC students fare on the new exams?
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Completion strategies may be too costlyThe community college Completion Agenda aims to double the number of students who complete a one-year certificate or an associate degree or who transfer to complete a credential, writes Terry O’Banion in Community College Times. College leaders have focused on orientation, advising, placement, financial aid — everything but teaching and learning. Key leaders involved in the Completion [...]
New test assesses non-academic readinessCommunity colleges and other broad-access institutions are under pressure to graduate more students while cutting costs, write Community College Research Center researchers Davis Jenkins and Olga Rodríguez in Access and Success with Less: Improving Productivity in Broad-Access Postsecondary Institutions. But completion-boosting strategies may not be cost effective and the most commonly used cost-cutting strategies, such as hiring adjuncts [...]
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Community college leaders are trying to double the number of graduates by 2020 to meet President Obama’s targets. It’s not easy, writes Stacy Collett in Community College Journal. For administrators at Harper College in Illinois, 10,604 is the magic number—it’s the college’s share of the 5 million additional community college graduates President Obama challenged the [...]
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NORTHRIDGE, Calif.— It took less than a minute for Mario Martinez to finish the first six questions of the algebra exam that his professor, Ivan Cheng, had just handed to him. The high school-level test was supposed to be a good example of an exam, so that the graduate students in Cheng’s math methods course [...]
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