Researchers to investigate effect of incentive programs on student achievement.
The New York Times (9/25, B6, Hernandez) reports that Roland G. Fryer Jr., a Harvard economist, “has quit his part-time post as chief equality officer of the New York City public schools to lead a $44 million effort, called the Educational Innovation Laboratory, to bring the rigor of research and development to education.” The purpose of the research is “to infuse education with the data-driven approach that is common in science and business, Dr. Fryer said.” During the first year, the research team, made up of economists, marketers, and educators will “focus on incentive programs, including controversial ideas like giving students cash for good test scores. … Each of the three school districts working with the institute will use a different plan to encourage high achievement, with researchers tracking the effect of each on student performance.” Based on those studies, Fryer said, researchers “would be able to identify what works so that educators across the country could prioritize their spending.”
In the Classroom
Maine community college to offer wind power technology program.
Maine’s Bangor Daily News (9/25, Lynds) reports that “Northern Maine Community College (NMCC) is poised to launch a first-of-its-kind program in New England geared toward training wind power technicians.” On Wednesday, the Maine Community College System (MCCS) “board of trustees formally approved a proposal brought forward by NMCC to introduce a wind power technology program on campus” that “will train wind power technicians to operate, maintain, and repair wind turbine generators.” NMCC officials explained that they decided to “to create the program in light of the growing interest in wind power and NMCC’s proximity to the state’s first commercial wind farm, located…just 14 miles from the campus.” Tim Crowley, president of NMCC, “noted that the college is ideally suited to provide wind power technology instruction” because “NMCC has existing programs in electrical construction and maintenance and computer electronics, two fields that serve as foundations for the multidisciplinary wind power industry.”

Schools increasingly extending learning time.
Education Week (9/22, Gerwertz) reported, “Under enormous pressure to prepare students for a successful future –and fearful that standard school hours don’t offer enough time to do so — educators, policymakers, and community activists are adding more learning time to children’s lives.” Education Week noted that 25 years ago, a report, A Nation At Risk, “urged schools to add more time” to days and years in order “to ward off a ‘rising tide of mediocrity’ in American education.” Since then, “the idea of finding more time for learning has generated a hotbed of activity nationwide.” According to a July study by the Center for American Progress, a Washington think tank, “more than 300 initiatives to extend learning time were launched between 1991 and 2007 in high-poverty and high-minority schools in 30 states.” Education Week lists several “high-profile efforts to extend learning time” in U.S. schools. New York City, for instance, “added 37.5 minutes a day to the first four days of the week so teachers can tutor underperforming students in small groups.”

In the Classroom
Some eighth grade students are not prepared for advanced math, study finds.
In continuing coverage from previous editions of The Opening Bell, the Los Angeles Times (9/22, Blume) reported, “The new [California] policy of requiring algebra in the eighth grade will set up unprepared students for failure while holding back others with solid math skills, a new report has concluded.” The study found that, “over five years, the percentage of eighth-graders in advanced math — algebra or higher — went up by more than one-third.” In 2005, “about 37 percent of all U.S. students took advanced math.” But, about eight percent of students who took advanced math scored “in the lowest 10 percent on the eighth-grade National Assessment of Educational Progress.” According to the Times, “at least two students in every eighth-grade algebra class [have] second-grade math skills.” Further, “that number rises in urban school systems where these students are more likely to attend overcrowded schools with teachers who are less experienced and less likely to have math degrees or college-level advanced math.”

Panel calls for overhaul of college financial-aid system.
In The Homeroom blog of the Los Angeles Times (9/18) Gale Holland wrote that the Rethinking Student Aid study group has called for the demise of the “horribly complicated” Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) form. Holland noted that the FAFSA form is “submitted by almost every student applying to college, regardless of income.” The form, however, “is so dauntingly detailed that some families are discouraged from applying before they even start,” the panel noted.
USA Today (9/19, Marklein) noted that “the group also recommends expanding and strengthening a federal student loan repayment plan that is based on the student’s income after graduation, and rewarding colleges and states that help students succeed once they enroll.” The group’s recommendations also include basing “eligibility for federal Pell Grants only on family size and adjusted gross income;” combining “all education tax credits and deductions into a single tax credit;” and replacing “the 10-year-mortgage-style loan repayment plan with a graduated plan, so that payments would rise over time along with the incomes of most borrowers.” Education Week (9/18, Cech) also reported the story.