07 Sep
Posted by: Harrison Gresham in: Education Advices
But it is likely to be seen as an attempt by the Conservatives to placate Liberal Democrat MPs who argued in favour of a graduate tax and higher student loan interest rates as opposed to increased tuition fees.
The new arrangements would “look and feel like a graduate tax” without actually constituting one, advisers told the Financial Times.
Officials believe asking graduates to contribute one per cent of their income for life could see universities take in more than double the average £9,870 that they currently receive from a student on a three-year degree course.
Another proposition would see graduates who go on to earn large sums pay inflated costs for their loans.
The current system of higher education funding in England is currently under review by a panel led by Lord Browne, the former chairman of BP.
It is expected that the group’s findings, to be published within weeks, will form the basis of the government’s future policy on education funding.
06 Sep
Posted by: Daniel Selwyn in: University Point
The National Council of Alpha Lambda Delta (ALD) Honor Society for First Year College Students has awarded an Alpha Award at the gold level to University of the Sciences’ Chapter of ALD. The Alpha Award is the newest award presented by National Alpha Lambda Delta, which recognizes chapters that have initiated a high percentage of their invited students.
In 2009, USciences’ ALD welcomed 105 outstanding new students, all whom had GPAs over 3.69. The chapter initiated 93 percent of the students who were invited to join the society.
ALD is an honor society for students in their first year at an institution of higher education. The national organization’s mission is to “encourage superior academic achievement, to promote intelligent living and a continued high standard of learning, and to assist students in recognizing and developing meaningful goals for their unique roles in society.” At USciences, the extension of an invitation to join is based on first semester grades of first-year students. Students must Read more…
Whiteflame128, a participant in my Admissions 101 discussion group, described what happened when he graduated from a Fairfax County high school and showed up for college enrollment with an entire freshman year’s worth of credit from Advanced Placement courses and tests. “My advisor had absolutely no idea what to do with my schedule at orientation,” he said.
Many students have encountered this problem, some of them in just the last few weeks in this enrollment season. All those extra credits, from AP or International Baccalaureate, don’t fit easily into the standard college schedule. They force newcomers to compete with second-year students for limited space in second-year courses. They aggravate the need to take less favored courses just to maintain full-time status. They waste time and money. What do to about this is hard to figure out. Most of the colleges seem to throw up their hands.
See all 8 photos »
ST. LOUIS (AP) — Matt Holliday hit a go-ahead, three-run homer to back Chris Carpenter’s latest dominant effort against Cincinnati, helping the St. Louis Cardinals take two of three from the NL Central-leading Reds with a 4-2 victory Sunday.
The Cardinals reduced the Reds’ formidable lead to seven games with 28 games to go. The two teams are not scheduled to play again this season.
St. Louis had lost eight of nine overall going into the weekend. This was its first series win since Aug. 20-22 against San Francisco.
Homer Bailey (3-3) walked Albert Pujols intentionally in the sixth inning before giving up Holliday’s two-out shot on a 1-2 hanging breaking ball. Holliday fouled off two pitches before hitting his 25th homer, topping last season’s total and giving the Cardinals a 4-2 lead.
Holliday has conceded to pressing at times to justify his seven-year, $120 million contract, yet he leads the team with 43 two-out RBIs.
Carpenter (15-5) struck out a season-high 11 in 7 1-3 innings.
03 Sep
Posted by: Harrison Gresham in: Education Advices
The announcement comes amid fears that exams are becoming too easy and failing to keep pace with those in other countries.
This summer almost three-in-10 A-levels were graded at least an A and the number of Cs awarded at GCSE increased for the 22nd year in a row.
Speaking on Monday, Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, said action would be taken to “restore confidence” to the examinations system.
This includes an overhaul of Ofqual, the watchdog established by Labour to vet standards in school and college tests.
It comes just weeks after the regulator admitted that this year’s GCSE science papers were too easy.
Mr Gove said: “Last month the exams regulator Ofqual acknowledged that the GCSE science exams were not set at a high enough standard. I’ve been saying this for years.
“But the previous Government chose to ignore my warnings and they defended a status quo that was in their interest but was actively damaging the education of hundreds of thousands of children a year.”
He said the creation of a “more assertive” qualifications regulator, with the power to order exam boards to toughen up their tests, was “critical to restoring confidence in our exams system”.
“We will l
When the Los Angeles Times announced it was releasing its analysis of how much value each one of 6,000 L.A. elementary school teachers had added to their classes, based on test scores, I knew how to test the validity of their project. I have spent much time in room 56 at Hobart Boulevard Elementary School in L.A., where fifth-grade teacher Rafe Esquith has proved himself to be, in my view, the best classroom teacher in the country — and certainly in his city.
Would the Times data back up Esquith’s exceptional quality, obvious to the thousands of people who have visited his classroom and to the audiences who see his ethnic Hispanic and Korean 10-year-olds produce and perform a Shakespeare play each year?
The Times released its ratings of all those teachers over the weekend. Fortunately for the paper, their numbers put Esquith in the top category: highly effective. He didn’t make the newspaper’s top 100 teacher list, but I know from extensive personal experience that such rankings cannot measure precisely all the qualities that make a good educator, or that make a good school.