Since the inception of the failed “Bowl Alliance” in 1996 and the subsequent “Bowl Championship Series (BCS)” which has had its share of problems, many sportswriters, commentators, and college football fans have argued that each season should end with an NFL-style playoff to determine a national champion. This debate revolves around the question of the role athletics play as divisions of universities. Many argue that a playoff will benefit “mid major” and smaller schools who – because of weak schedules – never have the chance to play for the title, even when they are undefeated (BYU 2001, Utah 2004, Boise...

The Nation has published an article by Professor David Kirp, of the Goldman School of Public Policy, on the Supreme Court's recent decision on race and school choice. For more background on this topic, read what The Washington Post has to say about it....

Assuming that we’re sexually active, 80% of us will be infected with one or more strain of human papillomavirus (HPV) at some point in our lives. HPV does not have negative health impacts for men; but 10 of the 30 detectable genital HPV strains (there are dozens of undetectable strains) can, in rare cases, lead to cervical cancer in women. Regular visits to the gynecologist and pap smears are the best defense against HPV’s cancer risk, and Merck is now offering a vaccine. HIV/AIDS affects an estimated 1,000,000 Americans. It is a horrible disease which impacts all corners of society...

In a recent three part article, Charles Murray defends the idea that university and mandatory schooling are not for everyone, and that a gifted few should be selected on the basis of their IQ to attend school and university (read part 1, part 2, and part 3). Beyond the many caveats with which IQ should be treated -for good responses see here and here- as David Kirp points out in his article, this is as much about quality education as it is about the kind of society we want to live in.

Most communities actively seek out programs to engage their youth, keep them out of trouble, and entice them to stay in school. However, many communities run into two problems when designing these programs. One, communities face difficulty in finding funding for youth programs. Two, communities have difficulty engaging youth in the programs, so that the programs even have a chance of achieving some of the positive goals they’re intended to produce.

The JROTC program has reportedly had the effect of engaging youth, keeping them out of trouble, and enticing them to stay in school. On top of that, the program is partially funded by the federal government. In other words, high school age teenagers voluntarily sign up for for a program that requires them to wear a military uniform at least once a week, work in teams, respect authority, and march in formations. On top of that, most participants show enthusiasm for the program. What could possibly be the downside of it?

Well, according to the San Francisco Board of Education, JROTC’s connection to the military makes the program incompatible with the public education system. Tuesday night, the San Francisco Board of Education voted to remove the JROTC program from San Francisco’s public high schools.

I can’t help but see some disturbing parallels between San Francisco giving JROTC the boot and the attempts to remove evolution from science textbooks in some other parts of the country. In both instances, we have a group of people deciding to remove a program from the schools based on their own moral beliefs, rather than on the actual merits or demerits of the programs.

Marco Antonio Firebaugh, a former California Assemblyman, died on Tuesday March 21 at the age of 39 after a long illness. His obituary can be found here.

Firebaugh was chair of the Latino Caucus and majority leader in the Assembly before being termed out in 2004. He had planned on running for Senate this year.

He was a UC Berkeley graduate in 1990 and spent time as a staffer for Richard Polanco before embarking on his own political careeer.

The College Board recently disclosed that about 4000 students received incorrect scores from the October sitting of the SAT Reasoning Test.

Oops.

Of course, the incident has generated outrage from students and parents. While I agree that it is completely unfair that students get the wrong grade, I'm a bit cynical. Systematic differences (as in across racial or socioeconomic groups) are routinely written off as sour grapes.

Cuts to student aid passed by Congress in February has created a storm of backlash. The Budget Reconciliation Act of 2005 barely passed due to concerns about how it achieved $39 billion in federal savings. In addition to cutting Medicaid and Medicare, students and parents will face $12 billion more in student aid costs.

Stafford Student loans will go from variable rates to a 6.8% fixed rate, the highest rate since 2001. PLUS Parent loans will go to 8.5%. The Act also reduces incentives for lenders.

Perhaps most unpopular is that the federal savings from the Act will go to deficit reduction. With the tax cuts on the books, it lends the appearance of students and parents being asked to pay for tax cuts to the rrich. Not usually a winning proposition.

A study released by the American Institutes for Research and WestED says that no one approach shows significant gains over others in teaching English learners, whether it be English immersion, or bilingual education courses.

What does show a relationship? Not surprisingly, the report cites poverty is the one indicator that is determinant in test scores more than how quickly students complete an English remediation program.

Five years ago, California voters passed Proposition 227, which proponents said would "mainstream" students for whom English was a second language, and opponents said would hurt children by throwing them into classes in English without proper preparation.

Why can't results be seen? Well, test scores for English learners did go up in the past few years. However, scores across the board rose. The gap in score between English learners and others didn't close significantly.

The Class of 2006 will be the first high school class in California that has to pass the California High School Exit Examination (CAHSEE)… or will they?

Last Wednesday, a lawsuit was filed in San Francisco Superior Court on behalf of 20 high school students and their parents seeking an injunction to delay implementation of the consequences of the exam.

The lawyers in this case picked at least one blockbuster plaintiff. Liliana Valenzuela has a 3.84 GPA and is #12 in her class at Richmond High School in the East Bay. However, she has not passed the English portion of the examination.

Testing advocates at this point must be asking, “What’s going on at Richmond High?” and opponents are probably saying, “Aha, this proves the test is a poor indicator!”

GetEnough.gov still on hiatus...

Yesterday the Office of Management and Budget launched its Expect More website.

It is designed to encourage more accountability from federal programs by giving each a star rating, from three stars signifying “effective” to no stars “ineffective.”

About 800 federal programs are currently on the website, representing 80% of the federal budget. The OMB hopes to have all federal programs on the site by the end of the year.

Each program has a few bullet points about what’s going well, as well as a few areas of improvement where action plans are briefly discussed.

It’s all very glossy and is easily accessible, but what does it really tell us? A series of soundbytes seems awfully shallow considering these are major programs confronting difficult problems.

College students increasingly use student loans to finance their education. The average college student will leave school with between $15,000 and $20,000 in student loan debt. Those students who drop out will not reap the benefits of attaining a college degree while being saddled with debt. Low-income students, who already are more likely to drop out due to other risk factors, such as academic preparation and working part-time, are especially at risk.

Two-thirds of students who enroll at a four-year institution with the intention of attaining at least a bachelor’s degree borrowed to finance their education. A similar proportion (68%) of students at private vocational school borrow. Perhaps most troubling is that almost one third (32%) of those borrowers at private institutions dropped out.

If you think that it's getting outrageously expensive to get an education, you wouldn't be wrong. Some quick facts from Strapped, a new book from Demos, a group focused on income inequality.

Did you know?

Every year, 410,000 college-qualified students from households with income less than $50,000 enroll in community college instead of going to a four-year college. Another 168,000 college-qualified students do not enroll in college at all.

The House is scheduled to vote Feb. 1 on a package that includes student aid cuts. If passed, the policy also would raise interest rates for parent loans from 7.9 percent to 8.5 percent and fix student loans at an interest rate of 6.8 percent.