College expenses and financial aid have become increasingly larger considerations for parents and students, driving more qualified students away from enrolling in four-year colleges. Fewer low- and moderate-income high school graduates are attending college in America, and fewer are graduating. Enrollment in four-year colleges was 40% in 2004 for low-income students, down from 54% in 1992, and 53% in 2004 for moderate-income students, down from 59% over the same period. If that trend has continued, low- and moderate-income students who don’t move on to college face an even darker outlook. The unemployment rate for 16- to 19-year olds averaged 17% in 2004, the jobless rate for people over age 25 with just a high school diploma averaged 5% the same year. So far this year, those figures have jumped to 25.8% and 10.6%, respectively.

Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance. (2010). The rising price of inequality. Washington, DC: GPO.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/33608537/The-Rising-Price-of-Inequality

Connected Teens research

Trends in social media and cloud computing are often examined through the lens of younger users and broadband users, who have consistently been more actively engaged online when compared with other groups. This presentation highlights new research on teens, young adults and social media use while also identifying a new leading edge group that deserves the same attention: those who own four or more internet-connected devices.
Pew Internet & American Life Project
http://pewinternet.org/Presentations/2010/Jun/Four-or-More--The-New-Demographic.aspx

Information Literacy indicators report

This report provides a basic conceptual framework based on for measuring
information literacy and is designed to serve as a reference to facilitate
the elaboration of information literacy indicators. The framework facilitates measuring information
literacy through which achievements at both international and national
levels can be demonstrated and future efforts can be better focused.
Catts, R., & Lau, J. (2010). Towards information literacy indicators. Hague: UNESCO.
http://www.uis.unesco.org/template/pdf/cscl/InfoLit.pdf

Minority access study

Minority children have fewer opportunities than their white peers to gain access to high-quality health care, education, safe neighborhoods and adequate support from the communities where they live, according to a nationwide survey of professionals who work with young people. Of the professionals surveyed, 59 percent said young white children in their communities have "lots of opportunity" to play in violence-free homes and neighborhoods, while only 36 percent said the same about Hispanic children, 37 percent about African-American children and 42 percent about Native American children.
W.K. Kellogg Foundation
http://www.wkkf.org/news/Articles/2010/07/Minority-Children-Face-More-Obstacles-to-Health-and-Success.aspx

Scaffolded Silent Reading?

A comment on Reutzel, Jones, Fawson and Smith (2008): Scaffolded Silent Reading is just as good as Guided Repeated Oral Reading: OR just as bad.
Stephen Krashen

Reutzel et. al. is a comparison between a method labeled Scaffolded Silent Reading (ScSR) and Guided Repeated Oral Reading (GROR) done over one year using third graders.

In ScSR, children are required to set specific goals as to how much and what they will read, and are required to read in a variety of genres. In brief conferences with teachers, students are questioned about what they read, and choose a "book response project" to do related to the book they have just read. Students are also taught "book selection strategies" to avoid their selecting "inappropriate difficult books for reading practice" (p. 196).

In GROR, the students hear a passage read aloud, then reread it several times quietly and then aloud. Students are usually given feedback on their reading from the teacher. Reutzel et. al. do not provide details about how GROR was done in this study.

There were no significant differences between the groups of measures of accuracy in reading aloud, rate of reading aloud, "expression," and oral retelling of passages children read aloud. (Actual means and statistics are not presented, only graphs and percentages.) The authors conclude that this shows that ScSR is a "viable, complementary, and motivating approach that is comparable to … GROR" (p. 205).

In other words, ScSR is just as good as GROR. It could also be said that it is just as bad. No comparison group was used that did neither treatment. Also, the results do not indicate how ScSR compares to sustained silent reading (SSR), which is very different, as Reutzel et. al. note. In contrast to ScSR, SSR includes low or no accountability, allows free choice, and does not require follow-up projects. Also, SSR does not constrain students to read certain genres, but encourages "narrow reading" (Krashen, 2004).


Krashen, S. 2004. The case for narrow reading. Language Magazine 3(5): 16-20.
Reutzel, R., Jones, C., Fawson, P., and Smith, J. 2008. Scaffolded silent reading: A complement to guided repeated oral reading that works! The Reading Teacher 62 (3): 194-207.

Let's read. Let's move. Let's support libraries.

Let's Read. Let's Move. Let's Support Public Libraries

Sent to the Christian Science Monitor, June 10, 2010
As part of a program called "Let's read. Let's Move," First Lady Michelle Obama is calling for children to read five books over the summer to prevent summer reading loss: Some children lose about two months of reading progress over the summer ("Michelle Obama's next childhood obesity target: summer break," June 8). But it makes no sense to require or encourage reading when there is little access to books.
The children who show reading loss over the summer are children of poverty. Research shows that children of poverty have little access to books at home, at school and in their communities. Public libraries in high-poverty areas are not well-funded, and have fewer materials and are open fewer hours than those in low-poverty areas. Studies also show that when children have access to interesting and comprehensible reading material, the children really do read.
The first step in dealing with the summer slump is the most obvious: Better funding of public libraries, especially in high-poverty areas, and more support for librarians who understand what children really like to read.
Stephen Krashen
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Education/2010/0608/Michelle-Obama-s-next-childhood-obesity-target-summer-break

California ELL report

Reparable Harm: Fulfilling the Unkept Promise of Educational Opportunity for Long Term English Learners
This foundation report examines factors in the increase in long-term English learners in California, student characteristics, and current limitations. Recommendations include specialized courses, clustered placement in grade-level classes, and monitoring and support systems.

Olsen, Laurie (2010). Reparable Harm: Fulfilling the Unkept Promise of Educational Opportunity for Long Term English Learners. Long Beach: California Community Foundation.
http://www.calfund.org/pub_documents/reparable_harm_full_final_lo.pdf