(Name-mce) ListServ Upward Bound Could Shift Focus

[Howe, William]

Upward Bound Could Shift Focus


By ANNE K. WALTERS

A federal program for students from low-income families would place
greater priority on serving those at high risk for academic failure,
under a plan put forward by the U.S. Education Department last week.

The Upward Bound program, which provides grants to colleges and
organizations to prepare low-income high-school students for college,
would direct more of its resources to projects that focus on ninth
graders with a "high academic risk for failure," according to a notice
in the Federal Register.

The notice defines at-risk students as those who have not reached the
proficient level on state assessment tests in mathematics, reading, or
language arts in eighth grade or who have a grade-point average of 2.5
or less.

By placing emphasis on state assessment tests when accepting students
for the program, the department would align Upward Bound with a key
education law that Bush backed.

"By using state academic-achievement assessments to determine student
eligibility for services, Upward Bound projects will be able to align
their programs with the requirements and activities supported by the No
Child Left Behind Act of 2001," the notice says.

A 2004 report on a study that analyzed the results of the program found
that Upward Bound did not have a significant impact on whether most
participants went to college, but it more than doubled the likelihood of
enrolling in a four-year college for students who initially did not
expect to attend college. The department chose to focus its attention on
students who were likely to fail academically because those students are
less likely to expect to attend college and therefore most likely to
benefit from the program.

The department will be accepting comments on its proposal until August
2.

http://chronicle.com
Section: Government & Politics
Volume 52, Issue 45, Page A22

 

William A. Howe, Ed.D.
Education Consultant for Multicultural Education & Gender Equity
Connecticut State Department of Education - Bureau of Educational Equity
165 Capitol Ave. Rm 312, Hartford, CT 06106 
Telephone: 860-713-6542 * Fax: 860-713-7496
email: william.howe at ct.gov
website: http://www.state.ct.us/sde

11th Annual Connecticut Conference on Multicultural Education, Marriott
Hotel, Farmington, CT -Oct. 16, 2006,
<http://www.state.ct.us/sde/calendar/index.htm>  

Multicultural Educators to South Africa 2006 <http://www.billhowe.org/> 

 

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