Google Searches and Gender Gaps

June 15, 2018 – Here’s our weekly roundup of education news you may have missed. It’s girls versus boys in K-12 coverage, while higher education experts use federal data to quantify the Excellence Gap and provide additional context to internet searches.

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Elementary & Secondary Education:

  • Nate Bowling reflects on how educators and public schools can better serve students experiencing housing insecurity in Education Post.
  • Across the U.S., girls average higher test scores than boys in language arts, and both genders perform similarly in math — unless the students live in affluent suburban school districts. The New York Times quotes researcher Thomas DiPrete to explain: “Both girls and boys benefit from being in more academic and more resource-rich environments. It’s just that boys benefit more.” A different analysis from The 74 found that “girls receive fewer offers yet outperform boys in [New York City’s] specialized schools.”
  • Education Week reports on the challenges of providing advanced academic courses to students in Alaska.
  • “A year after a News & Observer and Charlotte Observer series showed that thousands of bright, low-income students were being excluded from advanced classes, [North Carolina] state lawmakers took steps Wednesday to address the issue.”

 

Higher Education:

  • A new report from the Alliance for Excellent Education recommends allowing Pell Grants to cover the costs of dual enrollment, a strategy for promoting college enrollment and persistence rates among students with financial need.
  • In The Washington Post, Jeffrey Selingo notes a “problematic” trend demonstrated by federal-level higher education data: “Basically, wealthy students graduated, and low-income students did not. Children from families earning more than $90,000 have a 1-in-2 chance of getting a bachelor’s degree by 24. That falls to a 1 in 17 chance for families earning under $35,000.”
  • Building a college list just got a little easier. When prospective students search the name of a college or university, Google now draws from College Scorecard and IPEDS data to prominently display an institution’s average cost after financial aid, as well as its admissions rate and graduation rate.

 

Cooke Foundation Highlights:

  • Recipients of our College Scholarship Program are featured in local media coverage. The El Paso Herald-Post describes several of Ryan James Solis’s prestigious awards, and Westside Seattle discusses Abel Berhan’s community leadership. Both Ryan and Abel will attend Harvard University this fall. On LCPS-TV, Qualan Woodard talks about building algorithms and preparing to matriculate to Harvey Mudd College.
  • Jacob Sorenson and Fernanda Silva Celaya, two recently announced Cooke Graduate Scholars, are highlighted in Mesa Community College‘s Alumni & Friends newsletter.
  • The Courier Journal profiles Alison Addie, a Jack Kent Cooke Young Artist Award recipient. Alison describes her experience performing on NPR’s “From the Top” with host Christopher O’Riley, and states that “it still feels like a dream.”