Weekend Edu-Reads

“…any movement serious about improving education for low-income, rural, and minority students has to look outside of cities — especially in the South, where a majority of students live outside of city centers.” That’s Kelly Robson about the need for philanthropies to invest beyond urban areas.

“…the children of Perry Preschool participants — most of whom are now in their mid-20s — were less likely to be suspended from school, more likely to complete high school, and more likely to be employed full-time with some college experience. Children of participants were also more likely to be employed and to not be involved with the criminal justice system.” Read Marnie Kaplan on the latest research on the Perry Preschool project, which suggests the program had inter-generational effects.

California has been requiring prospective teachers to take a reading test with “no evidence that it contributes to more effective instruction.” Oh, and this same test is disproportionately keeping out black and Hispanic teachers. I suppose it’s good the state is considering dropping it now, but why did California start using this test in the first place?

“There is usually more variation in earnings results between programs within colleges than between colleges.” That’s Kevin Carey on what we can learn and do with program-level outcome data.

David Leonhardt and Sunil Choy partnered with the Urban Institute on this cool data visualization project on college dropouts.

The Pension Pac-Man must be fed.

–Guest post by Chad Aldeman