The College Board announced the release of a new standardized test for eighth-graders, available next fall, according to The New York Times. The test program, named ReadiStep, was designed as "a diagnostic tool to provide information about student's strengths and weaknesses," College Board vice president Lee Jones told The Times. The test assesses students' strength in critical reading, writing and mathematics skills before entering high school and will help to prepare students for high school and college courses. The two-hour test will cost roughly ten dollars per student for those schools that decide to participate in ReadiStep. Critics of Readistep argue that the test will only intensify the already competitive college admissions process and will extend its reach to even younger students, calling it a "pre-pre-pre SAT." The new program comes at a time of increased criticism regarding the influence of standardized testing in the college admissions process, according to The Times.
Community colleges in Michigan are retraining the state's workforce in green technology in an effort to reverse the effects of the economic downturn, the Chronicle of Higher Education reported. The Green Jobs Initiative is a $6 million program partly aimed at retraining workers who have lost their jobs due to the recent economic crisis and general job outsourcing. Michigan's program has been seen as a test case for the nation's efforts to promote green technology as an emerging job market, according to the Chronicle. The state also works to combat job loss with the "No Worker Left Behind Program," initiated by Michigan's Democratic Governor Jennifer Granholm, which provides laid-off and low-paid workers the opportunity to attend a community college or state university for two years free of charge, according to the Chronicle.
The Teagle Foundation is assessing the overall satisfaction of economics majors with their chosen major, according to Inside Higher Ed. The working paper contains results from two electronic surveys, one that solicited input from a random sampling of economics majors, and one that targeted majors from "top research liberal arts colleges," Inside Higher Ed reported. While 79 percent of those surveyed said they were "highly satisfied" or "satisfied" with their major, the happiness of students largely depended on whether or not their college or university had a business program with unrestricted entry, according to the report. The authors suggest that at schools with unrestricted programs "the economics major is not forced to balance both the goals of students who would rather be in business programs with the goals of students who would study economics either way" as those schools without business programs, or with restricted business programs, are forced to do.
