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The Chronicle News Blog: http://chronicle.com/news/article/1041/senators-introduce-bill-to-create-controversial-student-tracking-database> Senators Introduce Bill to Create Controversial Student-Tracking Database

Fourteen U.S. senators formally introduced a bill today to authorize spending to set up databases to track college students’ educational progress—an idea opposed by private colleges—and to produce more scientists and engineers.

The Chronicle News Blog: Report Assails Education Dept. Plan to Change Data Collection on Students’ Race

A new report by the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University argues that proposed changes in how the Education Department gathers data on race “would make it extremely difficult, and sometimes impossible,” to conduct meaningful research on students of different races or ethnicities and would likewise hinder efforts to monitor compliance with civil-rights laws.

In an attempt to reflect the growing diversity of students attending the nation’s education institutions, the Education Department last month proposed new regulations calling for students to be asked two questions related to race and ethnicity when they fill out forms for the federal government’s data-gathering efforts (The Chronicle, August 9). Students would first be asked whether they are Hispanic, and then be asked to choose among five other designations: American Indian or Alaska native; Asian; black or African-American; native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander; or white. Those who chose two or more designations in response to the second question would be lumped together in the category “two or more races.”

In a report released on Monday, researchers at the Civil Rights Project said the proposed mix-race designation “would be an essentially meaningless category for civil-rights and research purposes” because it would include so many different racial and ethnic combinations. The report projected that the classification changes would result in increases in the number of students identified as Hispanic and would give the false impression that there had been sudden large drops in white, black, American Indian, and Asian enrollments.

The New York Times: Secretary Vows to Improve Results of Higher Education

Saying she hoped to jolt American higher education out of a dangerous complacency, Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings vowed Tuesday to help finance state universities that administer standardized tests, establish a national database to track students’ progress toward a degree and cut the red tape surrounding federal student aid.

ACLU: Groups Condemn State Department’s Decision to Deny Visa to Oxford University Professor Who Criticized U.S. Policies

The United States government has denied a visa to Oxford University Professor Tariq Ramadan despite dropping its previous allegation that he endorsed terrorism, the American Civil Liberties Union announced today.

Inside Higher Ed: The Spellings Plan

Education Secretary Margaret Spellings plans a many faceted campaign to carry out the recommendations of her Commission on the Future of Higher Education, including providing matching funds to colleges and states that collect and publicly report how well their students learn, building a “privacy protected” database of college students’ academic records, and streamlining the process of applying for federal student aid.

Those are among a small number of specific efforts that Spellings will announce in a speech today in which she will endorse the panel’s work and challenge college leaders, policy makers and the public to help improve an American higher education system that she describes as slipping.

The Chronicle: Secretary of Education Will Propose More U.S. Aid for Students and a Database to Track Their Progress in College

IN A WIDELY ANTICIPATED SPEECH today, the U.S. secretary of
education, Margaret Spellings, will lay out an “action plan”
for higher education that will call for the creation of a
controversial database to track students’ academic progress,
increased spending on need-based student aid, and more
accountability for colleges, particuarly on rising costs.