Entry-level workers can lose 6% of their wages if they don’t have this

February 1, 2020   |   By Matthew T. Hora

Fast Company ran Matthew Hora's article originally published in The Conversation about the importance of internships to college students' career prospects.


African Americans Take on More Education Debt—And the Payoff Is Complicated

January 28, 2020   |   By Jaymes Pyne and Eric Grodsky

When seeking graduate and professional degrees, African Americans take on over 50% more debt than white students. On the upside, African Americans also see a bigger payoff to earning such degrees. Whether or not that payoff is enough to make up for the additional debt burden is unclear.


Dramatic fallout: Telling the story of a play labeled ‘Indecent’

January 26, 2020   |   By Gena Kittner

Erica Halverson is mentioned and quoted about her role in the play "Indecent" being performed in Madison, WI, Feb. 6 - 15, 2020.


5 obstacles that stop many students from taking an internship

January 24, 2020   |   By Matt Hora

The inability to take internships is a problem because internships serve as an important signal that students are ready to enter the workforce. In a recent study, students who listed an internship on their resume received 14% more offers for an interview than those who did not.


African Americans take on more debt for grad school – but the payoff is also bigger

January 23, 2020   |   By Eric Grodsky, University of Wisconsin-Madison and Jaymes Pyne, Stanford University

When seeking graduate and professional degrees, African Americans take on over 50% more debt than white students. On the upside, African Americans also see a bigger payoff to earning such degrees. Whether or not that payoff is enough to make up for the additional debt burden is unclear. These are some key takeaways from a study we released in January 2020 by Eric Grodsky from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Jaymes Pyne, Stanford University.


Does America Really Want More Black Teachers? If So, Supporting HBCUs is the Answer.

January 21, 2020   |   By Tina and Trina Fletcher

In 2016, the National Center for Education Statistics reported 75% of students who earned a Bachelor’s degree in education were White and according to scholar Dr. Gloria Ladson-Billings’ book Crossing Over to Canaan, America’s teacher educators are 88% White. Nonetheless, a 2016 study by Cherng and Halpin found that students of all races prefer teachers of color.


Recent education appointments, including new WCER Director Courtney Bell

January 16, 2020   |   By Julia Piper, The Chronicle of Higher Education

Courtney Bell, a principal research scientist with the Educational Testing Service, a private, nonprofit educational testing and assessment organization, will become director of the Wisconsin Center for Education Research in the School of Education at the University of Wisconsin at Madison on July 1.


WIDA Receives $4 Million to Support Multilingual Learners with Cognitive Disabilities

January 14, 2020   |   By Katie Stenz, WIDA

Educational tools and resources for assessing a small but important group of students, multilingual learners challenged with the most significant cognitive disabilities, now will become reality thanks to a $3.998 million U.S. Department of Education grant awarded to WIDA.


WEC Evaluators Recommend Sharing Best Practices as Student Career Planning Spans State

January 14, 2020   |   By Karen Rivedal, WCER Communications

Capstone experience of completing and presenting a final project was most often named by students as the "most beneficial" activity for them to do, along with job-shadowing, in the state-required Academic and Career Planning (ACP) program, a WEC evaluation shows.


Education deserts: How geography impacts access to higher ed

January 13, 2020   |   By Matt Zalaznick

A new map published by the Jain Family Institute seeks to draw more attention to another college access hurdle: geography. Considering most students go to college close to home, the Institute’s researchers have developed the “School Concentration Index” to measure the number of options students have in different parts of the country and how a lack of competition in more rural areas may impact affordability.


Four from UW–Madison ranked among most influential education scholars

January 8, 2020   |   By UW-Madison School of Education

Education Week blogger Rick Hess published his annual rankings of the top 200 most influential education scholars in the United States on Wednesday — and four faculty members with UW-Madison’s School of Education are on this year’s list. UW-Madison’s Gloria Ladson-Billings is No. 8 this year, while Adam Gamoran is No. 97, Stacey Lee is No. 176, and Jerlando Jackson is No. 177. These annual public influence rankings appear each January in Education Week’s “Straight Up” blog, which is authored by Hess.


Feinstein is lead author on, ‘Three roles for education in climate change adaptation’

January 6, 2020   |   By UW-Madison School of Education

UW–Madison’s Noah Feinstein is the lead author on a new article published in the journal Climate Policy that explains how education can play an important role in helping society adapt to a changing climate. Feinstein is an associate professor with the School of Education’s Department of Curriculum and Instruction. The co-author on the report is K.J. Mach from the University of Miami. The paper’s abstract notes how “education, appropriately conceived, can be a powerful tool in enabling effective adaptation to climate change.”


Bell named next director of Wisconsin Center for Education Research

January 6, 2020   |   By UW-Madison School of Education

Courtney Bell will become the next director of the Wisconsin Center for Education Research (WCER), UW–Madison School of Education Dean Diana Hess announced Monday. Bell, who is currently a principal research scientist with Educational Testing Service (ETS), the world’s largest private, nonprofit educational testing and assessment organization, will begin her new position July 1.


From service to science: NIH shifts focus of mentoring network aimed at boosting grantee diversity

January 6, 2020   |   By Jeffrey Mervis, AAAS

Begun in 2014, the National Research Mentoring Network was designed to scale up successful mentoring practices in the biomedical sciences. NIH officials hoped its efforts would boost the fortunes of minority applicants. But last summer, when NIH renewed the network for another 5 years, officials decided to spend most of the money on the science of mentoring, that is, testing different approaches to mentoring with a small, carefully chosen population.


Researcher Gloria Ladson-Billings on Culturally Relevant Teaching, the Role of Teachers

December 30, 2019   |   By The 74 Interview

Gloria Ladson-Billings remembers that there was a difference between the black and white teachers she had growing up in Philadelphia. African-American teachers could give the students “the talk,” she recalls, referring to a 2017 Procter & Gamble television advertisement that showed black parents talking to their kids about racism. The black teachers could speak to students honestly about what it means to be African-American in a way their white counterparts never could, she remembered.