from the Education Commission of the States
 

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Wednesday, July 1, 2009

WHAT STATES ARE DOING
OPEN-SOURCE ELECTRONIC TEXBOOKS - Recent legislation in TEXAS calls for the adoption of open-source textbooks for secondary courses submitted by certain institutions of higher education. Learn more about this development at the related upcoming ECS National Forum session.
http://www.legis.state.tx.us/tlodocs/81R/billtext/pdf/HB02488F.pdf

WORKFORCE/ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT - Governor Jim Douglas of VERMONT recently attended the kick-off event for the Vermont Biosciences Alliance. The partnership includes businesses that make-up the state's growing bioscience industry as well as academic partners from the higher education community. The members discussed ways to encourage angel funding for biotechnology and life science business ventures; industry relationships to support and fund research; valuing and commercializing intellectual capital; and other ways to grow successful technology based businesses in Vermont.
http://governor.vermont.gov/tools/index.php?topic=GovPressReleases&id=3542&v=Article

EARLY LEARNING - A full 99% of children enrolled in PENNSYLVANIA Pre-K Counts in the 2008-09 school year finished the year with age-appropriate skills and behaviors or emerging skills and behaviors, according to year-end assessments. Of those children, about 75% had age-appropriate literacy, math and social skills, while a nearly 24% had emerging skills by year’s end.
http://www.pdenewsroom.state.pa.us/newsroom/cwp/view.asp?Q=149621&A=3

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NEW ECS PRODUCTS
SERVICE LEARNING AND HISPANIC STUDENTS - A concern about poor academic achievement among Hispanic students and the corresponding high dropout rate led the National Center for Learning and Citizenship at ECS to convene a Thinkers Meeting about Service-Learning for Hispanic Students in March 2008. A result of that meeting is a new ECS report that examines best practices in educating Hispanic students and improving student graduation rates and matriculation into higher education.
http://www.ecs.org/clearinghouse/81/01/8101.pdf

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GOOD READS
GRADING STATE HIGHER EDUCATION ACCOUNTABILITY SYSTEMS - Education Sector recently undertook a comprehensive analysis of higher education accountability systems in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. This report summarizes the results in each of the graded categories.
http://www.educationsector.org/usr_doc/HigherEdSummary.pdf

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ANNOUNCEMENTS
e-Connection will be taking next week off to attend the ECS NATIONAL FORUM in Nashville, Tennessee. Early bird registration rates have been extended through tomorrow, July 2. Sessions will explore how education can be an engine to ignite the economy, and include headline speakers Clay Christensen, Richard Elmore, Uri Treisman and Kati Haycock.
http://www.ecs.org/html/meetingsEvents/NF2009/NF2009_main.asp

ECS Senior Policy Analyst Jennifer Dounay Zinth contributed to two recently-released publications. The Council of State Governments' 2009 Book of the States includes Dounay Zinth's article, "Early College High Schools: A Promising Approach for Underserved Youth." Another 2009 publication, Promising Practices for Family and Community Involvement during High School, contains Dounay Zinth's chapter, "Emerging State Policies and Programs Designed to Support Parental Involvement in Postsecondary Planning."


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