America’s declining college graduation rates have been the subject of many a political speech or hearing lately.  President Obama set a long term goal for his administration to restore America’s prominence in the percentage of its citizens with college degrees.  When you examine the research literature regarding student attrition, persistence, or graduation rates, there are thousands of publications and numerous dissertations written about some aspect of those topics.

John Thelin is a research professor in the Department of Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation at the College of Education at the University of Kentucky.  He also authored A History of American Higher Education.  The American Enterprise Institute (AEI) recently sponsored a working paper (#2010-01) authored by Thelin entitled The Attrition Tradition in American Higher Education:  Connecting Past and Present.  Thelin’s research documents that attrition in higher education has been a problem since the early 1900’s, but that it has only been the focus of research, discussion, and improvement efforts for the past 30 years.  He cites several recent publications, AEI publication Diplomas and Dropouts:  Which Colleges Actually Graduate Their Students (and Which Don’t) and a publication of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Crossing the Finish Line: Completing College and America’s Public Universities, which both deliver distressing news about college graduation rates.  The first publication indicates that graduation rates are not entirely a function of the selectivity of admissions by the school and the type of institution.  The second publication focuses on the 20-year decline in state university graduation rates noting that few state universities graduate more than 65 percent of their students in six years.

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This week represents National Teacher Appreciation Week and if there was ever an appropriate time to applaud the efforts of our nation’s teachers, it is now.  Considering the well-publicized and overwhelming reality of our nation’s fiscal concerns, there can be little doubt that the nation’s leadership faces an arduous task.  The nation’s teachers, however, have arguably an even greater and more daunting task: preparing our youngest minds for the uncertain future that lies ahead of them. 

A 2006 estimate by the U.S. Census Bureau states that there are 6.8 million teachers in the United States, approximately one-third of them teaching at the elementary, middle and high school levels (the other two-thirds teach at preschool, kindergarten or college levels).  According to the Census Bureau report, teachers in Connecticut enjoyed the largest salaries in the nation, an average of $57,300, while teachers in South Dakota earned only $33,200 per year, the lowest in the nation.  The national average teacher salary in 2006 was $46,800.  Considering the importance of the job the nation’s teachers perform, such striking salary discrepancies are disappointing.  The recent budget crises in most states don’t offer much hope that teacher salaries will improve in the near future.

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Today is Earth Day and as the urgency of the climate change problem looms heavily over the entire world, it is a day that should not go without notice.  This year’s Earth Day represents the beginning of a two-year initiative called the Green Generation Campaign.  The campaign was established in the same spirit as the “Greatest Generation” that met the challenges facing the world in the years during and following the conclusion of World War II; individuals working together to create meaningful change in the fight to slow and halt climate change.  Through individual and collective efforts, supporters of the Green Generation Campaign will take measures to reduce their impact on the environment (for a list of ways you can make changes to reduce your own carbon footprint, see the Earth Day 2009 website).   APUS was an early participant in the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment (ACUPCC) and believes that its online form of instruction is ideally suited to assist in the reduction of its carbon footprint (see my blog article about APUS’ involvement in the ACUPCC).

The first Earth Day was celebrated on this day in 1970; since then, Earth Day has come to be celebrated around the world.  In the years following the celebration of the first Earth Day, the United States took an active role in the discussion on climate change.  In 1970, Congress established the Clean Air Act to set national air quality, auto emission and anti-pollution standards.  In 1980, Congress established the Superfund, designated with the task of cleaning up hazardous waste sites.  In 1990, President George H.W. Bush signed the Pollution Prevention Act which emphasized the importance of preventing, not just correcting, environmental damage. 

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