Following is the latest edition of the bi-monthly newsletter I write for  Parchment employees to help them stay current on the credentials market.

Making a Better Match

• In a New York Times interview “How to Cure the College Dropout Syndrome,” Jeffrey Selingo (former Editor of the Chronicle of Higher Education) said that “College is one of the biggest financial investments we make in our lifetime, yet many families largely make their decision based on emotion… so many students end up poorly matching to their campus. That’s why a third of students now transfer before earning a degree, and many unfortunately simply drop out.” The interview was tied to his recent book “College (Un)Bound,” which discusses many of the issues higher education faces, including the technologies he predicts will transform it for the better.
• In “The College ‘Perpetration Gap’ in a single graphic,” the Washington Post demonstrated the disconnect between high school and college. Meanwhile the Common Core standards are looking to close that gap. If you aren’t familiar with the Common Core, you’re in luck as there is an Infographic that explains “What Everyone Needs to Know About Common Core State Standards.”

Student Data

• “Student Data Too Often a Tangled Web for Schools, Report Says,” reports Education Week discussing the new report “Transforming Data to Information in Service of Learning” published by SETDA (State Educational Technology Directors Association) which raises awareness about the major K-12 data standards and interoperability initiatives underway.

Credentials and MOOC’s

• WiredAcademic writes about what may be the first full-fledged degree offered by an institution with a MOOC provider in “$7,000 Computer Science Master’s: Udacity and Georgia Tech Chop Tuition.”
• Not belonging in any of these categories, I wanted to include this Infographic on “Google Apps Education Growth” from EdTech Digest

Word of the Week:

• Todays word isn’t a word, but an acronym – and one we should all be familiar with. FERPA, or the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, is the Federal law that protects the privacy of student education records and applies to all schools that receive funds from the US Department of Education.  While some states have additional protections, FERPA is the law that specifies when student records can be released and applies to Parchment as an agent to our member schools sending transcripts through the Parchment Exchange.

Happy reading!