Online Computer Science Master’s at Georgia Tech Graduates First Cohort

India- and US-based education technology company Springboard has received a $1.7 million in investment to support its mentor-led program for online learning. The seed round funding led by LinkedIn co-founder Allen Blue, Princeton Review founder John Katzman, and InMobi founder Naveen Tewari. Springboard will use the funds to offer additional student services and support to its users.“The company will use the funds to increase its capacity in courses, provide additional student services and support and enhance growth,” Springboard’s co-founder said according to VCCircle.springboard will also offer up to seven new courses in fields not previously covered including web development, app development, marketing and potentially soft-skills courses.enrolled students have access not only to courses and other learning materials, but also to industry mentors and an active community of classmates and alumni to further support their learning. The mentor-centered model translates into a ten-times higher completion rate compared to non-mentor-led online courses, 

The Hindu says.“Our approach of combining a project-heavy curriculum with 1-on-1 mentorship from industry experts creates accountability and ensures that our graduates are ready to thrive in the new economy,” Springboard co-founder Gautam Tambay said, according to Tech New Today.students meet with their mentors on a weekly basis. Mentors work in high-profile companies such as Facebook, Pandora, LinkedIn, Etsy, and Airbnb.springboard, previously known as SlideRule, was initially a MOOC search engine. Realizing that users wanted curated lists of courses based on their needs and goals, the company adjusted its focus to curation and course recommendation. The startup pivoted its focus one more time after seeing poor user engagement with many learners not completing the courses they signed up for. Tambay said:“we noticed that many wouldn’t complete their courses. We got on the phone with a  users, and found out that people were missing some kind of human contact,” Tambay explained.

adding the element of human interaction in online learning through mentors and an accessible and useful community meant that Springboard stood out for its unique, more holistic learning experience:

“Offering content alone is not education,” Tambay told Jon Russel of Tech Crunch. “That’s like sending someone to a library and telling them to learn.”other Springboard investors include Kartik Hosanagar, a Wharton School professor; Kashyap Deorah, a co-founder of Chalo; and Blue Fog Capital. Investor John Katzman said:“Springboard brings a smart team and a promising approach to curriculum and mentoring. With the new economy’s need for perpetual learning, Springboard is poised to have real impact.”Company projections by its founders see massive growth potential in paid student numbers from 1,000 today to up to 60,000 in two years. By 2016, the company projects a 10-fold revenue rate growth at $10 million.so far, the company says more than 1,000 learners have completed their courses, some of which were hired by companies such as IBM and Reddit. Springboard offers paid and free courses with thousands of students currently enrolled in the free options.typically, courses cost $300-$500 per month, which include online material and activities and mentor and community access. The Bangalore and US-based startup numbers more than 110 mentors in the fields of Data Analysis and UX Design over the last year alone.

ESSA Passage Draws More Attention to Computer Science

President Obama has signed a new education bill that will take the place of the controversial ‘No Child Left Behind Act’ from 2001 — and the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) will also provide a boost to computer science education.

While the thirteen-year-old act connected funding of schools to the scores that students achieved on standardized tests, ESSA reduces some of the control that the federal government has on education. But according to EnGadget’s Sean Buckley, the new act also makes computer science just as important as other “well-rounded” school subjects.frank Smith of EdTech feels that the new legislation could close the gap in student achievement. Smith explains:

“The latest update to the U.S. National Education Technology Plan has big plans for addressing unequal access to the powerful technology changing schools today. On Thursday, [December 10th] the U.S. Department of Education laid out a vision for the future of technology at schools. The new plan updates technology guidelines issued in 2010, but doesn’t change direction dramatically. Instead, the latest plan sets up a series of bold calls to action designed to ensure technology helps close the achievement gap.”the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) includes various block grants that, along with other uses, are created for technology-related courses. Dennis Pierce of eSchool News shares how the bill will boost funding for ed-tech:“Although it’s not the program that ed-tech advocates had hoped for, many expressed cautious optimism that a section of ESSA under Title IV (“21st Century Schools”) could help schools use technology tools to transform teaching and learning.”the bill comes a full eight years after the No Child Left Behind Act was supposed to expire. The ESSA gives the state more power in choosing how to close gaps in student achievement and gives more importance to technology-related courses.it is the first time that technology has received funding since 2010. That year, the Enhancing Education Through Technology program was funded. There is also  E-Rate, which provides discounts for some technology-related services such as internet access and telecommunications needed to bring the web to the classroom.

According to Yoree Koh blogger for the Wall Street Journal, the new law will likely bring good news for tech companies who continually deal with a shortage of engineers to employ. These companies, including leaders like Google and Microsoft, have been backing any bill that would increase the teaching of computer science in the classroom.hadi Partovia, the founder of Code.org, is also pleased that the bill is going through. Partovia stated in an email:“This week marks a watershed moment for computer science in U.S. Schools. In just two years this field has been adopted by all the largest cities, almost 100 school districts. It’s great to see the Federal government finally recognize this field as a foundational academic subject.”

The overall hope is that this bill will cause computer science to find its way into more American classrooms, leading to more graduates who qualify to work at tech companies. Code.org shares that while there are over 600,000 computer jobs currently open in the US, only 38,175 students graduated from computer science courses last year.

California Faces School Renovation Needs, Budget Constraints

California’s system of school construction and maintenance is subpar and unfair, with low-income districts often under-funding construction but overspending on patching facilities that need major restorations, according to a study by Jeffrey Vincent, deputy director of the Center for Cities + Schools in the Institute of Urban and Regional Development at U.C. Berkeley.“California must bolster – not recede from – its role in the state-local funding partnership for K-12 school facilities. Moving forward, the state should ensure that all school districts can reasonably meet both maintenance and capital investment needs” by combining local dollars with “stable and predictable state funding.”

The study was published as new data has been released showing inequality in facilities funding in the state. It is possible that school construction could be a controversial issue in the Legislature next year, writes John Fensterwald of EdSource.the last state-funded construction bond was passed in 2006, and now the state has run out of money while there is still about $2 billion worth of district projects waiting to be funded. The Coalition for Adequate School Housing (CASH), a group comprised of school districts and building and design contractors, has collected enough signatures to put a $9 billion bond on the November 2016 ballot.of that amount, approximately $2 billion would be used by community colleges and the rest would be divided among K-12 districts, technical education partnerships, and charter schools. Last year in his budget message, Gov. Jerry Brown said the state should not acquire further school construction debt. He suggested that local school districts make their contributions larger.

Without the backing of Brown and the California Teachers Association, the school coalition will have a difficult time getting the $9 billion bond passed. State Department of Finance officials and school construction leaders have discussed a new funding framework. The structure could take the form of a smaller bond, based on the ability of the districts to pay.

An editorial by The San Diego Union-Tribune Editorial Board says the study will certainly impact local decisions such as San Diego Unified’s $100 million plan to refurbish Memorial Prep, a struggling middle school in poverty-stricken Logan Heights.

The editors disagree with Vincent, saying that California should consider a revised, equity-driven path to school construction funded by the state. But this approach would come only after the adoption of reforms that mandate districts to be responsible and prevent the destructive cycle of “disrepair and replacement with their facilities.”

They add that Vincent found 62% of the state’s districts do not adequately maintain their facilities. When improperly maintained, facilities need replacement more often. The reason for this, in part, is that during the Great Recession, the Legislature suspended the state directive that required that districts spend at least 3% of their budgets on maintenance. In essence, districts gave up on maintaining their school buildings and now that there is funding, districts have not increased preservation up to previous levels.unless mandates on maintenance are put in place and enforced, the maintenance budget will always be at risk. But most important, say the editors, it is unfair for students of 2035 to have budget constraints because of bond debt that was used to fix broken windows and remove graffiti in 2015.

Li-Fi Poised to Take Over for Wi-Fi

Li-Fi, a new, super-fast alternative networking technology capable of reaching speeds hundreds of times faster than current standards in real-world use, could soon replace Wi-Fi.

Harald Haas, a professor of mobile communications at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, has created a working model of a Li-Fi system, transmitting data through LED lightbulbs flickering on and off over a matter of nanoseconds.  Haas recently demonstrated his prototype by transmitting a video from an LED lamp to a solar cell on a laptop.

“Li-Fi is essentially the same as Wi-Fi, except for a small difference—we use LED lights around us to transmit the data wirelessly as opposed to using radio,” Haas says.Wi-Fi, which currently carries half of the world’s internet transmissions, works by using radio signals to transmit data to a number of electronic devices, including phones and laptops.  As more people gain access to the internet, the use of Wi-Fi is expected to expand, which experts such as Haas believe will result in the creation of a “spectrum crunch” that would see Wi-Fi networks slow down under the high demands, reports Adam Boult for The Telegraph.

“Radio spectrum is not sufficient,” Haas says. “It’s heavily used, it’s very crowded…we see that when we go to airports and hotels, where many people want to access the mobile internet and it’s terribly slow. I saw this coming 12, 15 years ago, so I thought ‘what are better ways of transmitting data wirelessly?’”Li-Fi was found to reach speeds of 224 gigabits per second in a lab setting, which could allow a person to download 20 full-length movies in just one second.  Haas’s research shows Li-Fi can achieve data density 1,000 times greater than Wi-Fi because Li-Fi signals are limited to a smaller area.in addition, whereas Wi-Fi can extend through walls, allowing neighbors to “share” the connection, Li-Fi is not capable of this, and can be contained by closing the curtains, which could make it potentially more secure.haas went on to say that lights would not need to be kept on throughout the house in order for the system to work.  The bulbs could be dimmed to a level in which they appear to be off but are still transmitting data, writes Emily Matchar for The Smithsonian.the technology also has possibilities for smart home appliances by creating a network for devices located within a home to talk to each other.one company, Velmenni, recently put the technology into real-world situations in offices and industrial environments in Estonia, finding that it was capable of reaching the high speeds attained in the lab.several other companies, including Oledcomm and pureLiFi, have also jumped on board to bring the technology to customers.  Both companies offer a kit to aid in the installation of Li-Fi networks at home and in the office, with pureLiFi promising speeds of 10 Mbps.

Professor Harald Haas, from the University of Edinburgh in the UK, is widely recognised as the original founder of Li-Fi. He coined the term Li-Fi and is Chair of Mobile Communications at the University of Edinburgh and co-founder of pureLiFi.the general term visible light communication (VLC), includes any use of the visible light portion of the electromagnetic spectrum to transmit information. The D-Light project at Edinburgh's Institute for Digital Communications was funded from January 2010 to January 2012. Haas promoted this technology in his 2011 TED Global talk and helped start a company to market it. PureLiFi, formerly pureVLC, is an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) firm set up to commercialize Li-Fi products for integration with existing LED-lighting systems.

In October 2011, companies and industry groups formed the Li-Fi Consortium, to promote high-speed optical wireless systems and to overcome the limited amount of radio-based wireless spectrum available by exploiting a completely different part of the electromagnetic spectrum.a number of companies offer uni-directional VLC products, which is not the same as Li-Fi.VLC technology was exhibited in 2012 using Li-Fi.[24] By August 2013, data rates of over 1.6 Gbit/s were demonstrated over a single color LED. In September 2013, a press release said that Li-Fi, or VLC systems in general, do not require line-of-sight conditions.In October 2013, it was reported Chinese manufacturers were working on Li-Fi development kits.in April 2014, the Russian company Stins Coman announced the development of a Li-Fi wireless local network called BeamCaster. Their current module transfers data at 1.25 gigabytes per second but they foresee boosting speeds up to 5 GB/second in the near future. In 2014 a new record was established by Sisoft that was able to transfer data at speeds of up to 10Gbps across a light spectrum emitted by LED lamps.

AEI Releases Education Agenda for the States Brief

In an effort to help state lawmakers across the nation, the American Enterprise Institute put together a briefing that lists a number of do’s and don’ts for reform in K-12 education, higher education, and early childhood education.

The briefing, titled An Education Agenda For the States, begins with Director of Education Policy Studies at AEI, Frederick M. Hess, said that in general, it matters more how a reform is executed rather than whether or not it is attempted.  He goes on to clarify that this means education reforms should be left up to individual states rather than carried out by the federal government, as it is often difficult for federal officials to produce the results that will most help students.“The US Constitution leaves education to the states for a reason: states are close enough to their communities and have suffi- cient control over schools and colleges that they can promote reforms in a manner that is actually likely to deliver.”

The briefing begins by discussing the importance of early childhood education, which is the foundation for learning and brain development.  According to researchers from Harvard University’s Center on the Developing Child, “Early experiences determine whether a child’s developing brain architecture provides a strong or weak foundation for all future learning, behavior, and health.”

While a number of issues, including poverty, neglect and maltreatment, have been shown to have a negative effect on a child’s ability to learn, the authors contend that research has shown that high-quality care for at-risk infants, toddlers and preschools can help these children to overcome such disadvantages and rise above the negative consequences associated with them.

As such, the authors suggest that reforms look to expand beyond an increase to pre-kindergarten programs, arguing that pre-k can sometimes be too late for disadvantaged children, and that early childhood expansion should begin at the infant stage.  Because learning begins at birth, brain development at that time becomes crucial.The authors suggest creating initiatives that can test what works while at the same time serving children well, as the authors stress that how a program is designed is just as important as it existing at all.  However, they continue to stress that new programs should not built up too quickly because it creates programs that are less-effective.

The authors continue by discussing the K-12 system in the US, which they say creates opportunity within each state.  In order to create a high-quality education system, they suggest that each state complete a comprehensive review, and that regulations should not micromanage schools.  They go on to say that instead of using standardized tests and teacher evaluation systems, states include a variety of tools that allow for flexibility.

The briefing concludes with a discussion of higher education, in which authors discuss the portability of transfer credits, suggesting that state lawmakers allow credits to transfer between state colleges and universities in an effort to shorten the amount of time spent working toward a degree, and therefore decrease the amount of money they spend on tuition.AEI warns not to simply spend additional public dollars, but instead to find a way to put the correct amount of funding into each institution to help them to better serve their students.

Fort William College

Fort William College (also called the College of Fort William) was an academy and learning centre of Oriental studies established by Lord Wellesley, then Governor-General of British India. The law to establish its foundation was passed on the 4th of May, 1800 to commemorate the first anniversary of the victory over Tipu Sultan at Seringapatam. It was founded on July 10, 1800, within the Fort William complex in Calcutta. Thousands of books were translated from Sanskrit, Arabic, Persian, Bengali, Hindi, and Urdu in English at this institution

Fort William College aimed at training British officials in Indian languages and in the process it fostered the development of languages such as Bengali and Urdu.The period is of historical importance. In 1815, Ram Mohan Roy settled in Calcutta. It is considered by many historians to be starting point of the Bengal renaissance. A establishment of The Calcutta Madrassa in 1781, the Asiatic Society in 1784 and the Fort William College in 1800, completed the first phase of Kolkata’s emergence as an intellectual centre.

Teaching of Asian languages dominated: Arabic, Urdu, Persian, Sanskrit, Bengali; and later Marathi and even Chinese were added. Each department of the college was staffed by notable scholars. The Persian department was headed by Neile B. Edmonstone, Persian translator to the government. His assistant teacher was John H. Harington, a judge of Sadar Diwani Adalat and Francis Gladwin, a soldier diplomat. For Arabic studies, there was Lt. John Baillie, a noted Arabist. The Urdu department was entrusted to John Borthwick Gilchrist, an Indologist of great repute. Henry Thomas Colebrooke, the famous orientalist, was head of the Sanskrit department. William Carey, a non-civilian missionary and a specialist in many Indian languages, was selected to head the department of vernacular languages. While notable scholars were identified and appointed for different languages, there was no suitable person in Kolkata who could be appointed to teach Bengali. In those days the Brahmin scholars learnt only Sanskrit, considered to be the language of the gods, and did not study Bengali. The authorities decided to appoint Carey, who was with the Baptist Mission in Serampore. He, in turn, appointed Mrityunjoy Vidyalankar as head pandit, Ramnath Bachaspati as second pandit and Ramram Basu as one of the assistant pandits.

Along with teaching, translations were organized. The college employed more than one hundred local linguists. At that time there were no textbooks available in Bengali. On 23 April 1789, Calcutta Gazette published the humble request of several Natives of Bengal for a Bengali grammar and dictionary.It was located at the corner of Council House Street. The house was subsequently occupied by Messrs. Mackenzie Lyall & Co., and known as The Exchange. Still later, it housed the offices of Bengal Nagpur Railway. In those days, it was at one corner of the parade ground, now known as the Maidan. The Raj Bhavan (then known as Government House) was opened a little later.

For teaching purposes the College of Fort William accumulated a library of old manuscripts (from all over South Asia) and added multiple copies of its own imprints. The list of books recommended later for preservation includes many books of historical value.Subsequently, when the college was wound up, it gave away the magnificent collection in the library to the newly formed Calcutta Public Library, now the National Library.The court of directors of the British East India Company were never in favour of a training college in Kolkata and as such there always was a fund crunch for running the college. Subsequently a separate college for the purpose, The East India Company College at Haileybury (England), was established in 1807. However Fort William College continued to be a centre of learning languages.with the British settling down in the seat of power, their requirements changed. Bentinck announced his educational policy of public instruction in English in 1835, mostly to cater to the growing needs of administration and commerce. He clipped the wings of Fort William College and the Dalhousie administration formally dissolved the institution in 1854.

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College of New Rochelle

The College of New Rochelle (CNR) is a private Catholic college with its main campus located in New Rochelle, New York. The College of St. Angela was founded by the Order of the Ursulines as the first Catholic women's college in New York state in 1904, a time when women were generally excluded from higher education. The name was changed to The College of New Rochelle in 1910. Building on its original commitment to women, the college reaches out to those who have not previously had access to higher education. It places particular emphasis on the concept of lifelong learning. The undergraduate program remains women-only but the nursing program, graduate school and adult learners program are now open to men.

The main campus is located in New Rochelle, a suburban Westchester city about 16 miles (26 km) north of Manhattan. In 1896, the college's founder, Mother Irene Gill, traveled to New Rochelle to explore the possibility of establishing a seminary there for young women. It was during this trip that she came across Leland Castle, an 1850s gothic revival structure and former vacation home of wealthy New York hotelier Simeon Leland. The castle was purchased in 1897 and became the first structure of the College. It has since been designated a National Historic Site. The castle is part of the campus quadrangle and currently houses the "Castle Gallery". The college's art collections include a Museum Set of 75 photographs by Ansel Adams"the campus consists of 20 main buildings including a $28MM athletic, recreational and educational complex called The Wellness Center (completed in 2008), including an NCAA competition-sized swimming pool, basketball court, fitness center, indoor running track, yoga studio, roof garden and meditation garden, and volleyball court; The Mooney Center with computer and photography labs, TV production studio and the Debra and Russel Taylor Institute for Entrepreneurial Studies; the 200,000-volume Mother Irene Gill Memorial Library; the Student Campus Center; the Rogick Life Sciences Building with many laboratories; four residence halls; and the Learning Center for Nursing.

The first mention of sports at CNR is in the St. Angela’s Quarterly in 1905. A coach was hired to organize a basketball team. By 1908, annual inter-class athletic meets began between the "odds" and "evens" (year of graduation). The meets became a focus of inter-class spirit and competition—often reaching a fevered pitch. Each class had its own colors, banners, and songs which were brought out for the meet. Ingenious ways and places of getting the class banner to the highest point on campus put lives in peril as students scaled trees, sneaked up to the Castle towers, or climbed onto roofs to place the class banner. Held in the fall and spring, the meets initially involved gymnastic drills as well as basketball. Later, track and field competitions were held and awards were given. The meets continued until the early 1940s. Intramural sports were popular—basketball, volleyball, golf, hockey, tennis, and riding. In 1916, CNR began playing basketball with other college teams.

In less than 30 years, the growing College needed a much larger and more modern gymnasium than the gym in Chidwick. In 1932, at the height of the Depression, the ultra-modern Art Deco Sports Building was completed—with a pool, gymnasium, social rooms, equipment, and exercise rooms. The Athletic Association was open to anyone interested in sports, as a team member or supporter. Dues paid for some new equipment, parties, prizes, and speakers. In later years, a full CNR scholarship was offered every four years, fundraised by the Athletic Association through sponsored games and dances.sports lost some of their appeal during the politically-turbulent late 1960s-1970s, but the annual Swimphony/Landphony water and land ballet competition begun when the pool was opened continued to spark class spirit and inter-class competition into the 1990s. Exercise equipment was added in the 1970s, and the pool was often opened in the summer to day camps and residents of Residence Park.

The College of New Rochelle joined the National Collegiate Athletic Association during the mid-1980s. CNR’s basketball team took the name "Blue Angels" and won a number of local championships, a state championship and a NCAA Tournament bid, losing in the Championship Game.the College also elevated the sports of volleyball, swimming, tennis, and softball to NCAA status. CNR athletic teams have produced many successful team and individual records during their NCAA tenure.today, the "Blue Angels" remain an NCAA Division III Member and compete locally in the Hudson Valley Women’s Athletic Conference and the New York State Women’s Collegiate Athletic Association. They have continued to place in the top echelon of the HVWAC, with the Volleyball Team winning the Championship.

Study Shows Preschool Reduces Need for Special Education

A study published this week has found that a high-quality early childhood program can reduce the number of children who are diagnosed with a variety of learning disorders by the third grade.
Conducted by Clara G. Muschkin, Helen F. Ladd and Kenneth A. Dodge of Duke University, the study is expected to play a part in reducing the burden that special education services place on municipal budgets.
Researchers looked at two early childhood initiatives in North Carolina and how they affected the probability that children would need to be placed in special education by the time they finished the third grade. The authors focused on a preschool program that serves four-year-children from at-risk families referred to as More At Four, and another program that offers child, family and health services to children from birth to age five, called Smart Start. Around 871,000 children born between 1988 and 2000 were observed during this study. The children all entered the third grade between 1995 and 2010.
Children from the More at Four program, which is now referred to as NC Pre-K, were found to be 32% less likely to be in special education by the third grade in comparison to their peers who were not enrolled in a preschool program.children enrolled in the Smart Start program were 10% less likely to be in special education by the end of the third grade.both programs together reduced the likelihood of needing special education services by 39%, according to the researchers.  This discovery could mean a significant increase in savings, as special education costs in the US are almost twice as much as regular classroom costs, writes Lyndsey Layton for The Washington Post.
“It shows a level of benefit not only in academic terms but also financially, because special education services are so expensive,” Muschkin said. “This gives policy makers useful evidence that investments in early childhood education are a source of significant cost savings for the state.”
Additional smaller studies have suggested that children who participate in high-quality preschool programs show lifelong benefits, including better jobs, higher wages, and a reduced probability of being in the criminal justice system or needing social services.
However, a large study performed in 2013 looking at almost 5,000 children enrolled in the federal Head Start program serving low-income children from birth to age five, discovered that any literacy progress made in those children faded by the third grade, causing many critics to believe Obama’s universal preschool proposal may not be as cost-effective as it is made out to be.


The Duke study has now suggested that not only is a high-quality preschool program cost effective, and could greatly benefit children who may otherwise need special education services, it could also benefit other children as well.children who were also enrolled in the two preschool programs studied benefited because they are high-quality programs. “The state funding goes to the slots in the classroom, but because the quality has to be high, the other children in the classroom also benefitted, even though they didn’t qualify for More at Four,” said Muschkin.

Benefits of Pre-K in Tennessee Fade by 3rd Grade, Study Says

According to a recently released study by Vanderbilt University, children from low-income families greatly benefit from the pre-kindergarten program in the state of Tennessee, but that the gains quickly fade — and long-term results may be even worse.
The five-year study, which cost $6 million, looked into the effectiveness of Tennessee’s Voluntary Pre-K Program for low-income children.  In the end, researchers found that the children who participated in the program eventually perform worse academically than their peers who did not attend the program.
The results come as the debate continues across the state whether the $85 million program should be cut back or eliminated altogether.
“If kids are doing worse, then why in the heck are they going to spend millions of dollars on it?” said Rep. Bill Dunn, a state representative from Knoxville who has argued for years against state-funded pre-K. “Anybody who really studied the issue would have seen that the emperor had no clothes.”

As a joint effort between Vanderbilt’s Peabody College of Education and Human Development and the Tennessee Department of Education, the study found that children who participated in the program for low-income families initially made gains over the students who did not attend, and were more prepared when they entered kindergarten.  However, those children who did not participate caught up by the end of the kindergarten year.


By second grade, the results found among the two groups of children were evened out, and by third grade, the group of students who had not attended the pre-kindergarten program were outperforming those who had.previous research on the topic, including a study released from the state Comptroller’s office, found a “negligible” difference between children who attended the program and those who did not by the time they reached the third grade.  In addition, these studies suggested the program came with a number of benefits, including higher graduation rates, and a greater likelihood of owning a home by the time they reach their mid-twenties.
“These programs are necessary, and if they’re not doing what we need them to do, we need to fix them. But we certainly need to keep them and we do need to expand them,” said Lisa Wiltshire, executive director of the Tennessee Department of Education’s Office of Early Learning at a panel discussion with Vanderbilt University researchers and early education experts last week.

Governor Bill Haslam has been waiting for the results of the current study to be released before announcing any decisions concerning what to do with the program.  He recently told reporters that he took the report to mean that “quality pre-K with good follow-up can have an impact.”  However, he needs to weigh the research against the money spent on the program.
“I would like for us to put more dollars into [K-12]. We have to do that in context of the budget and in the context of where we’ll get the best results,” Haslam said.

What Makes MA Different From Other States On Education?

Student achievement in Massachusetts handily demonstrates why treating the US as one undifferentiated mass when it comes to education policy may be wrong-headed. According to the latest data, if MA were treated as a separate country, it would have the second-highest levels of academic attainment in the world.

The state defies trends when it comes to science and mathematics. According to the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, it ranked behind only Singapore in 4th-grade science and lagging only Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Japan in the same subject at the 8th grade level.

This puts the state a full 4 places ahead of United States as a whole, according to Kenneth Chang of The New York Times.

TIMMS might not provide a complete picture of student achievement, but the test offers an interesting insight into what happens when a state gets serious about improving its science and math education. Nearly 20 years ago, lawmakers, along with education advocates and experts, set this as a goal, developed a plan and – most importantly – believed in it enough to stick with it through early years of disappointment.while Massachusetts has a richer and better-educated population than most states, it is not uniformly wealthy. The gains reflected improvement across the state, including poorer districts.“I think we are a proof point of what’s possible,” said Mitchell D. Chester, the state education commissioner.

The goal was encapsulated in the Massachusetts Education Reform Act of 1993, a joint effort between the Democratic state legislature and Republican governor William F. Weld. The law attacked the problem of education on three fronts: allocating funding, adopting objective academic benchmarks and – a full decade before it become popular – rolling out a set of standardized exams all students had to pass before they could graduate high school. In this regard, the state seemed foretell the education reform movement that was to upend American education only a few years later. However, there were some parts of the movement that MA rejected outright – specifically, school choice.

Also noteworthy was what the reforms did not include. Parents were not offered vouchers for private schools. The state did not close poorly performing schools, eliminate tenure for teachers or add merit pay. The reforms did allow for some charter schools, but not many.then the state, by and large, stayed the course.the new achievement test, the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS for short), was given to 10th graders for the first time in 1998. (The graduation requirement of obtaining an acceptable score on the 10th-grade MCAS did not take effect until 2003.)

Six GOP Presidential Hopefuls Explain Their Education Platforms

As the 2016 Presidential election season continues to develop, Republican presidential candidates are talking more about their stances on education.

Jeb Bush, at a panel discussion sponsored by the American Federation for Children, a group that advocates school vouchers, and The 74, an education news website launched by former CNN anchor Campbell Brown, said the kids who are left behind tend to be young people who live in poverty, mostly African-American and Hispanic kids. When they fail, he said, we blame it on the “social circumstances of their lives.” Bush also stated that he supports annual standardized tests for public school students just as his brother President George W. Bush did.

The New York Times’ Motoko Rich writes that Bush, a former governor of Florida, used one of his brother’s signature phrases when he said, “And that is what a former president called the ‘soft bigotry of low expectations,’ and we should reject that out of hand.”gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin said he did not support the federal government overseeing public schools.“The federal government doesn’t have a very good track record of holding anybody accountable,” he said. “My solution is, I would like to take the money and the power from Washington in education and send it back to the states.”

By saying this, he added, he would be going against some in his own party.

Republicans in the race for president have been divided on the subject of education, and the panel was a testimony to that fact as participants tried to explain how little they would have the federal government involved in public schools; that they were on the side of high standards for the country’s schoolchildren; and that some were backing away from the Common Core, the educational guidelines that have become extremely controversial among teachers, parents, and conservatives.both Walker and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie are critical of teachers unions. And for years, Republicans have wanted the federal government to get out of the education business, even as far as abolishing the federal Education Department. But President G. W. Bush’s education law, No Child Left Behind, greatly expanded the role of the federal government by requiring annual standardized tests and ordering interventions for schools that were judged to be failing.

The summit on education took place at a Londonderry, NH high school and was moderated by CNN anchor-turned education reformer Campbell Brown. The American Federation for Children and Brown are backers of expanding access to charter schools and overhauling teacher tenure laws that they say make it too hard to fire a bad teacher.

Bush and Ohio Gov. John Kasich were the only backers of Common Core in the group. Carly Fiorina, former CEO of Hewlett-Packard, says she does not support the Common Core, however, five years ago she praised President Obama for initiating the “internationally benchmarked standards.”

Obama’s Race to the Top called for states to use higher quality, more stringent academic standards, which did not necessarily have to be the Common Core, in exchange for federal dollars. Most states did choose to add Common Core, according to Stephanie Condon of CBS News.bush and Fiorina endorsed school vouchers to push competition and innovation in the nation’s school systems. Fiorina touted Nevada’s new law that permits parents to open a K-12 education accounts which would allow their children to take their public funding to whichever school they and their parents choose. The plan is strongly opposed by Democrats and several education organizations, as opponents say this will leave struggling and low-income students in lower-funded schools.

Caitlin Emma of Politico writes that Louisiana Gov. Jindal was behind the Common Core at the start, but is now suing the federal government over the standards. Gov. Chris Christie agreed to the Common Core in 2010, but now denounces the curriculum. The GOP candidates speak often of restoring local control, but Brown asked whether education could be improved if there is no federal role.

College of the Holy Cross

The College of the Holy Cross or Holy Cross is a private, undergraduate Roman Catholic, Jesuit liberal arts college located in Worcester, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1843, Holy Cross is the oldest Catholic college in New England and one of the oldest in the United States. U.S. News & World Report ranked Holy Cross 25th in the U.S. among liberal arts colleges in 2014. Holy Cross is the only Catholic college among the top 50 liberal arts schools on the U.S. News list.opened as a school for boys under the auspices of the Society of Jesus, it was the first Jesuit college in New England. Today, Holy Cross is one of 28 member institutions of the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities (AJCU) and is part of the Colleges of Worcester Consortium (COWC). Holy Cross sports teams are called the Crusaders, and their sole color is purple; they compete in NCAA Division I as members of the Patriot League. As of 2014, the Holy Cross endowment was valued at $726,053,000.

In 1998, Holy Cross initiated an eight-year capital campaign, "Lift High the Cross," with a three-year quiet period. The campaign for Holy Cross ended in fiscal 2006 with $216.3 million raised, surpassing its original goal of $175 million. The funds allowed Holy Cross to establish an additional 12 new faculty positions, along with more than 75 newly endowed scholarships for students. The campaign provided support for the renovation of the Mary Chapel as well as construction of new facilities on campus, including Smith Hall, which houses the new Michael C. McFarland Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture; a five-story apartment-style residence housing 244 seniors; and a new 1,350-seat soccer stadium. During the history of the campaign, the College's endowment grew to more than $544 million.on July 1, 2000, Rev. Michael C. McFarland, S.J. became the president of the college. On February 3, 2011, Fr. McFarland announced his resignation as President of the College, and a national search, led by the Board of Trustees, was conducted to find his successor. On May 7, 2011, Rev. Philip L. Boroughs, S.J., the Vice President for Mission and Ministry at Georgetown University, was named as McFarland's successor.

Holy Cross has 240 faculty members who teach 2,817 undergraduate students. It offers 28 majors mainly focused on a liberal arts curriculum, each of which leads to the completion of the Bachelor of Arts degree. All B.A. candidates must successfully complete 32 semester courses in eight semesters of full-time study to graduate. Common requirements include one course each in arts, literature, religion, philosophy, history, and cross-cultural studies; and two courses each in language studies, social science, and natural and mathematical sciences. As of 2010, Holy Cross is in the top 3% of four-year colleges in the number of students going on to earn doctorates in their fields.the top five majors for the 2008-2009 school year were Economics, English, Psychology, Political Science, and Sociology. Holy Cross also offers multidisciplinary concentrations, pre-professional programs, and the option to create a major or minor through the Center for Interdisciplinary and Special Studies. Holy Cross students who apply to medical school have an 91% acceptance rate and for law school an 91% acceptance rate. The College notes that the medical school acceptance rate is more than twice the national average.

Of particular interest is the Classics department at Holy Cross, which has ten faculty members, making it the second largest Classics program at any American liberal arts college (after St. John's College (Annapolis/Santa Fe), where Ancient Greek is a required subject). D. Neel Smith, one of the department professors, is a primary collaborator on the Perseus Project, the multimedia database of Greek antiquity created by several college and universities. During the 2006-07 academic year, Holy Cross will specifically be editing the Homer Multitext Project, a long-term analysis and electronic presentation of all the many variations of Homer’s epic poetry.

Holy Cross has traditionally drawn many of its students from a pool of historical Catholic high schools and private boarding schools, though a majority of current undergraduates come from public schools. Holy Cross' overall undergraduate acceptance rate for the incoming 2014 class was 43.3 percent. In 2013, the middle 50% SAT score range for those who submitted a score was 1220-1380 out of 1600. Even though Holy Cross did not first admit women students until 1972, its student population is currently majority female, as with most liberal arts institutions, with this majority continuing to grow with the most recent entering classes.in May 2005, Holy Cross announced that it would no longer make standardized test scores an admissions requirement. College officials said this policy would reduce the importance of the tests and place greater weight on the academic experience of a candidate, as demonstrated through the high school transcript and recommendations. As of October 2006, more than 730 four-year colleges and universities of varying rank do not use the SAT I or ACT to admit bachelor degree applicants. Tuition for full-time students for the 2012-13 academic year is $55,130.

Holy Cross' campus, a registered arboretum, has won national awards for its landscaping. In 1977, Holy Cross was cited by the Professional Grounds Management Society (PGMS) for having the best-maintained school or university grounds in the United States[45] Holy Cross is marked by an irregular layout as its 175-acre (0.71 km2) campus is situated on the northern slope of a very steep hill named Mount Saint James which offers it a panoramic view of the city of Worcester. The Princeton Review ranked the campus as #5 most beautiful campus in the nation in 2010 and consistently ranks the campus in the top 15. The design and landscape is ingrained into many themes and nicknames for the school which is commonly known as The Hill.

Today, some 37 college buildings are divided primarily with residential housing and academic buildings located in the middle sections of the campus, with athletic and practice facilities on the outskirts of the campus on its northern and southern ends. Holy Cross also owns 6 non-campus properties.anchoring the traditional campus gateway of Linden Lane are Stein and O’Kane Halls, the latter of which is marked by a clock tower. The oldest part of campus lies in this area, as O’Kane is connected to Fenwick Hall, the first building which was designed in 1843; it also houses the admissions offices and the Brooks Concert Hall. This area contains manicured trees and landscaped greens which include three nude bronze statues by Enzo Plazzotta, Georg Klobe, and Welrick on the hillside. This is a popular spot for pranks as students take turns dressing up the statues. The area around Fenwick and O'Kane Halls is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Notable buildings north of this area are Dinand Library; Smith Hall, the Hogan Campus Center; the scientific complex housing O'Neil, Swords, and Haberlin Halls, and Beaven Hall, home to an assortment of academic departments. Smith Hall, opened in 2001, was financed in large part by Holy Cross alumnus Park B. Smith, and is architecturally impressive as it is built into a hillside of the campus. Smith Hall connects the lower campus, where much of the academic life occurs, and the upper campus, where much of the social and residential life takes place on campus due to its design which incorporates Fenwick Hall. A plaza outside Smith Hall, named Memorial Plaza, commemorates seven Holy Cross alumni who perished in the September 11, 2001 attacks.to the western end of campus lies Millard Art Center, St. Joseph Memorial Chapel, the Chaplains' Office (Campion House), and Loyola Hall, which served as the Jesuit residence in the past, but has since been converted into another hall for student housing. The Jesuit residence Ciampi Hall is now located in the Northeast corner of the campus.

College of Wooster

The College of Wooster is a private liberal arts college primarily known for its emphasis on mentored undergraduate research. It enrolls approximately 2,000 students, and is located in Wooster, Ohio, United States (approximately 95 miles (153 km) northeast of Columbus, the state capital). Founded in 1866 by the Presbyterian Church as the University of Wooster, it was from its creation a co-educational institution. The school is a member of The Five Colleges of Ohio and the Great Lakes Colleges Association. As of June 30, 2014, Wooster's endowment stood at approximately $271 million.

Wooster is one of forty colleges named in Loren Pope's influential book Colleges That Change Lives, in which he called it his "...original best-kept secret in higher education." It is consistently ranked among the nation's top liberal arts colleges, according to U.S. News and World Report. In US News' "Best Colleges 2014", for the 12th year in a row, Wooster is recognized for its “outstanding” undergraduate research opportunities and its senior capstone program, known as I.S. Only two schools have been named to both lists in each of the past 12 years: Wooster and Princeton University.

founded as The University of Wooster in 1866 by Presbyterians, the institution opened its doors in 1870 with a faculty of five and a student body of thirty men and four women. Wealthy Wooster citizen Ephraim Quinby donated the first 22 acres (89,000 m2), a large oak grove situated on a hilltop overlooking the town. After being founded with the intent to make Wooster open to everyone, the university's first Ph.D. was granted to a woman, Annie B. Irish, in 1882. The first black student, Clarence Allen, began his studies later in the same decade.

In the pre-dawn hours of December 11, 1901, a fire destroyed the five-story 'Old Main' building, the centerpiece of the campus. Within two years, it was replaced by several new buildings which (after substantial renovations within the last 30 years) remain the primary structures for the classes, labs, and faculty offices. These include Kauke Hall (the iconic center of campus), Scovel, Severance (which together form a large courtyard in front of Kauke Hall), and Taylor Hall.about ten years after the fire and rebuilding, there were eight divisions, including a medical school whose faculty outnumbered those in the college of arts and sciences. However, the university had gradually begun to define itself as a liberal arts institution and, in 1915, after a bitter dispute between the faculty and the Trustees, chose to become The College of Wooster in order to devote itself entirely to the education of undergraduate students in the liberal arts. The enrollment of the college is kept intentionally small, around 2000 students, to allow for close interaction between faculty and students.

In the 1920s, William Jennings Bryan, a prominent Presbyterian layman, attacked the college for its teaching of evolution, which had been championed by president Charles F. Wishart, and called for the General Assembly of the church to cut off funding to the college. But Wishart defeated Bryan for the position of Moderator of the General Assembly, and the college continued to teach evolution.the College 240-acre (0.97 km2) has an unusual tree endowment, established in 1987, which supports tree conservation, maintenance, and a tree replacement program. The Oak Grove, a pleasant green space near the center of campus, plays host to commencement ceremonies each May. Several of the Grove's trees are older than the college itself, including an eastern black oak near Galpin Hall that dates to 1681, as well as a 1766 white oak. Each senior class plants a class tree in the Oak Grove on the day before graduation.      

          Wooster is the home of the Ohio Light Opera, an enterprise founded within the college in 1979, but not part of the college curriculum. It is the only professional company in the United States entirely devoted to operetta. OLO performs the entire Gilbert & Sullivan repertoire, but also regularly revives rarely performed continental works of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Over the years, the Company has produced eighty different operettas.

Wooster's large performing ensembles include The Wooster Symphony Orchestra, founded in 1915 by Daniel Parmelee, then Professor of Violin at the college. The orchestra currently is the second-oldest orchestra in continuous performance in the state of Ohio. Additional large ensembles include the Scot Symphonic and Marching Bands, the Wooster Chorus, and the Wooster Jazz Ensemble.

wooster has an active on-campus pipe band. Officially called the College of Wooster Pipe Band, members perform at many official on-campus events such as commencement, sports games (football, basketball, swim meets, and sometimes lacrosse games) and many spontaneous student-run events. During the spring season they perform and compete at a grade 3 level, having won prizes at the Scots wi' Shotts event in Cleveland hosted by the local Lochaber Pipe Band. The Pipe Band also placed first in the grade 3 contest at the 2009 Toronto Indoor Highland Games. Wooster was the only American band competing.

The College's department of Theatre and Dance produces two dance concerts per year, a fall concert in the round, and a spring concert in a more formal proscenium setting. Additionally, the college produces at least two plays each academic year. Further plays are produced by student groups and seniors pursuing their Independent Study projects. In 2007, Wooster's theatre production of 'Nocturne' was invited to perform at the Kennedy Center's American College Theatre Festival in Washington, D.C. Wooster's production was one of four shows chosen from a field of approximately 400 entries.          the College of Wooster has over one hundred student organizations, from the Jenny Investment Club, which allows students to invest real money for the College as they learn about the stock market, to Common Grounds, a student-run coffee shop and house program offering 'an alternative atmosphere to the partying scene' for the College community.there are currently ten active Greek groups at the College of Wooster, six sororities and four fraternities. Called clubs and sections, these groups are not affiliated with national Greek organizations, and approximately fifteen percent of the student body participates.

The college has a wide variety of student-run media. The Wooster Voice is the weekly student newspaper with a newly launched website, and has been published continuously since 1886 (see list of college newspapers), while WCWS (WOO 91) is the college radio station. The Goliard is the annual literary magazine. Each year, English professor Daniel Bourne also publishes an international literary magazine called Artful Dodge. Additionally, the English Department has classes every two years on journalism and magazine writing; these students create and publish a newspaper and a magazine respectively.the college also has a successful Ultimate Frisbee program. The Women's team, Betty Gone Wild, won USAUltimate's DIII College Championship Sectionals in 2014 and 2015. Also in 2014 and 2015 they came in 2nd at USAUltimate's DIII College Championship Regionals. They attended the National College Championship in 2014 and came in 15th place with a 1st place award in spirit.

Education in Canada

Education in Canada is for the most part provided publicly, funded and overseen by federal, provincial, and local governments. Education is within provincial jurisdiction and the curriculum is overseen by the province. Education in Canada is generally divided into primary education, followed by secondary education and post-secondary. Within the provinces under the ministry of education, there are district school boards administering the educational programs. Education is compulsory up to the age of 16 in every province in Canada, except for Manitoba, Ontario and New Brunswick, where the compulsory age is 18, or as soon as a high school diploma has been achieved. In some provinces early leaving exemptions can be granted under certain circumstances at 14. Canada generally has 190 (180 in Quebec) school days in the year, officially starting from September (after Labour Day) to the end of June (usually the last Friday of the month, except in Quebec when it is just before June 24 – the provincial holiday).

Elementary, secondary, and post-secondary education in Canada is a provincial responsibility and there are many variations between the provinces. Some educational fields are supported at various levels by federal departments. For example, the Department of National Defence includes the Royal Military College of Canada, while the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs Canada is responsible for the education of First Nations. Vocational training can be subsidized by the Learning branch of Human Resources and Skills Development Canada 1950 Canadian School Train. Pupils attend classes at Nemegos near Chapleau, Ontario.about one out of ten Canadians does not have a high school diploma – one in seven has a university degree – the adult population that is without a high school diploma is a combination of both immigrant and Canadian-born. In many places, publicly funded high school courses are offered to the adult population. The ratio of high school graduates versus non diploma-holders is changing rapidly, partly due to changes in the labour market that require people to have a high school diploma and, in many cases, a university degree. Majority of Schools 67% percent are co-Ed.

Canada spends about 5.4% of its GDP on education.The country invests heavily in tertiary education (more than 20 000 USD per student). Since the adoption of section 23 of the Constitution Act, 1982, education in both English and French has been available in most places across Canada (if the population of children speaking the minority language justifies it), although French Second Language education/French Immersion is available to anglophone students across Canada.according to an announcement of Canadian Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, Canada is introducing a new, fast-track system to let foreign students and graduates with Canadian work experience become permanent eligible residents in Canada.

Most schools have introduced one or more initiatives such as programs in Native studies, antiracism, Aboriginal cultures and crafts; visits by elders and other community members; and content in areas like indigenous languages, Aboriginal spirituality, indigenous knowledge of nature, and tours to indigenous heritage sites.Although these classes are offered, most appear to be limited by the area or region in which students reside. "The curriculum is designed to elicit development and quality of people's cognition through the guiding of accommodations of individuals to their natural environment and their changing social order" Finally, "some scholars view academics as a form of "soft power" helping to educate and to create positive attitudes.",although there is criticism that educators are merely telling students what to think, instead of how to think for themselves. Furthermore, "subjects that typically get assessed (i.e., language arts, mathematics, and science) assume greater importance than non-assessed subjects (i.e., music, visual arts, and physical education) or facets of the curriculum (i.e., reading and writing versus speaking and listening)."The students in the Canadian school system receive a variety of classes that are offered to them. The system is set up to meet the diverse needs of the individual student.

Primary education and secondary education combined are sometimes referred to as K-12 (Kindergarten through Grade 12). Secondary schooling, known as high school, 'collegiate institute, "école secondaire" or secondary school, consists of different grades depending on the province in which one resides. Furthermore, grade structure may vary within a province or even within a school division and may or may not include middle school or junior high school.kindergarten (or its equivalent) is available for children in all provinces in the year they turn five (except Ontario and Quebec, where it begins a year earlier), but the names of these programs, provincial funding, and the number of hours provided varies widely. For example, the Department of Education in Nova Scotia refers to Kindergarten as Grade Primary.

Ontario offers two years of optional kindergarten (junior kindergarten for four-year-olds and senior kindergarten for five-year-olds). At French schools in Ontario, these programs are called Maternelle and CPE Centre de la Petite Enfance. In 2010, Ontario increased both years to full-day programs, while BC's single year of kindergarten became full-day in 2012. Quebec offers heavily subsidized preschool programs and introduced an early kindergarten program for children from low-income families in 2013. Students in the Prairie provinces are not required by statute to attend kindergarten. As a result, kindergarten often is not available in smaller towns.dependent on the province the age of mandatory entry to the education system is at 4–7 years. Starting at grade one, at age six or seven, there is universal publicly funded access up to grade twelve (age seventeen to eighteen), except in Quebec, where secondary school ends one year earlier. Children are required to attend school until the age of sixteen (eighteen in Manitoba, Ontario, and New Brunswick). In Quebec, the typical high school term ends after Secondary V/Grade eleven (age sixteen to seventeen); following this, students who wish to pursue their studies to the university level have to attend college (see Education in Quebec). Quebec is currently the only province where Grade 12 is part of postsecondary, though Grade 11 was also the end of secondary education in Newfoundland and Labrador prior to the introduction of grade 12 in 1983.

Ontario had a "Grade 13" known as Ontario Academic Credit (OAC) year, but this was abolished in 2003 by the provincial government to cut costs. As a result, the curriculum has been compacted, and the more difficult subjects, such as mathematics, are comparatively harder than before. However, the system is now approximately equivalent to what has been the case outside of Quebec and Ontario for many years.students may continue to attend high school until the ages of 19 to 21 (the cut-off age for high school varies between provinces). Those 19 and over may attend adult school. Students of high school age who have received long-term suspensions or have been expelled, or are otherwise unable or unwilling to attend conventional schools may be offered alternative learning options to complete their secondary education, such as drop-in programs, night school, or distance/online class.an increasing number of international students are attending pre-university courses at Canadian high schools.

Education in India

Education in India is provided by the public sector as well as the private sector, with control and funding coming from three levels: central, state, and local. Under various articles of the Indian Constitution, free and compulsory education is provided as a fundamental right to children between the ages of 6 and 14. The ratio of public schools to private schools in India is 7:5.india has made progress in terms of increasing the primary education attendance rate and expanding literacy to approximately three-quarters of the population in the 7-10 age group, by 2011. India's improved education system is often cited as one of the main contributors to its economic development. Much of the progress, especially in higher education and scientific research, has been credited to various public institutions.

At the primary and secondary level, India has a large private school system complementing the government run schools, with 29% of students receiving private education in the 6 to 14 age group. Certain post-secondary technical schools are also private. The private education market in India had a revenue of US$450 million in 2008, but is projected to be a US$40 billion market.as per the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2012, 96.5% of all rural children between the ages of 6-14 were enrolled in school. This is the fourth annual survey to report enrollment above 96%. Another report from 2013 stated that there were 229 million students enrolled in different accredited urban and rural schools of India, from Class I to XII, representing an increase of 2.3 million students over 2002 total enrollment, and a 19% increase in girl's enrollment. While quantitatively India is inching closer to universal education, the quality of its education has been questioned particularly in its government run school system. Some of the reasons for the poor quality include absence of around 25 percent of teachers every day. States of India have introduced tests and education assessment system to identify and improve such schools.

It is important to clarify that while there are private schools in India, they are highly regulated in terms of what they can teach, in what form they can operate (must be a non-profit to run any accredited educational institution) and all other aspects of operation. Hence, the differentiation of government schools and private schools can be misguiding.in India's education system, a significant number of seats are reserved under affirmative action policies for the historically disadvantaged Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes. In universities, colleges, and similar institutions affiliated to the federal government, there is a minimum 50% of reservations applicable to these disadvantaged groups, at the state level it can vary. Maharashtra had 73% reservation in 2014, which is the highest percentage of reservations in India.

The Indian government lays emphasis on primary education, also referred to as elementary education, to children aged 6 to 14 years old. The Indian government has also banned child labor in order to ensure that the children do not enter unsafe working conditions. However, both free education and the ban on child labour are difficult to enforce due to economic disparity and social conditions. 80% of all recognized schools at the elementary stage are government run or supported, making it the largest provider of education in the country.however, due to a shortage of resources and lack of political will, this system suffers from massive gaps including high pupil to teacher ratios, shortage of infrastructure and poor levels of teacher training. Figures released by the Indian government in 2011 show that there were 5,816,673 elementary school teachers in India.As of March 2012 there were 2,127,000 secondary school teachers in India. Education has also been made free for children for 6 to 14 years of age or up to class VIII under the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act 2009.

There have been several efforts to enhance quality made by the government. The District Education Revitalization Programme (DERP) was launched in 1994 with an aim to universalize primary education in India by reforming and vitalizing the existing primary education system. 85% of the DERP was funded by the central government and the remaining 15 percent was funded by the states. The DERP, which had opened 160000 new schools including 84000 alternative education schools delivering alternative education to approximately 3.5 million children, was also supported by UNICEF and other international programmes.this primary education scheme has also shown a high Gross Enrollment Ratio of 93–95% for the last three years in some states. Significant improvement in staffing and enrollment of girls has also been made as a part of this scheme. The current scheme for universalization of Education for All is the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan which is one of the largest education initiatives in the world. Enrollment has been enhanced, but the levels of quality remain low.

Takshasila was the earliest recorded centre of higher learning in India from at least 5th century BCE and it is debatable whether it could be regarded a university or not. Nalanda was the oldest university-system of education in the world in the modern sense of university.secular institutions cropped up along with Hindu temples, mutts and Buddhist monasteries. These institutions imparted practical education, e.g. medicine. A number of urban learning centres became increasingly visible from the period between 500 BCE to 400 CE. The important urban centres of learning were Taxila (in modern-day Pakistan) and Nalanda in Bihar, among others. These institutions systematically imparted knowledge and attracted a number of foreign students to study topics such as Vedic and Buddhist literature, logic, grammar, etc. Chanakya, a Brahmin teacher, was among the most famous teachers of Takshasila, associated with founding of Mauryan Empire.

Brahmin gurus historically offered education by means of donations, rather than charging fees or the procurement of funds from students or their guardians. Later, temples also became centres of education; religious education was compulsory, but secular subjects were also taught. Students were required to be brahmacharis or celibates. The knowledge in these orders was often related to the tasks a section of the society had to perform. The priest class, the Brahmins, were imparted knowledge of religion, philosophy, and other ancillary branches while the warrior class, the Kshatriya, were trained in the various aspects of warfare. The business class, the Vaishya, were taught their trade and the working class of the Shudras was generally deprived of educational advantages. The book of laws, the Manusmriti, and the treatise on statecraft the Arthashastra were among the influential works of this era which reflect the outlook and understanding of the world at the time.