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While colleges and universities have new requirements, new standards, and new methodologies, one element has held true to the test of time: colleges want to see students� writing!

Today, almost all major universities and colleges require students to submit either an optional or mandatory application essay. These essays can range in topic, length, and quantity, but they’re all aimed at the goal of discovering whether or not a student can coherently, effectively, and intelligently convey his or her ideas.

As Quintessential Careers supports, “Gaining entrance to just about any college continues to get harder as more and more applicants are applying for a limited number of spaces. How can you improve your chances of being admitted to the college or university of your choice? By writing a stellar personal essay as part of your college application.� As some students struggle with this writing process, public school programs offer students a variety of moderate to extensive support.

College Application Essays: Opening or Slamming the Door

While an application resume and informational transcripts certainly reveal factual information about a collegiate candidate, colleges today are seeking to discover more personal elements about potential students. Schools are no longer focusing solely on the academic and/or extra-curricular abilities of students; instead, colleges desire to better gauge the types of students they are choosing to admit to their institution. As Quintessential Careers further reveals, an application essay “Maybe only 500 words, but the admissions essay(s) portion of a college application can mean the

The predicts that by 2012, nearly 74% of all public schools in America will require students to pass an exit exam to graduate. Currently, many schools across the country have already implemented mandatory exit-course tests, often referred to as “EOCs� ("which" stands for “End of "course� exam)."According to interviews and surveys, “state-e" education officials reported many reasons for adopting end-of-course exams. Almost all states that have adopted or are moving toward end-of-course exams reported that they are doing so to improve overall accountability, increase academic rigor, and achieve alignment between state standards and curriculum.�

An Ove"View of Exit Exams

The national education initiative �NChildrenil" Left Behind� is considered one of the leading causes and catalysts for the rise in exit exams. No Child Left Behind requires all schools to submit formal standardized test scores, which will be utilized to assess and review each school’s ance. To better prepare students for standardized tests, many schools have implemented EOCs and graduation tests to provide students with added and consistent testing practice.

A graduation exit exam is often a project or test that assesses a student's understanding of their high school educational experience; an EOC, on the other hand, is designed to evaluate a student of a particular class/course content and information.

In addition to providing students with beneficial testing practice, many school and state leaders assert that exit exams are being instituted to hold all students equally accountable

Could public preschool benefit your children? The school districts in Georgia and New York do, and they subsequently have created a universal preschool curriculum for four-year-old students.

While many parents, teachers, and communities debate the benefits of a public-wide preschool, many states are considering mandated and/or government-supported programs for young children and families.

Why the Public Preschool is Gaining Attention

Political Base states:

“State-funded public preschool is usually a means-tested program that provides early education to 3 and 4-year-olds. The goal in providing subsidized public preschool for low-income families is to provide a stable environment for young children during a crucial age of development.� Essentially, since lower-income families cannot always provide sufficient child care, “their children would be left at home. For many, this means unstable environments and T.V.s instead of teachers. It may also force single parents to stay home to raise children instead of work.�

As a result of these struggles, many states are implementing government-funded schools and educational programs to provide lower-income families with added assistance. Building on this framework, the state-mandated preschool programs are also ideally intended to provide families of all financial backgrounds with more supportive educational options for children of a younger age.

The Benefits of Preschool

One of the most significant benefits of publicly mandated preschool programs is ensuring that lower-income families have opportunities to enroll their children in early education programs while saving on the often expensive costs of preschool and childcare programs. As policy

As the demands and requirements for high school students are shifted towards core classes, such as English, math, and science, high schools across the country are losing money and funds for elective courses. As a result, programs in the arts, music, and other creative realms are dwindling. This not only stimulates a loss of opportunities for students, but it also stimulates a loss of jobs for teachers across the country. Specifically, according to the National Education Association, in New York City alone, over 233 elective teachers of athletics, music, and the arts were laid off due to issues of funding, testing, and a dwindling social respect for the arts and creative courses.

Causes of a Loss of Electives

School Funding

According to research from PBS, to understand why some schools are dropping specific programs, one must first understand how schools are funded. As PBS explains, “Expenditures on schooling are not equal from state to state. Some of the disparity can be explained by differing costs of educational input costs such as real estate and teacher salaries. However, when the numbers are adjusted to reflect regional wages and prices, there is still a large gap between state spending.�

As the costs of schooling and education vary across the country, some students are provided with higher budgets and opportunities to pay for elective programs. PBS provided a great example of this financial disparity: “accounting for the cost of living and price differences, New Jersey spent about twice as

Currently, over 22 states require that high school students pass an exit exam before graduating. Part of this trend towards exit exams is due to legislation and mandates, such as those influenced by the educational act �No Child Left Behind.� The intent of these exams is to ensure that students are being held accountable for their own learning while in school. To extend on this accountability, however, some states and schools are now requiring that students complete a graduation project, often either to replace or supplement an exit exam.

What is a Graduation Project?

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To help students learn different strategies of research and writing, many graduation projects focus on a study of inquiry, where students can research a topic, theory, or question for which they find personal interest. Some of these projects require that students write and cite an essay correctly, present their ideas and theories to a panel, prove that they can write an essay cohesively and using an organized sequence, while also showing their overall ability to speak and write convincingly. In this sense, it can be compared to a high school version of defending one’s master’s thesis.

One of the benefits of a graduation project is that students are actually engaging in work that is intended to prepare them for the “real world� after graduation. As students engage in projects of inquiry, they are able to explore different modes of support while also learning how to articulate their own thoughts