Go ahead and give yourself a high five. You made it to Friday. The weekend is ahead of you, and if you’re in the DC area, that means sitting in front of a fan and trying desperately to find relief from this heat wave. Actually, looking at the weather map, there’s a lot of places across the country at the moment where you could be reading this in front of a fan. In any event, we have a bunch of pieces of news for you today to close your week out properly.

Five more states are free from key requirements of the No Child Left Act today because the Department of Education has granted waivers to Arkansas, Missouri, South Dakota, Utah, and Virginia. This brings the count of states that have been granted waivers up to 24. The Associated Press via Education Week has more on the implications of this story.

Welcome to Thursday’s announcements. It’s a bit of a slow news day in terms of education policy today because of all of the national news surrounding Supreme Court decisions, Contempt of Congress hearings, and University President reinstatements. Here’s just a few bits of news for you today.

First, from Education Week, comes the news that Iowa, in the wake of its waiver request being rejected by the U.S. Department of Education, is requesting that it receive a one year freeze in NCLB state targets. This is new territory in the process because  Iowa was the first state to have its waiver application rejected. As NCLB targets continue to increase toward 100% proficiency demanded in 2014, more states who haven’t received waivers may have to request target freezes.

The Stats! They Stick! They stick in your head and they cannot be unstuck! Here’s this week’s edition of the statistics we can’t get out of our heads.

First, although this isn’t a specific statistic, be sure to check out this excellent infographic from Civitas Learning (posted by The Huffington Post) that is a great reference of U.S. graduate and unemployment rates compared to those in other countries.

Number of dollars less a six-year completer of college generally makes annually compared to a four-year completer: $13,000.

A report from the University of Tennessee Center for Business and Economic Research found that students who complete their degree in the traditional four-year time span earn more than those who take longer to complete. Education Week has the story.

Good morning and welcome to Wednesday’s announcements! You’re still on the front half of this week until about 1pm today. Why not ease the wait until the midpoint of your week with a healthy dose of today’s education news?

Today’s must-read is from The Huffington Post, which shares an infographic that compares graduation rates and unemployment levels in the U.S. and other countries.  The infographic was released by Civitas Learning, and is quite compelling.

Stateline is next up today with an interesting read about Teach for America alumni who are running for political office. There are currently two TFA alumni who are legislators at the state level, but at least six more are running for office in the current campaign cycle. Many of these TFA candidates have faced opposition from teachers unions.

Welcome to today’s edition of the afternoon announcements. We hope you’re having a great day out there and are ready to get some of today’s news.

Before we start off today, you should know (if you don’t already) that tomorrow at 1pm we’ll be hosting a webinar with Alliance president Bob Wise and Communities in Schools president Daniel Cardinali. The webinar will focus on the economic impacts of increasing high school graduation rates. The two presidents will discuss the findings from CIS’s return-on-investment study, conducted by one of the nation’s leading economic modeling firms. The study demonstrates that CIS produces meaningful and social impacts by increasing high school graduation rates and the lifetime benefits for students, businesses, and taxpayers.

Hello and welcome to your Monday afternoon announcements! We’re late on delivering today, so without too much chitchat, let’s get on with it!

First, the U.S. Treasury Department recently released a report that told us something that we’ve known here at the Alliance for a while: education is a ticket to upward mobility. The Huffington Post reports that “for those born into the poorest fifth of American families, the obtainment of a college degree gives you an 80 percent chance of bettering your economic status over the course of a lifetime. Opt not to graduate college, and those odds drop to 55 percent,” according to “The Economic Case for Higher Education.”

Hello again! It’s time for your weekly dose of the Report Round-up, where we share the reports we’ve seen recently that we think merit your attention.

First, we’d be remiss if we didn’t share with you the Alliance’s latest effort: “A Framework for Advancing Career and Technical Education: Recommendations for the Reauthorization of the Carl D. Perkins Act.” As Congress takes up the Perkins Act, the Alliance wants to make sure that policy makers know that the legislation must continue to “ensure that the opportunities provided at the secondary school level are relevant, engaging, of high quality, and aligned with the career demands that lie ahead, and that such opportunities place a targeted focus on those youth who have traditionally been least likely to have access to the educational opportunities that prepare them to be both college and career ready.”

Here it is: the end of your work week. Friday is here and so are your announcements for the day. Check these out, then go ahead and feel free to check out for the day. You’ve earned it. Have a great weekend!

The Baltimore Sun starts us off today with a story about how a summer camp for homeless children is helping to ease their transition between elementary and middle schools. The article notes, “the 104-year-old Camp St. Vincent began its program this week, attempting to see that the most vulnerable students don’t fall through the cracks and sustain substantial learning loss during the summer.”

Hellooooo, Thursday! Welcome to your afternoon announcements! Although today’s introduction is peppy, some of the news we have today is less than chipper. Bear with us as we walk you through your education news for the day.

First up, Gallup says that “confidence in America’s public schools has hit a record low, with only 29 percent of respondents expressing ‘a great deal’ or ‘quite a lot’ of confidence in them.” The previous low was 33 percent in 2007 and 2008. The Huffington Post has the news. How confident are you in America’s public schools? Let us known in the comments!

The Education Law Center recently released the second edition of their National Report Card, “Is School Funding Fair?” The answer to the report’s main question? That would be a no. According to The Huffington Post (which today is the bearer of bad news), “the report found that only 17 states have progressive funding systems, according to which the state allocates greater funding to districts buckling under poverty.”

Time for your weekly dose of Stats That Stick! Here are some of the articles and their statistics that stuck in our minds this week.

Percent of 12^th grade students who were able to explain results and draw conclusions from data collected from experiments during NAEP 2009: 11%.
According to a report released Tuesday by the National Center for Education Statistics, American students had a lot of trouble coming to conclusions and explaining results of science experiments during the science portion of the National Assessment for Educational Progress 2009. This indicates that many American students may be lacking the deeper learning skills that they will need to succeed in college and a career. For more information about deeper learning skills, check out the Alliance’s report “A Time for Deeper Learning: Preparing Students for a Changing World.”