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Obama Restates Old Education Commitments In 2014 State Of The Union Address
1/28/14 | Huffington Post

Behind the Headline
Expanding College Opportunities
Fall 2013 | Education Next

In this year’s State of the Union Address, President Obama spoke mostly about projects that have already been announced rather than introducing new initiatives. As enumerated by HuffPost’s Joy Resmovits, “Obama promoted a competition to redesign high school, boosting schools’ Internet connectivity, and making college more affordable and accessible — all ideas he has already proposed.”

Ed Next authors have advice on all three initiatives:

Earlier this year, Ed Next asked experts to comment on the competition to redesign high school. Their comments can be found here.

In a new article for Ed Next, Rick Hess and Bror Saxberg explain what has to happen after schools boost their Internet connectivity: teachers and school leaders need to think like learning engineers to put new technology to good use.

And one of President Obama’s favored ideas for making college more accessible comes from a study by Caroline Hoxby and Sarah Turner, who found that when high-achieving poor students were mailed information about their college options early in the admissions process, this led them to apply and enroll in top colleges. That study “Expanding College Opportunities: Intervention yields strong returns for low-income high achievers,” appears in the Fall 2013 issue of Ed Next.

-Education Next