The National Center for Education Statistics has released the first report using data from the third wave of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Birth Cohort (ECLS-B), a study of a nationally representative sample of children born in the year 2001. The report provides a range of information about these children when they were about 4 years old.

Click here to download, view and print the publication as a PDF file.

White students were less segregated from minority students in 2005-2006 than they were in 1993-1994, but over the same period black and Hispanic students became slightly more isolated from white students, according to an analysis of the Education Department’s Common Core of Data (CCD) Public School Universe Survey by the Pew Hispanic Center. The center’s report attributes the seemingly contradictory trend to Latinos comprising a larger proportion, and whites a smaller proportion, of the student population.

Citation: Rick Fry (2007, August). The Changing Racial and Ethnic Composition of U.S. Public Schools. Pew Hispanic Center. (Available online)

Collectively, more Asian American college and university students are experiencing obstacles to academic success in US higher education than in the past, according to a new UCLA report. The report, Beyond Myths: The Growth and Diversity of Asian American College Freshmen, 1971–2005, is available for order from the Higher Education Research Institute.

There is some discussion about the data used in the report on the Chronicle of Higher Education News Blog.

The education budget of a single country like France, Germany, Italy or the United Kingdom outweighs education spending across the entire sub-Saharan African region, according to a new report from the UNESCO Institute for Statistics. The Global Education Digest 2007 focuses on financing of education and includes the latest statistics on primary to tertiary education from more than 200 countries.

Low-income students who attend urban public high schools generally do just as well as private-school students with similar backgrounds, according to a study released today (AP). The study is based on analysis of the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988-2000 (NELS88).

Citation: Harold Wenglinsky (2007). Are Private High Schools Better Academically Than Public High Schools? Washington, DC: Center on Education Policy. (Available online)

The following new reports on education research supported by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation are available online:

• A child’s-eye view of social difference

• A review of research on the links between education and poverty
• Children researching links between poverty and literacy
• Educational relationships outside school
• Experiences of poverty and educational disadvantage
• Mapping the alternatives to permanent exclusion
• School exclusions: Learning partnerships outside mainstream education
• The impact of poverty on young children’s experience of school

• Interpreting 12th-Graders’ NAEP-Scaled Mathematics Performance Using High School Predictors and Postsecondary Outcomes From the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS:88)
• Status and Trends in the Education of Racial and Ethnic Minorities
  In addition to presenting educational indicators for racial and ethnic minority compared to each other and to white students, this report uses data from the American Community Survey to detail educational differences among Hispanic subgroups.

The Department of Education has revised its conflict-of-interest rules for education researchers following criticism of its Reading First program. See the Chronicle of Higher Education article and the revised contract document (PDF) for details.

Note: The Chronicle article is available online to subscribers. PRI affiliates can read the Chronicle in the PRI Library or request online access from library@pop.psu.edu.

A study that followed children from ages 3 and 4 to age 24 found that those who completed an early childhood program showed higher educational attainment, lower rates of serious crime and incarceration, and lower rates of depressive symptoms as young adults than non-participants (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development press release).

Citation: Arthur J. Reynolds, Judy A. Temple, Suh-Ruu Ou, et al. (2007). DEffects of a school-based, early childhood intervention on adult health and well-being: A 19-year follow-up of low-income families. Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med 161:730-739. Available online.

The National Center for Education Statistics has released a new report titled “Comparative Indicators of Education in the United States and Other G-8 Countries: 2006″ This report describes how the education system in the United States compares with education systems in the other G-8 countries–Canada, France. Germany. Italy, Japan, the Russian Federation, and the United Kingdom.

To view and download the report in pdf format, Click here.