Project 3 Research Report

I'm going through some old blog assignments that I forgot to do the first time. For this one, I'm focusing on the research report, where we gathered 10 sources of evidence for Project 3 and analyzed the author and context clues for reliability, and figured out the source's purpose and main audience. Well, here goes, I'll start with the sources I had already gathered for the essay I wrote:

• Is Your A Student Really Ready For College? This article came from CBS Moneywatch and was written by Lynn O'Shaugnessy.
• Lynn seems reliable because she is a consultant and speaker for parents with college-bound teenagers. This seems to indicate that other parents view her as credible, and since parents tend to be heavily invested in their children that is a good sign. Additionally, she has successfully published several guides to getting your kids through college both financially and emotionally, so she is likely well-versed in the topic of high schooler's college-readiness. The fact that the article was hosted directly on the CBS site (cbsnews.com) suggest that a major news source has vetted the author as well. Also, the fact that MoneyWatch typically targets older adults looking to save for financial retirement suggests that this is likely focusing on the parents of college-aged children. The article tries to convince readers that high achieving high schoolers often don't have high GPAs during college, and uses summary statistics as confirmatory evidence. 

• Make College Affordable by Ending Subsidies and Mandates This article came from OnTheIssues, a Libertarian guide for policy makers and politicians looking for the stances of the libertarian party on various issues. One of the authors was Robert Jallon.
• Robert Jallon does not appear to be a particularly reliable source. It was difficult to find alternative articles that Jallon had written in any format, and there is no biography of him listed on the site. For this reason, I wouldn't consider Jallon particularly reliable. However, the news site it is listed on is well known for highlighting the major beliefs of the libertarian party. In addition, these opinions are cited from the 2015 State of the Union Libertarian Response platform, suggesting that they are official party lines. The site is targeting politicians and policy makers who want to make sure they are towing the party line properly, and who may also need statistics to back up the opinions they are stating. The source wants to ensure that freedom of choice is always highlighted in discussions involving education, and that parents should have control over their child's learning. 

• Disengaged Students and the Decline of Academic Standards This essay was written by Paul Trout in 1996 and published originally by the Yale University Press in print edition. 
• Trout is a college English professor at Montana State University. He seems to be a credible source for discussing the decline of student's academic interest and abilities because he teaches such students on a regular basis in his role as a professor. Additionally, he cites several other professors, including another Physics professor at the college, who corroborate his thesis that academic standards are declining. The essay is certainly addressing other college professors and lecturers, because it encourages university-level instructors to not allow their courses to be dumbed down by the demands of students. The essay also addresses college administrators because it suggests that they need to step aside and put less pressure on professors to appease students by weighing student evaluations less heavily. The ultimate aim of the essay is to convince administrators and professors that they need to expect more of their students and not less, and they need to value student evaluations less than they current do. 

• Giving Students Ownership of Learning This journal report was written by Deborah Perkins-Gough in 2008 in the journal Educational Leadership. 
• Deborah Perkins is a senior editor for Educational Leadership, which is a publication magazine focused on improving education. This suggests that she has at least a strong familiarity with the topic at hand because she is likely editing such articles in her day-to-day job. Additionally, Ms. Perkins is a member of ASCD, which is a trade organization dedicated to helping teachers. The article itself is a special report indicating that many students who are achieving high GPAs in high school are still taking remedial courses upon entrance into college. The article is targeted towards high school curriculum creators who are advised to consider upping their standards to better match the expectations of most 4-year colleges. In addition, there is a public policy PSA-vibe to the article, in that it abhors the fact that many students are paying college tuition fees to learn what they should already know from high school. The article reveals that its agenda is to improve high school standards because it cites summary stats suggesting that these expectations are not being met.

• The Common Core Explained This QRG is written by Catherine Gewertz in the magazine Education Week.
• Catherine Gewertz's LinkedIn profile suggests that she is an Education Week associate editor who studied at Stanford University. The fact that Ms. Gewerz is an editor at Education Week suggests that she likely has strong familiarity with education-related matters, including Common Core. Additionally, her rise from staff writer to associate editor at the magazine means she has made a career working on education-related news. It can be seen that the QRG is not completely unbiased: there is a clear agenda to encourage parents and students to accept the common core standards as a way to even the playing field across states. Additionally, Ms. Gewertz hoped to make the new common core seem like it raises the bar in terms of expectations from students. The articles is targeting parents, students and teachers who are unceratin about whether common core standards are a good thing for their local school, and it tries to convince them that it is while explaining how the common core would work.

• College Rankings List by USNWR is a ranking submitted by US News and World Report editors (individual authors are not listed)
• Since this ranking does not have an individual author claiming ownership, I cannot evaluate the credibility of the individual person. However, the US News and World Report ranking is widely known, and the magazine is considered a credible news organization. Additionally, their methodology is widely available to the public, although some question whether their methodology has any objective basis. In this particular case, the rankings provide many important details about many colleges for high school seniors looking to attend colleges. It may also be targeting students seeking graduate or medical degrees, as there are separate ranking systems for these narrower fields as well. In my particular case, I used this as a source to identify the selectivity of elite schools and to confirm that the past couple years have been some of the most selective years ever. 

• The Truth About College Acceptance Rates: How Low Can They Go? is written by Kat Cohen in the Huffington Post College column.
• Kat Cohen is a college admissions counselor who frequently contributes to the Huffington Post. She has also written several books on the college admission process. This makes her both a reliable source but also a potential liability in terms of bias. On the one hand, Ms. Cohen is very familiar with the college admissions process as it involves both her writing job and her counseling career. On the other hand, though, she is deeply invested in getting people to buy her books (the title of the article is even a play on one of her book's title). This article was targetting parents of high school students who may be unaware of how competitive college admissions processes have become. This has an ulterior motive of also encouraging these parents to buy her book on how to better the odds for such students. 

• Charter Schools are Hurting Urban Public Schools is written by Niraj Chokshi for The Washington Post, a well known newspaper publication company.
• Niraj Chokshi is a general assignment reporter for the Washington Post. This does not necessarily lend him any specific credibility in regards to the clash between charter schools and public school systems. However, the fact that he was hired by the Washington Post suggests that 1) he is likely a highly skilled journalist and 2) his findings are fact-checked and edited by other personnel in the organization. For this reason, the post itself is considered very reliable even though the author himself is not necessarily so. In this newspaper article, Niraj Chokshi is targetting a fairly wide audience that reads the daily paper. This is not intended primarily for those alreayd heavily invested in the debate, because it goes over the basics in terms of the demographic and financial shifts that are pushing people towards charter schools and the financial effect this is having on public schools. Here, the people of Philadelphia are likely intended readers, because the focus is unexpectedly on philadelphia public school systems, which would seem to be a fairly niche are for such a widely read newspaper.