Top 10 Majors by Salary Potential

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Methodology

Annual pay for bachelor’s graduates without higher degrees. Typical starting graduates have two years of experience; mid-career graduates have 15 years. See full methodology.

 

http://www.payscale.com/chart/268/Top-10-Majors-by-Salary-Potential.2013-v1.0.png

 

 

 

Excerpts from:

 

Jay Mathews Schools Us on Education Research

A Q&A with the expert, who has ranked 75 Los Angeles County high schools - August 25, 2014

See more at: http://www.lamag.com/best-high-schools/jay-mathews-schools-us-on-education-research/#sthash.apVcH5gK.dpuf

 

In the September issue of Los Angeles magazine, education writer Jay Mathews lays out which high schools in L.A. County are best preparing kids for college. More than ranking based on a long career of education research, “The Challenge Index” is an opportunity for parents and high schoolers-to-be to consider what they want from a high school education—and what they can expect when they attend a dynamic school. Executive editor Matthew Segal spoke with Mathews just after the story arrived at the printer.

 

So, Jay, you’ve been providing a national version of the Challenge Index for decades. Your rankings have a lot to do with a student body’s participation in Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate courses with a school’s overall quality. How did you draw the link?

Most high schools in the United States let most of their students slide through without learning much. Students resist homework. Parents complain about tough-grading teachers. Principals realize they are in trouble if they strictly enforce graduation standards. Almost nobody wants to put too much pressure on kids. But if a school has many students in AP and IB, or the much smaller Advanced International Certificate of Education program, the embrace of mediocrity is threatened. AP, IB, and AICE—Advanced International Certificate of Education—are the only courses that cannot be dumbed down without being detected. The final exams are written and graded by independent experts, usually experienced teachers in those programs not affiliated with the school. If a teacher has not kept the course to a high standard, the grades will reflect that and parents can ask questions. The more students who take AP, IB, or AICE, in particular the more students who take those three- to five-hour exams, the higher the standards and the more valid preparation the students will have for college. State test results only measure minimum achievement. If you want to know if a school is high quality, you have to look at the AP, IB and AICE data.

 

And what do you say to all the people who ask for proof to back up the index’s central premise?

 

There have been massive studies in Texas and California showing that passing an AP test correlates closely with staying in college and getting good grades there. One Texas study also shows that students with average grades and scores who took an AP exam and got a 2, the equivalent of a college D, do better in college than similar students who did not take an AP exam.

 

There are lots of theories about how best to educate, but there’s not overwhelming consensus.

 

I think there is a consensus. It is just very hard to make it happen. Good schools are those that have high expectations for all students, carve out more time for learning, take testing and other assessments seriously, create a team spirit among teachers and students, and have energetic smart principals who know how to lead such teams. That is what happened at Garfield and many other schools I have studied since.

 

 

[Previous articles on this website: (1) Fostering a Good Mathematical Disposition, at http://www.nctm.org/about/content.aspx?id=1002; (2) How We Should Be Teaching Math, at http://www.barbaraoakley.com/pdf/WSJ%20OpEd%20Oakley.pdf;  (3) https://www.khanacademy.org/about/blog/post/95208400815/the-learning-myth-why-ill-never-tell-my-son-hes smart]; and (4) Yes, You Can Teach Engineering in High School, at http://www.todaysengineer.org/2010/Apr/Hoover-High.asp.

 

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