The Foreign Service Journal, June 2009

seas; helping parents locate schools offering programs for children with special needs; briefing ambassadors, DCMs or management officers on educational issues at post; or arrang- ing for an educational consulting spe- cialist to visit a school. Twice a year the REOs travel around their regions to meet with parents and embassy officers to dis- cuss educational issues at post, visit the schools attended by U.S. govern- ment dependents and meet with school boards and administrators. A Wealth of Information In the 2008-2009 academic year, the State Department assisted 196 schools, and A/OPR/OS publishes a one-page fact sheet on each of them. The office also compiles a CD-ROM of detailed reports on more than 500 preschools, elementary schools and secondary schools. These back- grounders bring together information on course offerings, special programs, programs for children with special needs, extracurricular activities, grad- uation requirements, etc. This information is available from the Community Liaison Officer at each post and on the A/OPR/OS in- tranet site. Copies of the CD-ROM 74 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / J U N E 2 0 0 9 The safety of American children attending overseas schools is of vital concern to the State Department. S CHOOLS S UPPLEMENT Continued from page 70 A Different Kind of College Ranking In September, Washington Monthly will unveil its 2009 “Annual College Guide,” a new and improved version of the post-secondary education survey that sorts schools according to what they give to society ( www.washingtonmonthly.com/ college_guide/ ). Prospective college students and their parents will want to bookmark this site to have at their fingertips this very helpful alternative to the traditional “best” college rankings issued annually by U.S. News & World Report and other organizations. Five years ago, Washington Monthly concluded that the public would be better served with more and different types of school rankings. The WM annual guide ranks schools’ performance as engines of social mobility, as producers of the sci- entific minds and research that develop new knowledge and drive economic growth, and as promoters of an ethic of service. “While other guides ask what colleges can do for students, we ask what col- leges are doing for the country,” the magazine’s editors stated in the introduction to their 2005 inaugural guide. In the 2007 WM guide, only Stanford shows up in the top 10. And among the Ivies, only Cornell figures in its top 25, thanks to the large number of graduates who earn a Ph.D. or join the Peace Corps. The elite schools’ “abysmal” record of taking on and graduating poorer students is one of the reasons they don’t do well, reports WM . The guide also surveys the country’s best community colleges. — Susan Maitra, Senior Editor