Last
year, Google offered more classes to more employees than it ever has
before, with about a third of its 33,100-strong workforce going through
GoogleEDU. But it also uses analytics to measure the effectiveness of
courses.
***
Some of the News Fit to Print
ABOUT HIGHER ED
VOTING RIGHTS FOR ADJUNCTS
It's time for faculty senates and academic departments to make sure adjuncts can vote in their meetings and elections and hold offices, just as tenure-track and tenured faculty members are permitted to do, says a new report being released today by the American Association of University Professors. The article is in Inside Higher Ed.
THE DEAL ON STUDENT LOANS
At the last minute, like everything else in Congress, a bipartisan Senate deal fell into place on Tuesday to prevent interest rates on student loans from doubling on July 1. Now it is up to the House to quickly approve the measure and ensure that students struggling with the economy will not incur extra debt. The editorial is in The New York Times.
COALITION MOVES TO BRING HIGH SPEED INTERNET TO RURAL COLLEGES
A new group aims to provide rural colleges and universities with high-speed Internet by harnessing unused television channels in an approach known as “super wi-fi.”The group is called AIR.U (the first part stands for Advanced Internet Regions), and it plans to send Internet signals via unused broadcast frequencies, or “white space.” The signals are transmitted at much lower frequency than most wireless Internet connections, so they are able to reach obstructed and rural areas more effectively. The post is from The Chronicle of Higher Education’s Wired Campus blog.
ABOUT K-12
FOUNDATION RELEASES REPORT ON KEY LESSONS OF PRINCIPAL LEADERSHIP TRAINING
Choose principal candidates selectively, offer strong coursework that applies theory directly to practice, and provide high quality mentoring and professional development: These are the keys to improving the ranks of school principals, according to the New York-based Wallace Foundation. The foundation recently released a report that boils down a decade of research and lessons learned in the field. The report notes that while most states have adopted leadership standards and there is more diversity among providers of principal training, most university-based training programs have failed to keep pace with the evolving role of principals. The post is from Education Week’s District Dossier blog.
ONLINE TESTING FOR STUDENTS HOLDS PROMISE, PERILS
When the common core assessments are administered beginning in 2014, the vast majority of American schoolchildren will be taking math and English tests online. Supports say online tests are more well-rounded and offer immediate feedback for students and teachers. But states that have experimented with online testing provide a cautionary tale against shifting to such exams too rapidly. The article is in the Hechinger Report.
INPUT SOUGHT ON MATH FRAMEWORKS PEGGED TO COMMON CORE
The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) is inviting public comment on two sets of model content frameworks in math that aim to serve as a bridge between the Common Core State Standards and the aligned assessments under development. The comment survey on the grades 3-8 and high school documents is open until July 11. The article is in Education Week.
ABOUT HIGHER ED
VOTING RIGHTS FOR ADJUNCTS
It's time for faculty senates and academic departments to make sure adjuncts can vote in their meetings and elections and hold offices, just as tenure-track and tenured faculty members are permitted to do, says a new report being released today by the American Association of University Professors. The article is in Inside Higher Ed.
THE DEAL ON STUDENT LOANS
At the last minute, like everything else in Congress, a bipartisan Senate deal fell into place on Tuesday to prevent interest rates on student loans from doubling on July 1. Now it is up to the House to quickly approve the measure and ensure that students struggling with the economy will not incur extra debt. The editorial is in The New York Times.
COALITION MOVES TO BRING HIGH SPEED INTERNET TO RURAL COLLEGES
A new group aims to provide rural colleges and universities with high-speed Internet by harnessing unused television channels in an approach known as “super wi-fi.”The group is called AIR.U (the first part stands for Advanced Internet Regions), and it plans to send Internet signals via unused broadcast frequencies, or “white space.” The signals are transmitted at much lower frequency than most wireless Internet connections, so they are able to reach obstructed and rural areas more effectively. The post is from The Chronicle of Higher Education’s Wired Campus blog.
ABOUT K-12
FOUNDATION RELEASES REPORT ON KEY LESSONS OF PRINCIPAL LEADERSHIP TRAINING
Choose principal candidates selectively, offer strong coursework that applies theory directly to practice, and provide high quality mentoring and professional development: These are the keys to improving the ranks of school principals, according to the New York-based Wallace Foundation. The foundation recently released a report that boils down a decade of research and lessons learned in the field. The report notes that while most states have adopted leadership standards and there is more diversity among providers of principal training, most university-based training programs have failed to keep pace with the evolving role of principals. The post is from Education Week’s District Dossier blog.
ONLINE TESTING FOR STUDENTS HOLDS PROMISE, PERILS
When the common core assessments are administered beginning in 2014, the vast majority of American schoolchildren will be taking math and English tests online. Supports say online tests are more well-rounded and offer immediate feedback for students and teachers. But states that have experimented with online testing provide a cautionary tale against shifting to such exams too rapidly. The article is in the Hechinger Report.
INPUT SOUGHT ON MATH FRAMEWORKS PEGGED TO COMMON CORE
The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) is inviting public comment on two sets of model content frameworks in math that aim to serve as a bridge between the Common Core State Standards and the aligned assessments under development. The comment survey on the grades 3-8 and high school documents is open until July 11. The article is in Education Week.
ABOUT K-12
TIMED TESTS AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF MATH ANXIETY
Stanford
ABOUT K-12
COMMON CORE STANDARDS: MATH INSTRUCTIONAL SHIFTS
David Ginsburg writes in Education Week: The fate of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for Mathematics will depend on how we teach more so than what we teach. It's great, for example, that teachers will now have time to explore topics in greater depth. But unless they're prepared to go deeper with those topics, the extra time will be spent reinforcing algorithms and formulas rather than deriving them.
ABOUT HIGHER ED
HAS HIGHER EDUCATION BECOME AN ENGINE OF INEQUALITY?
Inequality is growing in the United States, and social mobility is slowing. A study by the Pew Charitable Trusts found that 62 percent of Americans raised in the top one-fifth of the income scale stay in the top two-fifths; 65 percent born in the bottom fifth stay in the bottom two-fifths. Education, long praised as the great equalizer, no longer seems to be performing as advertised. A study by Stanford University shows that the gap in standardized-test scores between low-income and high-income students has widened about 40 percent since the 1960s—now double that between black and white students. A study from the University of Michigan found that the disparity in college-completion rates between rich and poor students has grown by about 50 percent since the 1980s. What role has higher education played in society’s stratification? Are colleges and universities contributing to economic inequality and the decline of social mobility? The Chronicle of Higher Education asked a group of noted observers and researchers to respond.
REPORT PREDICTS HUGE GAP IN EDUCATED WORKERS
By 2020, there will be about 38 million to 40 million too few college and university graduates to satisfy the demands of the global labor market, a report issued this month has found. At the same time, there will be a surplus of up to 95 million low-skill workers globally, according to the study, conducted by the McKinsey Global Institute. The article was in The New York Times.
JUDGE STRIKES DOWN ‘GAINFUL’
A day before the federal government's controversial new rules governing vocational programs were set to take effect, a federal judge on Saturday invalidated one of its key elements, blocking enforcement of much of the regulatory framework. The ruling by Judge Rudolph Contreras, which came just days after the Education Department released its first set of data produced by the new regulations, largely upheld the Education Department's legal right to craft new regulations aimed at ensuring that vocational programs prepare students for "gainful employment," saying that the agency had "set out to address a serious policy problem, regulating pursuant to a reasonable interpretation of its statutory authority." The article is in Inside Higher Ed.
WHERE COMPETENCY-BASED DEGREE PROGRAMS WORK
In a new report from the Council for Adult and Experiential Learning describes various "showcase" models of competency-based degree programs, which are efficient at eliminating redundant coursework or unnecessary degree requirements. There are a variety of sound approaches to competency-based education, the report found, which ensure the quality of a degree by focusing on outcomes rather than the amount of time students spend on coursework. The council also encourages the use of student assessments, which can be used to measure students' prior learning. The article is in Inside Higher Ed.
DOES THE NEW STUDENT LOAN LEGISLATION GO FAR ENOUGH?
A last-minute deal by Congress on Friday to prevent interest rates on student loans from doubling received a surprisingly lukewarm reception from some consumer advocates. Rates on subsidized Stafford loans, which were scheduled to jump to 6.8% on July 1, will remain at 3.4% for undergraduates for the coming academic year. The freeze means some borrowers will save thousands of dollars over the life of their loan, but those who take out loans after the year is up will miss out, unless Congress acts again. The deal excludes graduate students. The article is in The Wall Street Journal. University’s Jo Boaler writes in Education Week: Mathematics education is in crisis: A third of all schoolchildren end up in remedial math courses, and the level of interest in the subject is at an all-time low. This is a result, in part, of schools in the United States heading down a fast-moving track in which the purpose of math has been reduced to the ranking of children and their schools. Math has become a performance subject. Children of all ages are more likely to tell you that the reason for learning math is to show whether they “get it” instead of whether they appreciate the beauty of the subject or the way it piques their interest. The damage starts early in this country, with school districts requiring young children to take timed math tests from the age of 5. This is despite research that has shown that timed tests are the direct cause of the early onset of math anxiety.
REPORT: MAKING IMPROVING TEACHER WORKING CONDITIONS A PRIORITY
To boost teacher retention and student achievement at high-poverty schools, states and districts must first look to improve working conditions for teachers, concludes a report by The Education Trust. The report profiles five districts that have focused efforts on bettering teacher support and development and have shown promising or positive gains as a result. The article is in Education Week.
ABOUT HIGHER ED
FILLING THE SKILLS GAP
Joe Nocera writes in The New York Times: A man named Gerald Chertavian came by my office not long ago, and, by the time he left, I was filled with renewed appreciation for the potential of community colleges to help stem the decline of the middle class. There are few more urgent tasks.
ONLINE CLASSES CUT COSTS, BUT DO THEY DILUTE BRANDS?
Universities are delving into online education as a way to cut costs and take in more students. But questions remain as to whether online teaching will bring the same kind of education to students. The piece ran on NPR’s All Things Considered.
WHITHER HIGHER EDUCATION?
Pepperdine Presdient Andrew Benton writes in the Huffington Post: The beginning of a new academic year is about two months away. Despite abundant technology, vast resources placed online and floated into cyberspace for free, and all of the economies and conveniences of educational curb service, still the students come. Are they not reading the same stuff I am? Do they not know that they can stay home, boot up their laptops and sit cross-legged on their beds hearing lectures from the best and brightest while avoiding the distraction of the human dynamic? Still, they come. For it is not just about what they get in the process of an education, it is just as much about who they become in the process.
GIVE COLLEGES MORE CREDIT
Barry Glassner and Morton Schapiro write in the L.A. Times: Higher education as we know it is about to come to an end. After all, there are no jobs for college graduates, certainly not for liberal arts students. Moreover, even were such students employable, they come out of school so burdened with debt that they will never dig their way out. The educational equivalent of eight-track tapes, traditional colleges and universities will vanish almost entirely, replaced by slimmer, more technologically advanced online and for-profit models. As college presidents who hear such proclamations over and over again, we find ourselves suppressing the urge to yawn, and not because we lose sleep over them. Rather, we are reminded of Marcel Proust’s splendid observation in "Remembrance of Things Past": "The one thing that does not change is that at any and every time it appears that there have been 'great changes.'"Barry Glassner is president and a professor of sociology of Lewis & Clark College in Oregon. Morton Schapiro is president and a professor of economics of Northwestern University in Illinois.
TIMED TESTS AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF MATH ANXIETY
Stanford
ABOUT K-12
COMMON CORE STANDARDS: MATH INSTRUCTIONAL SHIFTS
David Ginsburg writes in Education Week: The fate of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for Mathematics will depend on how we teach more so than what we teach. It's great, for example, that teachers will now have time to explore topics in greater depth. But unless they're prepared to go deeper with those topics, the extra time will be spent reinforcing algorithms and formulas rather than deriving them.
ABOUT HIGHER ED
HAS HIGHER EDUCATION BECOME AN ENGINE OF INEQUALITY?
Inequality is growing in the United States, and social mobility is slowing. A study by the Pew Charitable Trusts found that 62 percent of Americans raised in the top one-fifth of the income scale stay in the top two-fifths; 65 percent born in the bottom fifth stay in the bottom two-fifths. Education, long praised as the great equalizer, no longer seems to be performing as advertised. A study by Stanford University shows that the gap in standardized-test scores between low-income and high-income students has widened about 40 percent since the 1960s—now double that between black and white students. A study from the University of Michigan found that the disparity in college-completion rates between rich and poor students has grown by about 50 percent since the 1980s. What role has higher education played in society’s stratification? Are colleges and universities contributing to economic inequality and the decline of social mobility? The Chronicle of Higher Education asked a group of noted observers and researchers to respond.
REPORT PREDICTS HUGE GAP IN EDUCATED WORKERS
By 2020, there will be about 38 million to 40 million too few college and university graduates to satisfy the demands of the global labor market, a report issued this month has found. At the same time, there will be a surplus of up to 95 million low-skill workers globally, according to the study, conducted by the McKinsey Global Institute. The article was in The New York Times.
JUDGE STRIKES DOWN ‘GAINFUL’
A day before the federal government's controversial new rules governing vocational programs were set to take effect, a federal judge on Saturday invalidated one of its key elements, blocking enforcement of much of the regulatory framework. The ruling by Judge Rudolph Contreras, which came just days after the Education Department released its first set of data produced by the new regulations, largely upheld the Education Department's legal right to craft new regulations aimed at ensuring that vocational programs prepare students for "gainful employment," saying that the agency had "set out to address a serious policy problem, regulating pursuant to a reasonable interpretation of its statutory authority." The article is in Inside Higher Ed.
WHERE COMPETENCY-BASED DEGREE PROGRAMS WORK
In a new report from the Council for Adult and Experiential Learning describes various "showcase" models of competency-based degree programs, which are efficient at eliminating redundant coursework or unnecessary degree requirements. There are a variety of sound approaches to competency-based education, the report found, which ensure the quality of a degree by focusing on outcomes rather than the amount of time students spend on coursework. The council also encourages the use of student assessments, which can be used to measure students' prior learning. The article is in Inside Higher Ed.
DOES THE NEW STUDENT LOAN LEGISLATION GO FAR ENOUGH?
A last-minute deal by Congress on Friday to prevent interest rates on student loans from doubling received a surprisingly lukewarm reception from some consumer advocates. Rates on subsidized Stafford loans, which were scheduled to jump to 6.8% on July 1, will remain at 3.4% for undergraduates for the coming academic year. The freeze means some borrowers will save thousands of dollars over the life of their loan, but those who take out loans after the year is up will miss out, unless Congress acts again. The deal excludes graduate students. The article is in The Wall Street Journal. University’s Jo Boaler writes in Education Week: Mathematics education is in crisis: A third of all schoolchildren end up in remedial math courses, and the level of interest in the subject is at an all-time low. This is a result, in part, of schools in the United States heading down a fast-moving track in which the purpose of math has been reduced to the ranking of children and their schools. Math has become a performance subject. Children of all ages are more likely to tell you that the reason for learning math is to show whether they “get it” instead of whether they appreciate the beauty of the subject or the way it piques their interest. The damage starts early in this country, with school districts requiring young children to take timed math tests from the age of 5. This is despite research that has shown that timed tests are the direct cause of the early onset of math anxiety.
REPORT: MAKING IMPROVING TEACHER WORKING CONDITIONS A PRIORITY
To boost teacher retention and student achievement at high-poverty schools, states and districts must first look to improve working conditions for teachers, concludes a report by The Education Trust. The report profiles five districts that have focused efforts on bettering teacher support and development and have shown promising or positive gains as a result. The article is in Education Week.
ABOUT HIGHER ED
FILLING THE SKILLS GAP
Joe Nocera writes in The New York Times: A man named Gerald Chertavian came by my office not long ago, and, by the time he left, I was filled with renewed appreciation for the potential of community colleges to help stem the decline of the middle class. There are few more urgent tasks.
ONLINE CLASSES CUT COSTS, BUT DO THEY DILUTE BRANDS?
Universities are delving into online education as a way to cut costs and take in more students. But questions remain as to whether online teaching will bring the same kind of education to students. The piece ran on NPR’s All Things Considered.
WHITHER HIGHER EDUCATION?
Pepperdine Presdient Andrew Benton writes in the Huffington Post: The beginning of a new academic year is about two months away. Despite abundant technology, vast resources placed online and floated into cyberspace for free, and all of the economies and conveniences of educational curb service, still the students come. Are they not reading the same stuff I am? Do they not know that they can stay home, boot up their laptops and sit cross-legged on their beds hearing lectures from the best and brightest while avoiding the distraction of the human dynamic? Still, they come. For it is not just about what they get in the process of an education, it is just as much about who they become in the process.
GIVE COLLEGES MORE CREDIT
Barry Glassner and Morton Schapiro write in the L.A. Times: Higher education as we know it is about to come to an end. After all, there are no jobs for college graduates, certainly not for liberal arts students. Moreover, even were such students employable, they come out of school so burdened with debt that they will never dig their way out. The educational equivalent of eight-track tapes, traditional colleges and universities will vanish almost entirely, replaced by slimmer, more technologically advanced online and for-profit models. As college presidents who hear such proclamations over and over again, we find ourselves suppressing the urge to yawn, and not because we lose sleep over them. Rather, we are reminded of Marcel Proust’s splendid observation in "Remembrance of Things Past": "The one thing that does not change is that at any and every time it appears that there have been 'great changes.'"Barry Glassner is president and a professor of sociology of Lewis & Clark College in Oregon. Morton Schapiro is president and a professor of economics of Northwestern University in Illinois.
posted Jul 03, 2012 09:23 am
ABOUT HIGHER ED
DEFINING COMMUNITY COLLEGES DOWN
Richard Kahlenberg writes in The Chronicle of Higher Education in response to a recent column by Joe Nocera in The New York Times: While community colleges have a critical role to play in preparing some students with important vocational skills, federal education survey data show that 81.4 percent of students entering community college for the first time say they eventually want to transfer and earn at least a bachelor’s degree. That only 11.6 percent of entering community college students do so within six years is a national tragedy. Some look at these numbers and suggest community colleges should downplay the idea of transfer, but it makes more sense to improve and strengthen transfer paths.
POLL ON VALUE OF COLLEGE DEGREES
A new poll of 1,000 adults -- released by Widmeyer Communications -- has mixed results for those in higher education. About 60 percent of the 1,000 adults surveyed said they believed college was a good investment, with only 12 percent disagreeing, and the rest saying they didn't know. But the poll found Americans split on whether college is as valuable today as it was 20 years ago, with 46 percent agreeing, and 41 percent disagreeing -- despite countless statements from educators that college is more necessary today than at previous points in American history. This information is from Inside Higher Ed.
ABOUT K-12
SUMMER LEARNING LOSS IS A CHALLENGE TO OVERCOME
Carnegie Foundation Senior Fellow Mike Smith and Muhammed Chaudhry, president & CEO of the Silicon Valley Education Foundation, write in the San Jose Mercury News: "Summer learning loss," which is cumulative over time, erodes academic skills and knowledge and can contribute to students' falling behind as well as increasing dropout rates, elevating risk for obesity and widening the achievement gap between low-income and middle-income students.
TRUST AND SKEPTICISM
Deborah Meier blogs for the National Education Policy Center: We should not be surprised that none of the systems that we are putting in place to “catch” the weak teachers and kids will work. So nearly 25 years of ever intensifying use of external—presumably indirect measures—have not produced results, at least not in terms of improved learning, or even improved test scored! Madness. In fact they have served to increase distrust. Some get caught. Some don’t. But, as the testing manual used to remind us, everyone is getting cheated.
ED PAUSES NCLB CLOCK FOR SOME STATES
Earlier this week, Iowa, which had its request for wiggle room from mandates of the No Child Left Behind Act turned down, got another kind of reprieve from the U.S. Department of Education: the chance to freeze its Annual Measurable Outcomes (goals for student proficiency) under the NCLB law for one year, while it works towards waiver approval. On July 3, the department announced that six other states, Alabama, Alaska, Idaho, Kansas, Maine, and West Virginia, can also hit the pause button on their AMOs for the coming school year, while they work on their waiver plans. The article is in Education Week’s Politics K-12 blog.
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