FT中文网特约撰稿人张立伟：在中国，体育只有工具性，
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UNLIKELY PAIRING
Wesleyan, which offers courses through Coursera, was the first liberal arts college to venture into MOOCs, and the announcement this week that Wellesley College has partnered with edX means two of the major MOOC providers now offer courses from liberal arts colleges. In contrast, the founders of MOOCs were almost exclusively prominent research universities where the idea of teaching classes so large the instructor doesn't know everyone's name wouldn't shock anyone. So how will MOOCs change liberal arts colleges? Or will liberal arts colleges change MOOCs? The article is in Inside Higher Ed.
MOST PROFS SAY THEY THINK OF QUITTING OVER WORK-LIFE CONFLICTS
Work-life conflicts have caused roughly three out of every four assistant professors to think about leaving their institution, according to the results of a new survey. For some assistant professors, leaving their institution isn't enough to solve their work-life problems. Almost 45 percent of those surveyed said they could see themselves leaving academe altogether. Meanwhile, 65 percent of full professors surveyed said that they had considered leaving their university in the last year. The survey, of 511 full-time faculty members, was conducted by Horizons Workforce Consulting, a company that helps its clients provide work-life programs to employees, and was released this month. The article is in The Chronicle of Higher Education.
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NAEP DATA ON VOCABULARY ACHIEVEMENT SHOW SAME GAPS
A new analysis of federal data that provide a deeper and more systematic look into students’ ability to understand the meaning of words in context than was previously available from “the nation’s report card” finds stark achievement gaps in vocabulary across racial and ethnic groups, as well as income levels. The analysis aims to offer greater insights into reading comprehension. The first-of-its-kind National Assessment of Educational Progress report suggests a consistent relationship between performance on vocabulary questions and the ability of students to comprehend a text, which experts say is consistent with prior research on the subject. The article is in Education Week.
START-UPS TARGET TEACHERS
Internet-savvy teachers are increasingly finding tools to use in the classroom on their own, and lower business-startup costs mean the tools are more readily available. In response, many education companies are changing how they market and sell their products. Nationwide sales teams and central-office visits are giving way to word-of-mouth and sophisticated business-intelligence software as preferred methods for pushing adoption. Companies offer free products to teachers with the goal of influencing districtwide purchases of more-robust versions—known as the "freemium" pricing model. The article is in Education Week.
THE REPERCUSSIONS OF NATIONAL EDUCATION STANDARDS
Connecticut's student test scores are expected to drop drastically when standardized tests based on the Common Core standards are adopted in 2015. According to one study, the shift also is expected to cost districts millions to update their textbooks, teaching materials, technology to administer the new tests on computers, and to train teachers to align lessons with the new standards. The article is in the Connecticut Mirror.
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RETHINKING GRANTS AND LOANS
WASHINGTON -- A report released today calls for an overhaul of the federal financial aid system, including ending subsidized loans, enrolling students in income-based repayment, and directing the savings from the changes to the Pell Grant. The report, “Increasing Return on Investment from Federal Student Aid,” was written by the National College Access Network and funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, part of the philanthropy's push to influence financial aid policy. In all, the Gates Foundation awarded $3.3 million in grants to 16 groups for white papers on how to change the financial aid system to encourage college completion. The article is in Inside Higher Ed.
DESIGNING A SYSTEM THAT WORKS
Educators, employers, and young people are like "ships passing in the night," unable to connect the millions of unemployed college graduates with the companies struggling to fill vacancies, according to the lead author of a report released on Tuesday by McKinsey & Company. The report, "Education to Employment: Designing a System That Works," is based on the consulting firm's survey of 8,500 educators, employers, and young people in nine countries: Brazil, Britain, Germany, India, Mexico, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the United States. It also includes findings from 130 programs that seek to connect college graduates with jobs. The article is in The Chronicle of Higher Education.
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ARNE DUNCAN SKETCHES OUT LONG HAUL AGENDA
U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, who says he plans to serve in the Obama Cabinet for the "long haul," has begun sketching out his priorities for the next four years. They include using competitive levers to improve teacher and principal quality and holding the line on initiatives he started during the president's first term. The secretary is also making clear what he won't do: devote a lot of energy to a reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act if Congress doesn't get serious about rewriting the current version, the No Child Left Behind Act. The article is in Education Week.
PUBLIC SCHOOLS AND TEACHERS WORK TOWARDS COMMON CORE
Some states, including Illinois, have recently adopted new public school curriculum guidelines called the Common Core State Standards. While some teachers feel relief at having clear guidelines, Elizabeth Brackett of WTTW reports from Chicago on a more contentious aspect of the new implementation: student and teacher evaluation. The piece was on PBS NewsHour.
posted Dec 05, 2012 09:53 am
Daily News Roundup, December 5, 2012
Some of the News Fit to Print
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RETHINKING GRANTS AND LOANS
WASHINGTON -- A report released today calls for an overhaul of the federal financial aid system, including ending subsidized loans, enrolling students in income-based repayment, and directing the savings from the changes to the Pell Grant. The report, “Increasing Return on Investment from Federal Student Aid,” was written by the National College Access Network and funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, part of the philanthropy's push to influence financial aid policy. In all, the Gates Foundation awarded $3.3 million in grants to 16 groups for white papers on how to change the financial aid system to encourage college completion. The article is in Inside Higher Ed.
DESIGNING A SYSTEM THAT WORKS
Educators, employers, and young people are like "ships passing in the night," unable to connect the millions of unemployed college graduates with the companies struggling to fill vacancies, according to the lead author of a report released on Tuesday by McKinsey & Company. The report, "Education to Employment: Designing a System That Works," is based on the consulting firm's survey of 8,500 educators, employers, and young people in nine countries: Brazil, Britain, Germany, India, Mexico, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the United States. It also includes findings from 130 programs that seek to connect college graduates with jobs. The article is in The Chronicle of Higher Education.
ABOUT K-12
ARNE DUNCAN SKETCHES OUT LONG HAUL AGENDA
U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, who says he plans to serve in the Obama Cabinet for the "long haul," has begun sketching out his priorities for the next four years. They include using competitive levers to improve teacher and principal quality and holding the line on initiatives he started during the president's first term. The secretary is also making clear what he won't do: devote a lot of energy to a reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act if Congress doesn't get serious about rewriting the current version, the No Child Left Behind Act. The article is in Education Week.
PUBLIC SCHOOLS AND TEACHERS WORK TOWARDS COMMON CORE
Some states, including Illinois, have recently adopted new public school curriculum guidelines called the Common Core State Standards. While some teachers feel relief at having clear guidelines, Elizabeth Brackett of WTTW reports from Chicago on a more contentious aspect of the new implementation: student and teacher evaluation. The piece was on PBS NewsHour.
posted Dec 05, 2012 09:53 am
Carnegie to Rethink Carnegie Unit [In the News]
MORE CRACKS IN THE CREDIT HOUR
The foundation that created the credit hour in 1906 now wants to rethink it, with a shift that might help competency-based higher education. The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching on Tuesday announced that it would use a $460,000 grant from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation to study the Carnegie Unit, which forms the basis of a time-based measurement of student learning. The credit hour calls for one credit per hour of faculty instruction and two hours of homework, on a weekly basis, over a 15-week semester. A virtual gold standard in higher education, the credit hour is deeply ingrained as a measuring stick for academic quality, accreditation and access to federal financial aid. The article is in Inside Higher Ed.
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VALUE-ADDED MEASUREMENT: WHAT IT IS AND IS NOT
Whether we’re measuring teacher skills or school performance, value-added evaluation continues to shape our definition of successful education. According to researchers at the Value-Added Research Center (VARC) at UW–Madison, a value-added model is simply a statistical formula that estimates the contribution of schools, classrooms, teachers, and other educational factors to student achievement. What makes value-added unique is that it also measures, and controls for, non-school sources of student achievement growth, including, for example, family education, social capital, and household income. Value-added models take into account that different schools serve very different populations of students. Controlling for non-school influences allows educators and researchers, like those at VARC, to make apples-to-apples school comparisons rather than apples-to-oranges comparisons. Value-added measurement provides one way to help determine the effectiveness of teachers and schools at the K–12 level and in postsecondary institutions.
AFT CALLS FOR TEACHER ‘BAR EXAM’
The American Federation of Teachers has unveiled an ambitious new initiative to raise entry standards for teacher-preparation programs—and to create a "universal assessment," analogous to the bar exam in law, that teachers should have to pass to show they are ready to take on their own classrooms. The product of months of discussion by an AFT task force, the report released this weekend recommends that teacher-preparation programs raise their entry standards to attract academically capable students. The programs should require candidates at both the elementary and secondary level to have a cumulative GPA of 3.0 and get a minimum grade on college- or graduate-school-entry exams, such as a 24 on the ACT. The post is from Education Week’s Teacher Beat blog.
MORE PRINCIPALS LEARN THE JOB IN REAL SCHOOLS
A growing number of principal-preparation initiatives are forsaking university classrooms in favor of much more familiar training grounds: the schools and districts where those aspiring leaders will end up working. Through coaching and mentorship initiatives, residencies and internships, and other new programs, both districts and university education schools are turning their focus to building practical readiness, in context, and offering continued learning and support for principals already on the job. The article is in Education Week.
JUDGE DEALS A SET BACK TO LOUISIANA’S VOUCHER PROGRAM
NEW ORLEANS — Last January, Gov. Bobby Jindal took the oath of office for his second term, declaring in his inauguration speech that anyone who stood in the way of his education reform efforts “must stand down.” On Friday, a judge in Baton Rouge said, in effect: not so fast. The article is in The New York Times.
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A BETTER WAY TO PREPARE TEACHERS
Congressman Michael Honda and Senator Jack Reid write in Inside Higher Ed: America’s economic future depends on the success of our public schools, and the success of our schools depends upon effective teachers and principals. In the next Congress, both the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and the Higher Education Act will be up for reauthorization. We need to seize this opportunity to improve the chances for student success by building a truly collaborative system for educator preparation -- one that creates a positive school environment, allows educators to work together and connects higher education to early childhood and K-12 education.
COLLEGES AGREE TO RECRUIT KIPP ALUMNI
Twenty colleges and universities, including some of the nation's most prestigious, have pledged in the past year to recruit more students from the Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP) charter school network that focuses on educating the rural and urban poor. The partnerships are intended to help more disadvantaged students get college degrees. The article is in the Washington Post.
FREE, UNLESS YOU WANT TO PAY
OpenStax College, the nonprofit, open-access publisher out of Rice University, announced the launch of its first iBook text Monday, becoming the latest publisher to try to make the free-with-paid-options model sustainable. The interactive, iPad-based version of OpenStax’s free-to-read online College Physics text is available through iTunes for $4.99. OpenStax, which launched earlier this year, is one of several publishers trying to combat the “access gap,” as founder and director Richard Baraniuk calls it. The article is in Inside Higher Ed.
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