Happy Holidays to Educator of the Year

For my last post of 2009, I wanted to leave readers with a positive message. The following article if from the Lexington Minutemen.

In honor of exemplary leadership in promoting and advancing science education for students and teachers, Lexington resident Kathleen Vandiver received the 2009 Science Educator of the Year award for Middlesex County.

The award, presented by the Massachusetts Association of Science Teachers (MAST) in October, cited her work as developer of the LEGO Life Sciences kits.

Using the kits and associated curriculum, teachers lead their middle school and high school classes through carefully designed lessons about basic chemistry and properties of matter, DNA, cellular biology and genetics concepts.

Vandiver, a former sixth grade science teacher at Diamond Middle School, developed an introductory chemistry curriculum to insure that her students grasped crucial concepts such as the difference between atoms, molecules and elements. As they manipulate LEGO bricks, students vividly see how substances can recombine in different ways and form compounds with new properties.

Happy holidays to all!

Sub Prime Effecting College Students

Yesterday's blog was about how disinterested many U.S. college students are in actually studying while at college. In today's Inside Higher Ed, Jackson Toby offers an even more sobering dilemma regarding sub prime loans to those who might actually want an education, but can't afford it.

An unintended consequence of making access to college an entitlement readily available to all high school graduates is that serious study in high school has become optional, even for those intending to go to college. Without an incentive to study diligently, many students are disengaged in high school and, as a result, unprepared for college. Some freshmen arrive at college thinking that having fun is the main reason they are at college and that the pursuit of knowledge should be available for when they have nothing better to do.

Federal grant programs supplemented by state and private grant programs, were never able to cover the financial needs of the millions of college students whose families could not afford the rising costs of attending college. So Congress established several loan programs, some indirect loans whose federal subsidies made attractive to banks, credit unions, and other financial institutions, and some financed directly by the Department of Education. Unlike Pell Grants and other federal grant programs for college students such as work-study programs for needy college students, which do not have to be repaid, loans must be repaid with interest after graduating from or leaving college.

Read the full article

Today's Inside Higher Ed notes an op-ed piece in the The Boston Globe, "My Lazy American Students," is attracting considerable online debate. The piece -- by Kara Miller, who teaches history and rhetoric at Babson College -- compares her American and foreign students. "My 'C,' 'D,' and 'F' students this semester are almost exclusively American, while my students from India, China, and Latin America have -- despite language barriers -- generally written solid papers, excelled on exams, and become valuable class participants," writes Miller. She compares the way her foreign students listen to everything she says, while "[t]oo many 18-year-old Americans, meanwhile, text one another under their desks (certain they are sly enough to go unnoticed), check e-mail, decline to take notes, and appear tired and disengaged." Reader reactions vary widely. Some credit Miller with drawing attention to a real problem. Others say she doesn't understand higher education. Wrote one commenter: "Sorry, teach, but our American kids know that college is for boozing, drugs and hooking up. They'll start working hard when it matters -- the day they get their first job."

Sad, but I have a feeling the comment is so true. It makes one wonder if the U.S. workforce will ever be able to compete on a global basis.

Parents Start to Mobilize Against Tuition Costs

The large tuition increases have led to many student protests, but now parents are mobilizing as well, the Los Angeles Times reported. Rallies and other efforts have taken place and are being organized to reach lawmakers. While university officials tend to say that they have added financial aid to help those unable to pay the added costs, many families don't feel that the additional aid is enough or will reach them.

Is There Gender Bias in College Admissions?

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights has selected 19 colleges and universities for its controversial probe of whether colleges are favoring male applicants in admissions decisions, and whether any such preference is appropriate. The commission, seeking to minimize costs, selected colleges close to Washington, but included a range of four-year institutions, including public and private, historically black and predominantly white, religious and secular, and institutions of varying degrees of admissions competitiveness. While commission members say that they are just investigating a relevant issue, some advocates for female athletes view the effort as a way to raise questions about Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972.

The colleges and the characteristics cited by the commission in selecting them are as follows:

Historically black colleges: Howard University, Lincoln University of Pennsylvania, University of Maryland Eastern Shore and Virginia Union University.
Religious colleges: Catholic University of America, Loyola College in Maryland and Messiah College.
Highly selective private institutions: Georgetown University, Johns Hopkins University and Gettysburg College.
Very selective private institution: University of Richmond.
Moderately selective private institutions: Goucher College, Goldey-Beacom College, Washington College and York College of Pennsylvania.
Moderately selective public institutions: Shepherd University, Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania, University of Delaware and University of Maryland-Baltimore County.

Women in Science

The December 16, MAMA PhD blog by Dana Campbell outlines two distinct measures proving women can be in science and have a family.

Campbell talks about the University of Maryland proposing a measure allowing faculty to reduce their workloads by 50% while they are raising children under the age of five. At the same time, Campbell notes that the 2009 Nobel prize for medicine was awarded to two women, Elizabeth Blackburn and Carol Greider, both with families.

My favorite is the quote from Elizabeth Blackburn, "I'm not talking about doing second-rate quality science, far from it. You can do really good research when you are doing it part-time."

Read the full blog

Teacher Prep Programs Get a Big Dollar Boost

Campus Technology reported on the University of Minnesota being granted $4.5M for teacher preparation programs by the Bush Foundation.

Dubbed the Teachers Education Redesign Initiative, will focus on preparing prospective educators to increase graduation rates and reduce disparities in student achievement for k-12 schools.

"Ensuring that our schools have the best teachers in the country is critical to meeting the region's employment needs going forward," said University of Minnesota President Robert Bruininks in a prepared statement. "In order to be competitive in the global economy, all students need to graduate from high school prepared for some form of post-secondary education. I am very excited that the University of Minnesota will play a strong role in revamping the teacher education curriculum to improve teaching and learning--for all students--throughout the state and region."

Making Science Education Fun...Especially for Girls

Dr. Sally Ride, the first women in space, is now on another mission...making science education fun, especially for young girls.

The BBC News report says Dr. Sally Ride' particular focus is to get more girls to stick with science and pursue it as a career.

The National Science Foundation said women represent 46% of the workforce but only hold 25% of the jobs in science, engineering and technology. "I want to right this wrong and have made this the focus of my life at this stage," Dr Ride told BBC News.

"Females are 50% of the population and we cannot afford not to tap into that group of people to the fullest extent possible. "In this country we don't put the priority on math and science education and it's incredible because our society depends on it so much. We are not raising the next generation of scientists and engineers," said Dr Ride.

Sony Readers to Replace Textbook at Toronto School

Blyth Academy in Toronto is replacing textbooks with Sony Readers for 170 students. A Publishers Weekly report says the school will keep its library of printed books and the students will still read fiction in the printed versions. “We’re not doing away with printed text altogether because novels are so beloved, and people love to have their novels in a printed version,” said director or development Brandon Kerstens.

Electronic versions will be up-to-date, lighter for students to carry, and “it will cut down on the cost because obviously you aren’t paying for the pages, just the content itself. It’s really great,” stated Kerstens. The environmental aspect of using less paper was also viewed as an advantage.

Many of the electronic textbooks the Blyth Academy will be using come from Pearson Canada and McGraw-Hill Ryerson, which Kerstens said had advanced beyond basic text to be more interactive offering links and possibility to highlight and bookmark.

Give the Gift That Really Will Keep on Giving

At this time of year, many of thinking of charitable giving. Most of us review the obvious places; homeless shelters and food kitchens, all worthy of course. This year though, I'm thinking a bit outside the box. I have an idea that I hope catches on like it has with a small town charity the Clarkston Education Foundation.

Clarkston is a small town in eastern Washington state, with one public high school, a middle school, and four elementary schools. In the 2000 census (the most recent nationwide demographic data for Clarkston), the town had just over 7K people (although its school system serves communities outside the city limits, so the effective population is larger than that.) 15.5% of families within Clarkston live below the poverty line (almost twice the nationwide average). Only 13.1% of Clarkston's population over 25 has a college degree - compared with 25% nationwide (or 65% in Cambridge, MA).

CEF was created when some local graduates got together to try to improve the educational odds for Clarkston's kids. They started out by providing a scholarship to a high school senior, and they now provide several scholarships each year.

There are thousands of inquisitive, curious, excited kids out there right now, in towns you and I have never heard of, who have what it takes to earn BAs and BSs and PhDs and MDs - they just need some help getting started.

As we enter the season of giving, take a look around your neighborhood and find out if there are similar educational programs for contribution. Your participation doesn't have to be financial. Perhaps you can be a mentor or teachers assistant.

Your gift to education, however it is made, will definitely be the gift that keeps on giving for generations to come.

Going the Distance -- Teaching Online

Today's article from Inside Higher Ed concentrates on the Calumet's Distance Education Mentoring Project.

Researchers at Purdue University at Calumet believe that learning how to do distance education properly can make professors better at designing and administering their classroom-based courses.

“Most of the professors who teach at the university level have had no experience with pedagogy or instruction in general,” says Janet Buckenmeyer, chair of the instructional technology master’s program at Calumet. “They’re content experts, not teaching experts.”

When teaching online, she says, “You have to pay more attention to the navigation of the course, the clarity of the course, the objectives of the course, the reason why you’re assigning activities and assessments, [and make] certain everything is perfectly clear to the students. In a face-to-face situation, you can get by with just coming in and not having prepared and winging a class session. You can’t do that online.”

That was the thesis behind the creation of Calumet’s Distance Education Mentoring Project. The project takes faculty who are looking to adapt their classroom courses to the online environment and teams them up with Web-savvy colleagues. Those mentors advise the novices on best practices for online course design and oversee them through the first semester of the online version of the course. (An article detailing the project, authored by Buckenmeyer and two colleagues, is scheduled to appear in the January issue of the International Journal of E-Learning.)

Discovery Communications Launches "Be the Future"

T.H.E. Journal recently ran an article by Scott Aronowitz touting Discovery Communications new initiative "Be the Future" in response to President Obama's call to education action.

Science education promises to be critical to American competitiveness on the world stage in the 21st century, and President Barack Obama recently delivered a call to action to promote science literacy and to encourage student interest in the sciences and technology. Discovery Communications, in keeping with its commitment as a leader in science-related programming and education, has announced a long-term initiative known as "Be the Future."

The "Be the Future" Initiative will rely on two Discovery properties, Science Channel, a cable television network dedicated entirely to exposing viewers to the wonders of science and nature, and Discovery Education. The company will also partner with satellite TV giant DirecTV and Siemens, a standard bearer in technology research, development, and manufacturing, to bring all planned components of the multimedia initiative to fruition.

MassPRIG Pushes for Funding Protection

There have been several reports regarding student's leaving university not only with a degree but with debt as well.

In today's www.metro.us, an article by Tony Lee states the Massachusetts's Public Interest Research Group (MassPRIG) has taken steps to do something about it.

More than 60 percent of Massachusetts graduates had student debt last year -- with an average of over $23,000 owed -- and many of them are locked into high-interest private loans.

Students in the Bay State are graduating with an average of $5,008 in non federal student loans that can carry interest rates of over 18 percent. Paying off such growing debts amid a poor job economy has left several students in dire straits.

The MassPRIG report comes amid a push for the creation of a Consumer Financial Protection Agency, which would provide federal oversight to the industry and curb private lenders who make loans to students with no supervision.

An oversight agency might help, but unless there is a commitment from higher education institutions to communicate to their students regarding funding and loan protection, we may not see a decrease in loan profiteering by lenders.

Academics in "Wait and See" for Google Book Settlement

According to an article in eSchool News, academics have a “wait and see” attitude towards the Google Book Settlement.

They feel that Google Book Search won’t be of much use to undergraduate studies, especially during the first two years of college. The corpus of book will be primarily of use to researchers.

They also express disappointment that foreign books have been removed from the settlement, and won’t set policies for campus libraries until all the legal challenges are over.

CEO's Back Obama's Educational Initiatives

As we enter into the Thanksgiving holiday one idea I'm thankful for is the increased interest by the Obama administration on education. I think it is too early to do a victory lap, but there are encouraging signs.

Jeffrey Burt for eWeek, wrote an article on former Intel CEO Craig Barrett and current Xerox CEO Ursula Burns being are part of a group that will push forward the Obama administration’s effort to improve science and math education in the United States. In addition, the public-private partnership will look to grow an interest in the subjects among U.S. students. Group members said the effort is important to help keep the United States competitive in the global economy.

Among the other founders are Glen Britt, chairman, president and CEO of Time Warner Cable; Antonio Perez, chairman and CEO of Eastman Kodak; and Sally Ride, CEO of Sally Ride Science and the first American woman in space. Also helping with the funding is the Carnegie Corp.

The group is looking to build a coalition of businesses, philanthropists, educators, governors and the public to push for better STEM education, and will form an advisory board comprising business leaders.

"At Intel, we have seen what young people can do with math and science when they are inspired and well-taught,” Barrett said in a statement. “It is up to all of us to stimulate that interest and provide teachers who can guide and nurture students in these critical subjects.”

The non-profit organization will look to gather the necessary resources that will help drive math and science education. It also will look to take advantage of new technologies and social networks to bring teachers together with STEM professionals and help push STEM education and careers.

Businesses increasingly are looking for employees who are strong in the math and sciences, according to the group, which will put a greater onus on young people entering the work force to have these skills. Xerox’s Burns said the time is right for this strategy.

"President Obama's initiative is not only the right thing for the young people of our country, but essential to maintaining America's leadership position in the global economy," she said in a statement.

Having top corporate executives working with the administration will bridge education and the tomorrow's workforce.

Obama Unveils STEM Campaign

President Obama on Monday unveiled a campaign intended to promote science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education among children – an effort that includes about $260 million in financial support from companies like Time Warner Cable, Discovery Communications, Sony, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

While the funding and commitments will come from private industry, the most public demonstration of the Obama administration's commitment will be an annual national science fair where student winners of national science, technology, and robotics competitions can showcase their projects at the White House.

"Reaffirming and strengthening America's role as the world's engine of scientific discovery and technological innovation is essential to meeting the challenges of this century," Obama said during a press conference at the White House. "That's why I am committed to making the improvement of STEM education over the next decade a national priority."

The president's goal for STEM education include: increasing STEM literacy and critical thinking; improving the quality of math and science teaching to help close the gap between the U.S. and other countries; and expanding STEM education and career opportunities for under-represented groups like women and minorities.

Thirty-two percent increase in UC student fees

The resession hasn't only hit employees but future employees as well. The UC regents just approved a 32 percent increase for student fees outlined in an Associated Press article.

As hundreds of students demonstrated outside, University of California leaders on Thursday voted to approve a 32 percent hike in undergraduate fees, arguing the increase is crucial because of the state's budget crisis.

The UC Board of Regents, meeting at UCLA, approved a two-phase increase that will boost the average undergraduate fee $2,500 by next fall. That would bring the average annual cost to about $10,300 — a threefold increase in a decade.

After a series of deep cuts in state aid, and with state government facing a nearly $21 billion budget gap over the next year and a half, regents said there was no option to higher fees.

Bridging Students and Faculty Expectations

Despite best intentions, today’s first-generation college students and their professors “misunderstand and ultimately fail one another” in the classroom, according to a new scholarly work on community college pedagogy.

The College Fear Factor, published last month by Harvard University Press, is based upon five years of observations of community college courses and interviews with students and professors by Rebecca Cox, professor of education at Seton Hall University. In her work, she tries to show how “traditional college culture” is a barrier to student success, particularly for disadvantaged students.

Read today's article in Inside Higher Ed

Texas Schools Moving to Online Teaching Content

The Star-Telegram reported yesterday Texas schools will be moving to online content over the traditional textbook.

Textbooks could be going the way of slide rules and Big Chief tablets within a few years in Texas classrooms.

State legislation passed in the spring could put up-to-the-minute instructional content at students’ fingertips — either online or in customized printed form — eliminating the mass-market hardback textbook.
The sea change could happen sooner rather than later, beginning as early as the 2010-11 school year.

"This is one of the few times we can do things cheaper, faster and better all at the same time," said the measure’s author, state Rep. Scott Hochberg, D-Houston.

The legislation is one of two bills passed this year that allow the Texas Education Agency to create its own repository of digital textbook content.

By switching to online content, schools could save money, customize materials to fit students’ needs and more easily integrate textbooks with video, software or other technology.

This month, the Texas Education Agency is taking the first step by calling for bids for online material from both traditional publishers and online content providers. Officials there expect to have the first open-source textbooks and other materials online for students next fall.

"We did have a publishers meeting last week, and spent three hours talking through the open-source and electronic textbook concepts with them," said Anita Givens of the TEA instructional materials division.

Read the full article by Shirley Jinkins

Opposition for the New Education Bill

An article in today's Boston Globe by James Vaznis states the Massachusetts Association of Charter Public Schools could actually stifle the growth of charter schools. This is odd, considering the teacher's association is stating the opposite.

The Massachusetts Association of Charter Public Schools said today the bill could actually stifle the growth of charter schools because of changes made to the legislation last Friday in the Senate Ways and Means Committee.

Those changes would pull first-year funding for all new charter schools from the state's general education fund known as Chapter 70 and would create a new budget line for those costs, which the association fears could make it more vulnerable to line-item budget cutting.

Another change made by the committee would require that the first three new charter schools approved each year to be located in a district that ranks in the bottom 10 percent in MCAS scores. Given that the state only approves two or three applications a year, the association said the requirement would make it virtually impossible to open new charter schools in other parts of the state.

The association also expressed concern about imposing quotas on the enrollment of students from certain demographic groups and replacing students who leave a charter school. The association said the language in the bill is so restrictive that it would discourage organizers from wanting to open new charters schools.

"These provisions would inhibit future charter growth, and restrain the ability of successful charters to continue to provide the educational and economic opportunities they have been providing for 15 years -- a key tenet of the education reform agenda," Marc Kenen, the association's executive director, said in a statement.

Read the bill

Cal State Plans to Cut Enrollment, Citing State Reductions

California State University officials laid out plans Tuesday to reduce its enrollment by 40,000 next year in response to a $564 million decline in state funds. "You cannot see a 20 percent drop in revenue and serve the same number of students," Chancellor Charles B. Reed said in a news release. System officials said Cal State's 23 campuses had received 53 percent more applications for fall 2010 than they had by this point a year ago, and that they anticipated half the campuses to stop accepting applications by November 30. Reed also said he would present Cal State's trustees with what he called a "recover and reinvest" budget for 2010-11 that would seek to restore one-time cuts made in 2009-10, among other things.

Int'l Grad Student Enrollment Down at U.S. Universities

The number of international first-time students at American graduate schools is flat this year, following four consecutive years of growth, according to a study being released today by the Council of Graduate Schools. At the same time, enrollments of American students are up 6 percent in a year.

For both groups, the numbers do not seem to reflect any single trend but rather a combination of circumstances.

For instance, among the graduate schools in the survey, some are seeing larger increases in American students, but others are seeing decreases. For the 166 reporting increases, the average was 11 percent. For the 79 reporting decreases, the average decline was 7 percent. Generally, doctoral institutions reported larger increases than master's-oriented institutions.

Read the Inside Higher Ed article

Can American Education Compete Globally?

T.H.E. Journal asked this question recently of U. Missouri education researcher Motoko Akiba. Scott Aronowitz interview with Akiba is revealing.

Of the many issues that have sparked the debate over education reform in recent years, one that seems to many to be a bit more abstract is the concern that we may be losing our competitive standing on the world stage, in terms of leadership in innovation, in technology, and in overall math and science proficiency.

Motoko Akiba is an assistant professor of educational leadership and policy analysis at the University of Missouri-Columbia. Along with her research partner, Prof. Gerald LeTendre of the College of Education at Pennsylvania State University, Akiba conducted a comparative study between the nationwide primary and secondary education systems of the United States, Australia, and Japan.

Read the interview

Cutting Back Aid to Wealthy Students

In a continuing series this week regarding university president's compensation, high tuition at top colleges/universities comes an article in today's Inside Higher Ed by Donald E. Heller regarding cutting financial aid to wealthy students.

In the space of several months in late 2007 and early 2008, Harvard, Yale and several other highly selective universities enriched their financial aid programs to guarantee that students from families well up the economic ladder would get sizable grants to attend their institutions. The announcements, which came as the country's wealthiest universities were under Congressional pressure to spend more from their endowments, helped to quiet that criticism and won applause in many circles.

Read the full article

MA Universities Tuition Reaches High

Earlier in the week I did a post on university and college presidents compensations. I found it quite interesting the exceedingly high salary combined with compensation packages for many U.S. university presidents.

Today's blog is on the high reaching tuitions of nine private colleges and universities in Massachusetts now topping $50,000 a year, according to College Board data analyzed by the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Tufts University ($51,088) ranks the highest in the Bay State and No. 20 nationwide. Boston College, Mount Holyoke college, Hampshire College and Smith College round out the state's top five, followed by Bard College at Simon's Rock, Babson college, Boston University and Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering.

The analysis factors in tuition, fees, room and board when calculating what id dubs "The 50K Club." Who took the top spot? Sarah Lawrence College in New York at $55,788 a year!

With skyrocketing salaries and tuition's, how can a middle class family afford to send their children to university? How will we compete in a global economy if our children can't even compete for a top university diploma?

Interesting questions with long term effects.

Uni presidents are making bank

Today's washingtonpost.com article, "Ex-president of GWU leads in pay survey" tells of a 3.7 million pay day for former George Washington University president, Stephen J. Trachtenberg 2007-2008, 2M more in compensation than any other university president during the same time period.

Wow! Let me repeat that again because I couldn't believe it when I heard it. $2M more than any other higher education president during the same period. Which means many university presidents are making over $1M.

During the recession we have been bombarded daily regarding universities and colleges cutting back on courses, programs and salaries, but apparently not so much at the top spot. Not all of higher education presidents are making over a million dollars.

Compensation for presidents of private colleges and universities rose 6.5 percent in 2007-08, to a median of $358,746, according to an annual survey of 419 institutions by the Chronicle of Higher Education. The trade publication analyzed federal tax documents for the 2007-08 fiscal year.

Read the full article

Are University Museum's an Educational Necessity?

The question as to whether a university’s museum is an educational necessity is a good one in this time of recession. According to Rudolph Weingartner in his Views column of October 23 for Inside Higher Ed, Weingartner believe Brandeis was correct in its view regarding the famous Rose Museum.

However, in today’s article by James Christian Steward, The Museum at the Heart of the Academy, Steward provides a much needed look at how universities “use” their museums in education.

Read the full article

Wisdom of raising the "dropout" age

The Boston Globe ran a thoughtful article yesterday regarding two legendary educators possible ideas to move the dropout age for students from 16 to 18.

The state panel said the right things about the crisis of 10,000 students dropping out each year. It acknowledged that raising the compulsory age will “only retain a handful of students’’ unless the state offers “programs and services that address the underlying reasons that students drop out of school.’’

Read the full article

SunGard Offers Alternative to Blackboard

Labeled E-Learning's "Third Phase" today's Inside Higher Ed article states SunGard Higher Education learning based social-networking platform offers an alternative to Blackboard.

When professors are building a course, said Felice Nudelman, executive director of education at the Times, they will be able to use keywords to locate relevant Times content on particular topics and events, and integrate the material into their classes.

Students, meanwhile, will be able to manage and share their Epsilen e-portfolios through the SunGard portal. While the combination of services doesn't equal everything Blackboard offers, given that Blackboard's services go beyond classroom experience, it represents a significant addition of content and online communities to the SunGard product for courses.

Read the full article

New UNESCO Director Makes Education of Women a Priority

An article in the University World News yesterday declares Irina Bokova, Director General-elect of the UN education, science and cultural organisation Unesco, and its first woman head, has said her priorities will be education, Africa and gender equality when she takes over on 15 November.

In her first public comments since her election, Bokova, 57, from Bulgaria, who was her country's former ambassador to the UN in New York and is currently ambassador to France, said the education of women and girls was a particular concern, and not just formal education but general access to information and knowledge.

Read the article

$564,000 NASA Award to Challenger Center

Challenger Center for Space Science Education has received a three-year $564,000 climate education grant from NASA to enhance learning through the use of NASA's Earth Science resources.

Fifteen organizations were selected from more than a hundred applications, and include colleges and universities, nonprofit groups, museums, science centers and a school district. The winning proposals illustrate innovative approaches to using NASA content to support elementary, secondary and undergraduate teaching and learning, and through lifelong learning. There is a particular emphasis on engaging students using NASA Earth observation data and Earth system models.

Read full article

Education Secretary Says Teacher Training "Mediocre"

Education Secretary Arne Duncan is today giving a talk in which he will denounce most teacher education colleges for offering "mediocre" training, and call for major reforms of those programs, The Washington Post reported. Duncan will make these remarks at Teachers College of Columbia University, and his comments follow similar criticism in a recent speech at the University of Virginia. In today's talk, Duncan will say that many colleges and universities treat their teacher education programs as "cash cows," enrolling many students but not focusing on what they learn. The key to reform, Duncan will say, is linking programs directly to the ability of graduates to achieve good outcomes with students they go on to teach.

College tuition up, bring students down

Over the last couple of weeks, my blog has been centered around the cost of education and tuition. Well today is no different. Here is a details account from the Associated Press regarding the increase in college tuitions during the recession.

Review the graphic showing the average college costs and available federal and nonfederal aid by year. Four year college tuition rose 6.5% this fall, private colleges 4.4 percent.

"Every sector of the American economy is under stress and higher education is no exception," said Terry Hartle, senior vice president of the American Council on Education. "It's regrettable, and it's yet another piece of disappointing economic news that affects families."

Read the full article

Florida takes on the high cost of textbooks

A recent article in 4 Your Money talks about a pilot program in Florida whereby college students can obtain online textbooks for free.

A new online program launched in Florida is aimed at providing relief to students by offering digital textbooks. The idea is to offer textbooks that are used in common general education courses online free of charge.

"Open access textbooks is the real solution to reducing the cost of textbooks for our students," Orange Grove Digital Repository Director Susie Henderson said. "Currently our students pay, in many cases, more than the cost of tuition for their textbooks, there's something wrong there."

The program, called Orange Grove Texts Plus for the repository where most of the digital books are coming from, has received a federal grant and is being made a pilot program for the rest of the nation.

Read the full article

High Cost of College Getting You Down?

SayCompusLife just posted an article by Matthew C. Keegan regarding how many colleges are offering classes online. Good news, but also read the comments. It is entertaining and informative.

Colleges/Universities evaluating attrition

Yesterday my blog post dealt with many students having to leave college or university before graduating due to increased years of commitment from many institutions limiting class size and courses per semester. Then I read and article by John Thelin for Inside Higher Ed outlining the critical state of attrition at colleges/universities.

Most influential is the publication of Crossing the Finish Line, a study of completing college at America’s public universities, written by William G. Bowen, Matthew M. Chingos, and Michael S. McPherson. It’s reinforced by the June 2009 report, "Diplomas and Dropouts: Which Colleges Actually Graduate Their Students (and Which Don’t)," by Frederick M. Hess, Mark Schneider, Kevin Carey, and Andrew P. Kelly of the American Enterprise Institute. The two studies rekindled concern about the percentage of undergraduates who fail to complete their bachelor degrees.

It would appear there is definitely a correlation between students leaving university prior to receiving their degree due to cost and time and the attrition rate.

As we as a nation compete with the global marketplace of highly educated and skilled workers, these issues will become even more paramount.

Students financial commitment increasing

Colleges and universities around the country are cutting back on faculty and classes, meaning many students are finding a four-year degree turning into five or six years. The increase time in school is hitting the student’s wallet dramatically. This is forcing many students to quit college before obtaining degrees or leaving them in a financial quagmire.

A recent article Associated Press article details the dilemma.

State universities step up outside recruitment

I’ve been seeing quite a few television commercials recently for the University of Massachusetts. UMass has joined the ranks of many state colleges/universities in a quest for out-of-state students to increase their diminishing coffers.

UMass-Amherst Chancellor Robert Holub is seeking new sources of income, amid dwindling state subsidies, to increase the size and prominence of the faculty, update deteriorating postwar buildings, and invest in scientific research. To help reach that goal, he envisions increasing undergraduate enrollment by 15 percent, to 22,500 students, over the next decade by exclusively courting out-of-state students.

But Holub’s vision, coming as Bay State residents are facing stiffer competition to gain admission, is raising some concerns on a campus whose traditional mandate has been to make higher education accessible to citizens of the Commonwealth.

“We’re not abandoning our obligation to our students, but in order to provide a very good education for them, we obviously need to have real revenue sources. And one of them has to do with increased tuition and fees that come with a higher number of out-of-state students,’’ said Holub, who became chancellor a year ago. “It’s an important shift, one we haven’t really done in the past.’’

Read the full article

Louisiana Tech lands DOE grant for cyberspace instruction

The U.S. Department of Education has awarded Louisiana Tech University a $951,000 grant to support interdisciplinary cyberspace and science education programs throughout northern Louisiana.

Dr. Galen Turner, associate professor of mathematics and associate dean of graduate studies for Tech’s College of Engineering and Science, has worked with professors from a number of different disciplines on the Tech campus to develop Cyber K-12: Building a foundation for cyber education in North Louisiana.

Cyber K-12 will provide professional development opportunities for K-12 educators throughout northern Louisiana, yielding an increased number of teachers who will gain insight into our nation’s cyber challenges. The project is a product of Louisiana Tech’s STEM Talent Expansion Program and builds upon a strong collaborative partnership with the Cyber Innovation Center in Bossier City.

“This project will help advance Tech’s cyberspace initiatives by further developing the high school professional development model produced by our engineering and science faculty over the past few years,” says Turner.

“Cyber K-12 has also led to the recently approved Integrated STEM Education Research Center (ISERC) housed in the College of Engineering and Science. This Department of Education grant will be pivotal in continuing to advance the university as a leader in STEM education in North Louisiana.”

The strength of Cyber K-12 is rooted in Louisiana Tech’s highly-interdisciplinary approach to cyber education. The Cyber Discovery Summer Camp, for example, is a collaborative between Tech and the CIC that exposes student and teachers to the technological, social, political and historical aspects of cyber.

“It shows students how life is interconnected and that they must pay attention to all of the issues surrounding the real problems that we face as a society,” says Turner.

'Online Skills Laboratory' Questioned

Fredrick Hess, director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, writes a detailed article regarding a new department of education policy called the ‘Online Skills Laboratory.’

The Obama administration has “launched a worrisome but largely unnoticed assault upon the nation’s publishers and the vibrant market in online learning. The U.S. House has approved a White House-backed provision to provide $500 million to develop free, and “freely available,” online college courses,” states Hess.

Providing everyone an education at a low cost is a good idea. What is unclear is how the money will be distributed and what current online courseware, if any, will be used in this new ‘Online Skills Laboratory.’

Read the full article here

Students 'Going Green'

Many colleges and universities are now instituting sustainability standards for students.

Curricular innovation has been a hot topic on the Green Schools List the past week or two. And no wonder -- getting colleges and universities to operate sustainably is hard, but not nearly as hard as getting them to teach sustainability in all its variety and complexity.

The standards aren’t only being developed at the college/university level. Here is what Washington state high schools are now required to do in creating sustainability. The standards are pretty detailed.

Create realistic models with feedback loops, and recognize that all models are
limited in their predictive power.
Analyze relationships between national
interests and international issues; evaluate impacts of international agreements
on contemporary global issues.
Analyze how economic choices by groups and
individuals impose costs and provide benefits.
Analyze and evaluate
(dis)advantages of different economic systems, and the effects of specialization
on global trade.
Analyze and evaluate effects of distribution of resources
on sustainability.
Evaluate the ethics of technology use based on historic
patterns.
Understand and analyze the causal factors that have shaped major
events in history.
Evaluate how human interaction with the environment has
affected economic growth and sustainability.

Read the complete list.

Face-to-Face vs. Online Education

There were two articles yesterday that caught my eye; a blog post from Tony Karrer, CEO of Techpower, discussing online conferences versus face-to-face conferences and an article from T.H.E. Journal detailing the technological impact in the classroom regarding online learning versus in classroom teaching.

The United States Department of Education published a report over the summer titled, "Evaluation of Evidence-Based Practices in Online Learning; A Meta-Analysis and Review of Online Learning Studies" (Center for Technology in Learning, 2009). What's interesting about this report is that it confirms what many who actual teach or have taught either distance or online courses already know: that there is no significant difference between online learning and the face-to-face experience.

Both present good views on the single thread that “students” whatever the age or at whatever level in their educational process are online. They are texting, twittering, reviewing emails, researching, etc. while listening in class or web conference.

Whether you are a teaching professor at a university or college or a conference presenter it is imperative you are aware of your audience’s mobility and adjust accordingly.

The Report Abstract

Coaxing students out of the ‘cloud’

While a number of colleges and universities devote resources to keep campus e-mail grounded on their own servers, they are finding it difficult to coax students out of the cloud.

Students are increasingly arriving at college already managing multiple e-mail addresses with “cloud”-based e-mail services -- such as Gmail and Hotmail -- which are hosted remotely by third-party companies. These students are often reluctant to use the e-mail client provided to them by their institution.

“We did a survey several years ago, and the overwhelming majority of incoming students said they had between three and four e-mail accounts,” said Beth Ann Bergsmark, director for academic information technology services at Georgetown University.

In order to keep things simple, many students set up their institutional accounts to automatically forward mail to one of their existing, cloud-based mailboxes. Students prefer not to check multiple mailboxes if they don’t have to, said Geoff Nathan, faculty liaison to computing and information technology at Wayne State University. When he asked his students recently why the majority of them auto-forwarded their e-mails to an outside account, they cited features often unavailable on campus accounts, such as texting, video chatting, and virtually unlimited storage space.

However, this is presenting colleges/universities with a dilemma regarding privacy issues with third party providers. If e-mail accounts are hacked or go down, like Google’s Gmail did recently, how will this effect university communications and what is the institutions responsibility to their students and faculty?

Great questions, not really sure we have the answers yet. As technology begins to grow faster than college e-mail procedures do to implement the advances, only time will tell whether or not the “cloud” will be lifted.

The full article by Steve Kolowich

Summer vacations may be cut short

If President Obama has his way, they will! The Associate Press reported today on President Obama's comment that "kids spend too little time in school, putting them at a disadvantage with other students around the globe."

Arne Duncan, Secretary of Education concurred in a recent interview, "Our school calendar is based upon the agrarian economy and not too many of our kids are working the fields today."

I don't have children, but do have several nieces and nephews and often wondered why school wasn't more of a year-round event with small breaks in between. I think it would be easier on child care for many parents struggling to find "sitters" during long summer time periods.

More importantly I agree with the president that to compete globally, we first need a strong educational system.

Read the full AP article

Keeping Social Skills Alive at Online High Schools

As the digital age continues to grow for teen and young adults, online high schools and colleges are concerned with students developing social skills.

This has always been a concern for parents who home school their children. Many home schooled students actually enter high school just to have social interaction with other students through sports, drama, and events like proms.

In yesterday’s Wall Street Journal an article by Paul Glader outlines what some online schools are doing to prevent student isolation.

As online high schools spread, educators are ramping up efforts to counter the social isolation that some students experience. At the same time, sociologists and child psychologists are examining how online schooling might hinder, or help, the development of social skills.

"For online high schools, the biggest obstacle is addressing the social interaction for the students," said Raymond Ravaglia, deputy director of Stanford's Educational Program for Gifted Youth, which Ms. Ray attended. "At that age, people really crave social interaction."

Read the full article

Northwestern University Moves Print Journal to Online

Northwestern University announced Monday it will be moving their printed journal to online. With the economic downturn threatening the viability of some university presses, any "review" of a publishing house is likely to crank up the jitters. Northwestern University has "reaffirmed its commitment to publishing and disseminating scholarly writing," and that it will conduct a national search to hire a new full-time director of the Northwestern University Press. But while the review solidified Northwestern's commitment to a sustained role in scholarly publishing, it also reinforced that changes are coming to its press, as to the publishing industry overall.

Beginning next year, the university announced, the press will make its primary journal, TriQuarterly, available only electronically. “This move will align publishing efforts more closely with the university’s academic enterprise while at the same time expanding electronic dissemination and public access to the wonderful literature and essays that are published in TriQuarterly,” said Sarah Pritchard, the Charles Deering McCormick University Librarian. “Scholarly publishing is increasingly moving to open access, allowing greater distribution of academic work. This reflects that trend and allows the journal editors to take advantage of the multimedia capabilities offered through online publishing.”

Read more

A Party for 'Community'

I first saw Chevy Chase on Saturday Night Live (I used to sneek a look when my parents weren't around), and fell for his slap-stick comedy immediately. I've been missing him of late and was glad to see he is back on the tube in "Community" on Thursday nights.

The debut of "Community" an NBC sitcom set at a fictional community college has been the subject of much debate among community college leaders, with some welcoming the attention and others objecting to the way their institutions are portrayed. Administrators and some faculty members of Prairie State College planned a premiere party Thursday night to watch together. And the American Association of Community Colleges has created a blog for viewer comments.

In this economy many students are deciding to go to community college first before moving on to a State or private university. Supposedly any publicity is good publicity. As far as I'm concerned, I thought the show was a hoot and loved seeing Chevy, be Chevy again.

Name that style

Yesterday I read an article in the Shawnee State online news site University Chronicle about a research program being conducted by Professor Loretta Harvey at Ohio State University to study learning habits of students to see if their if a certain learning style has an effect on student performance in class. My first thought was YES or course it does!

Harvey said she hopes that this research project will make students and professors more aware of learning styles. She believes that every student has a learning style (auditory, visual, tactile, and kinesthetic) which best suits him or her, and Harvey says that most of these styles of learning are not being accommodated by lectures.

Again, YES!

In all due respect to Professor Harvey, do we really need a research study to tell us students learn better through interactive teaching rather than lectures. Professors were doing lectures in my day (suffice to say a long time ago). With all the technological advances I would think professors would have changed their teaching styles to meet the student’s style quite a while ago.

Harvey said her research into learning styles began as a project in a quantitative data class at OSU. She says the goal of her research is to "look at students' attitudes towards science, cooperative learning and critical thinking in a science course, and identify their learning style to see if there is a relationship between their attitudes and their learning styles.

Perhaps a professional research study is just what the teacher ordered. Let’s hope professors enter the 21 century and realize “talking heads” are not the way to teach science or any other course for that matter.

Read the full article

ICT Enters the Classroom

Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) partners with the University of the Basque Country (UPV-EHU) to provide a new vision of education.

The following article is provided by the National Science Foundation and details ICT’s biggest challenge in proposing new educational plans for the classroom.

Read the article

Education for Sale

In my day there were always those who could “work around” the pop quiz or written essays by having someone else do the work or copying off their papers with wandering eyes.

Now with the Internet it has become a growing for-profit business. In a recent article by AFP, a Google search for "buy term paper" turned up 183 million sites, some of which, such as acceptedpapers.com, offer to write students' papers for them when they are "unable to be creative for an essay" or would "rather enjoy a night out than write a book report at the library."
The real kicker here, according to AFP is that many of these term papers are just plain wrong and filled with grammatical errors. A paper comparing Mark Twain's "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" to J. D. Salinger's "Catcher in the Rye" posted on dreamessays.com began with the line: "The forthcoming of American literature proposes two distinct Realistic novels portraying characters which are tested with a plethora of adventures."

"This paper is just too awful to read. I would be mortified if one of my students handed it in," said Carol Zoref, who teaches a course at Sarah Lawrence College in New York called "Narrative Design," which often deals with Huckleberry Finn.

The paper was "overflowing with grammar mistakes, vocabulary mistakes, and nonsensical repetition," Zoref said. Her advice to a student who submitted it would be "to get their money back."

Students who buy their papers are not only wasting their money but are naive to think they might pull the wool over their teachers' eyes, educators say.

Read the full article here

Gen Y-ers Drive Classroom Technology

A recent MediaPost blog, The Battle of College Textbooks Begins Anew by Dan Coates provides great stats on why textbooks and their high prices are not liked among many students but doesn’t really address the real issue of the next step. The real issue here is that Gen Y-ers and the generations to follow are not using the textbooks they buy, even if the teacher recommends it. Why?

Today’s students are online, in their homes, as they are walking down the street and sitting in cafes. And that is where publishers need to be as well. Providing accurate information for student learning needs to be digital and not just through a website, but through many applications.

So what’s the hold up? According to Coates blog, electronic textbooks really haven't found much of a foothold, with fewer than 7% of students have ever purchased a textbook in electronic format.

This lack of adoption has much to do with digital rights management, limiting the comfort level that publishers feel in releasing textbooks in this format. Gen Y-ers have little sympathy for the creators and owners of digital content, feeling that once it has been digitized, it's fair to share. They are right by the way.

As was and is the case with entertainment, the solution to the textbook problem may be device-centric. According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, Amazon's pilot to bring textbooks to the Kindle DX at seven campuses this fall and McGraw-Hill Education's plans to bring 100 college textbooks to the Kindle and Kindle DX platform bring solutions to the price and weight of what's in students' backpacks. Meanwhile, CourseSmart has brought more than 7,000 titles to Apple's iPod Touch and iPhone platforms.

Note to publishers…open access is here to stay and grow. Better get on this train or you will be left at the station.

“Race to the Top” and outside the box

Creating conditions for innovation and reform is one of the stated aims of the new education initiative launched by the Obama administration.

Race to the Top is one of those innovations and the brain child of a sixteen-year veteran educator, Kim Ursetta. Ursetta brought the idea of a teacher lead not an administrative lead school to her board. She assumed she’d be shot down, but was pleasantly surprised to find the idea was well received.

She immediately started "pulling together a group of teachers to sit down with a blank sheet of paper and ask how you would do a school differently. See statistics.

Three weeks ago, Ursetta's dream became a reality, the first Race to the Top school, Mathematics and Science Leadership Academy opened its doors to 142 kindergartners and first- and second-grade students in Denver's mostly low-income, largely Hispanic Athmar Park neighborhood. As a teacher at traditional schools, Ursetta said she and her colleagues weren't allowed to change the order of their lessons.

Two of the school's 12 teachers take on administrative duties as "lead teachers," performing the traditional role of a principal. The lack of quality school leadership is a big reason that experienced teachers leave their schools, Ursetta said. "Studies show when you take accomplished teachers and allow them to have a leadership role, that's when they see the most success. Scores just soar. That's how we're focused here."

To qualify for Race to the Top, the rules call on states to create "data systems" linking student success with teacher performance.

Race to the Top isn’t without critics. The National Education Association -- the nation's largest teachers union -- fears it opens the door to measuring teacher performance by how students score on tests. "What we're really against is using a single [student] test on a single day" to assess teacher performance, said NEA Executive Director John Wilson. "What we're more accepting of are multiple indicators," and teacher performance "observed in classroom should count as the major part of evaluation."

But Wilson said many teachers are reacting coolly to Race to the Top because they "feel like it's too much like No Child Left Behind and are looking for something different." Teachers wonder if the program will undermine innovation and creativity, Wilson said.

I truly hope the NEA gets behind this new innovative idea and let it take hold. Our schools and more importantly our students need it.

"Get Schooled" with Bill Gates and Viacom

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is partnering with Viacom Inc.'s television networks, education leaders and celebrities to launch an awareness campaign to reduce the number of dropouts. The foundation, started by Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates and his wife, has invested more than $2 billion in educational programs since 2000.

"People should understand how the system is falling short today and how it really contradicts our commitment to equal opportunity," Gates told The Associated Press. "If we don't change it now, it will hurt the future of the country as a whole."

The "Get Schooled" initiative focuses on low graduation rates in college and high school and the accountability of teachers. Gates criticized the practice of salaries rewarding seniority over proven efficacy, calling it a detriment to quality education.

Only one-third of American high school student’s graduate with the skills necessary to succeed in college and the nation's workplaces, he said.

To launch the five-year campaign, the documentary "Get Schooled" premiered on all of Viacom's networks simultaneously at 8 p.m. EDT last night.

The documentary features pop singer Kelly Clarkson, basketball star LeBron James and President Barack Obama, but the program's real focus is on people behind the scenes, like a presidential speechwriter, and how education brought them success.

Tuesday's event coincided with a speech Obama made in Arlington, Va., that was broadcast to schools across the nation. In the address, Obama urged students to hit the books, saying that success is hard-won and that every student has something at which they excel.

"All too often, the value and benefit of education are not real enough to kids," said Tony Miller, deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of Education. Charities and industry won't have to go it alone; about $100 billion of the federal stimulus package is dedicated to improvements in education, said Miller.

A student drops out of an American high school every 26 seconds, according to the Seattle-based Gates Foundation.

At that rate, not enough American children are graduating high school and college to stay competitive in the global marketplace, said Viacom President and CEO Philippe Dauman.

" Dauman said the "Get Schooled" initiative would find its way into plot lines and programs, like BET's documentary "Bring Your 'A' Game," which featured prominent black men who have achieved success.

But "we're not going to go to all PBS-type programming," Dauman said. "In order to reach kids, you have to entertain them."

Read the full article here

Obama Gives Good Advice to Students

I don’t know about you, but I’m quite confused regarding the debate over President Obama’s address to students. The president’s advice to students in today’s speech that will be broadcast on the White House website, www.whitehouse.gov, will focus on students taking responsibility for their education, going to class, listening to their teachers and not to let failure define them.

Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan calls the dust up, “silly.” Duncan, in an interview Tuesday on MSNBC, said the controversy wasn't merited, but he also acknowledged that guidance the administration sent to schools about how kids could participate Tuesday could have been better worded.

In his talk, Obama says: "At the end of the day, we can have the most dedicated teachers, the most supportive parents and the best schools in the World and none of it will matter unless all of you fulfill your responsibilities."

Obama makes no reference in his prepared remarks to the uproar surrounding his speech. Nor does he make an appeal for support for tough causes such as his health care overhaul. He uses the talk to tell kids about his at-times clumsy ways as a child and to urge them to set goals and work hard to achieve them.

In his remarks, Obama leaves the students with some words of encouragement. "I expect great things from each of you," he said. "So don't let us down — don't let your family or your country or yourself down. Make us all proud. I know you can do it."

Sounds like good advice to me.

NSF Awards Annual Support of $7.81M to PREM’s

The National Science Foundation (NSF) announces eight Partnerships for Research and Education in Materials (PREMs) awarded as a result of the 2009 PREM competition.

The objective of the PREM program is to broaden participation of under-represented groups and enhance diversity in materials research and education. The objective is achieved by encouraging formal, long-term, multi-investigator, collaborative research and education partnerships between women- and minority-serving colleges and universities, colleges and universities dedicated to educating a majority of students with disabilities, and NSF Division of Materials Research (DMR)-supported centers and facilities. This is the third PREM competition since the program was launched in 2004.

Each PREM has made a substantial commitment to effectively integrating its educational and outreach activities with its scientific research program towards the PREM goal of broadening participation for under-represented groups in materials research and education, and enhancing diversity at all academic levels. The educational outreach activities cover the entire range from elementary school to the postgraduate level.

Three of the awards were made with American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funds that DMR received in FY 2009.

The eight PREMs and their partners are listed in a Nanowerk News article.

No Child Left Behind, Not?

In a opinion piece by Tom Loveless of The New York Times he says maybe we are leaving children behind. The ones who are the high achievers. In Smart Child Left Behind Loveless outlines three points to consider:

First, under the federal law, state tests are supposed to measure whether students are meeting grade-level expectations — whether the average third grader knows the mathematics taught through third grade. But high achievers usually work above grade level, so the state tests are very poor instruments for measuring how well top students are learning.

Second, the way the study’s analysts depicted state trends creates a misleading national picture. They calculated “trend lines” in each state — for example, whether more fourth graders in Georgia reached the “advanced” level in math, whether they made gains in reading and so on for each grade and subject.

For their conclusions, they added together all the up, down and sideways trends to give a national snapshot, saying that 83 percent of trend lines showed gains, while 15 percent showed declines. The problem with this system is that it treats all states equally, regardless of size. So a gain among high-performing students in North Dakota has the same weight as one in California, which has more than 60 times as many students.

Third, the analysis does not compare today’s students with those of earlier eras. High-achieving students might be making incremental progress — but is this new? If they were making similar gains before 2002, then might recent progress have nothing to do with No Child Left Behind? And how did their progress compare with trends for lower-achieving students?

Loveless states there is a better report to consider, National Assessment of Educational Progress, which tracks achievement changes in 4th, 8th and 12th graders across the country. It found relatively little progress among our highest-achieving students (those in the top 10 percent) from 2000 to 2007, while the bottom 10 percent made phenomenal gains. For example, in eighth-grade math, the lowest-achieving students made 13 points of progress on the national-assessment scale from 2000 to 2007 — roughly the equivalent of a whole grade. Top students, however, gained just five points.

No Child Left Behind is a good start, but let's not leave our highest achieving students in the political policy wake.

The Price for a Liberal Arts Degree

When I was at university (albeit a while ago), a liberal arts education was a good idea. It allowed the student time to understand who he/she was and what they wanted to do with their life personally and professionally.

Now, the cost of “figuring it out” can be around $40,000+ and many students and parents are re-evaluating the need for a liberal arts education.

The Washington Post provides an outlook on both sides of the divide concerning liberal arts degrees at what are known as Good Book institutes and profession specific colleges and universities. In Daniel de Vises’ An Education Debate for the Books, he provides a student view example for St. John’s College.

Liberal Arts in a Stringent Economy

» LAUNCH VIDEO PLAYER

Wednesday was move-in day for freshmen at St. John's College in Annapolis, one of many liberal arts schools that have taken a hit in applications and enrollment because of the downturn. Freshman Graham Gallagher discusses why he chose to attend the estimable Great Books School.

For freshman Graham Gallagher, arriving at the historic Annapolis campus Wednesday, admission to St. John's is destiny fulfilled. Here, he said, learning "is a journey, instead of a competition."

Liberal arts colleges have had to defend the marketability of a philosophy major for as long as competing public and private institutions have offered degrees in engineering and business, often at a lower cost. But never, perhaps, have families weighed the value of a liberal education more carefully than in the 2009-10 admissions cycle, which found the nation mired in its worst recession since the 1930s.

"People all think that in a bad economy, they need skills for a job," said Christopher Nelson, president of St. John's. "What they don't realize is that a liberal arts education will give them skills for life, and that will get them a job."

Perhaps Mr. Nelson is correct, but with a price tag for college/university education running $40-50,000 on the low end, parent’s pocket books may be the factor most families take into consideration.

Personally I hope the liberal arts education stays firmly planted for quite some time. With our changing times; more and more people working in several careers throughout their professional life, entering and re-entering work forces and economic changes, having a better understanding of the arts and who we are as individuals, will ultimately make use better citizens and workers.

Poll Gives Obama an A/B Grade for Education Policies

According to a recent PDK/Gallup Poll, the majority of Americans give their local public schools good grades, but they rate U.S. schools as a whole lower, expressing concerns about everything from paltry funding to high dropout rates.

Forty-five percent also give President Obama an "A" or "B" for his handling of school issues. "They support his positions on early-childhood education, merit pay for teachers, charter schools, and the use of stimulus money to save teachers' jobs," said William Bushaw, executive director of Phi Delta Kappa International (PDK). His group, a global association of educators, helped conduct the PDK/Gallup Poll of the Public's Attitudes Toward the Public Schools.

Here are the highlights:

NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND
Support for NCLB continues to decline. Only one out of four Americans believe NCLB has helped schools in their community. But, two to one Americans support annual testing of students in grades three through eight and using a single national test rather than letting each state use its own test.

CHARTER SCHOOLS
Almost two out of three Americans support charter schools. But, they clearly don't understand exactly what they are, showing confusion about whether they’re public schools and whether they can charge tuition, teach religion, or select their own students.

TEACHER PAY
Almost three out of four Americans favor merit pay for teachers. Advanced degrees, student academic achievement, and administrator evaluations are the three most favored criteria for awarding merit pay.
Americans estimate that teacher salaries are lower than what they believe teachers should receive.

TENURE
Americans split on teacher tenure, depending on how the question is asked. They disapprove of teachers having a “lifetime contract” but agree that teachers should have a formal legal review before being terminated.

DROPOUTS
Almost nine out of 10 Americans believe the U.S. dropout rate is either the most important or one of the most important problems facing high schools today.

EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION
Americans strongly endorse making either half-day or full-day kindergarten compulsory for all children.
Having children start school at age four is too early — Americans split on whether they believe starting school earlier would improve a child's achievement. Five out of 10 Americans believe preschool programs should be housed in public schools, with parents even more supportive of that idea.

MOVING IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION
Americans appear to be open to more innovation in their schools. The two issues that are most important for moving schools in the right direction: better teachers and more parental support. Lack of money was cited as the biggest obstacle.

ECONOMIC STIMULUS
Economic stimulus money should be used to retain teachers slated to be laid off, followed by support to the lowest performing schools.

MEDIA COVERAGE OF EDUCATION
Newspapers and school employees remain the top two sources of information about schools.

The 2009 PDK/Gallup Poll

Technology can help during a health crisis at schools…or can it?

Today’s Washington Times reports on how the Flu could hit poor schools hardest and a federal guidelines for school districts regarding student participation during a flu crisis.

The article discusses how students that are ill can stay home but still be connected to their classes through web conferencing, podcast technology, etc. But what about the student that is too poor for a computer or Internet access?

The department of education provided a six-page guideline to schools suggesting closed-circuit television, DVDs and Internet usage, among other technology, to get information to students in anticipation of high absentee rates and temporary school shutdowns because of a flu outbreak. However, that would not be available to students without Internet access or tools.

"It would be very difficult," said William Lockridge, D.C. State Board of Education representative for Wards 7 and 8, areas of the city east of the Anacostia River that tend to have higher rates of poverty. "Living in an economically depressed community, a lot of kids and parents don't have access to computers. It would be very hard to get students information from the Internet or other methods through computers." "If you can't afford a computer, you can't afford the access to the Internet," he said.

Lisa Raymond, D.C. State Board of Education president, said it is important for those implementing the plans to bridge the "digital divide," a term commonly used to describe the gap between those who have access to information through technology and those who do not. "It's important for the District to meet the needs of all of their students," Mrs. Raymond said. "Some schools and some parents won't have access to that technology. Those schools should get the educational support they would need."

Virginia-based Association of Teacher Educators is a mentor program that prepares teachers for the classroom. Executive Director David Ritchey said schools are being proactive in providing all students access to technology. "Not only are costs coming down, but there's a lot more effort to provide electronic advantages to those who were missing them before in order to cross that digital divide," Mr. Ritchey said. "Some are going to have more access than others, but schools are doing as much as they can."

As flu season rapidly approaches it will be incumbent on school districts to provide several means of communication with students who are ill and unable to attend classes. Let’s hope with these new guidelines they (the school districts) can meet the challenge.

Read the full article here.

Making Education More Geek Friendly

That’s right. Making schools geekier is the way to reform education. In a recent article by Daniel Roth at Wired Magazine, Making Geeks Cool Could Reform Education. He sites an inner-city educator, Alex Grodd who says a teacher can’t just have a “digital culture” in the classroom.

"The driving force in the life of a child, starting much earlier than it used to be, is to be cool, to fit in," Grodd states. "And pretty universally, it's cool to rebel." In other words, prepare for you and your net book to be jeered out of the room. "The best schools are able to make learning cool, so the cool kids are the ones who get A's. That's an art."

Grodd’s formula is used at Roxbury Prep in Boston. “Almost 80 percent of its eighth graders—nearly all of whom come from families earning less than $28,000 a year—go to college. Their teachers work nonstop to stamp out youth culture: Kids eat lunch in the classroom, they're not allowed to talk in the halls, and they're disciplined for using the word nerd. But it's about the nerdiest school you can imagine; every week, the faculty awards one child a "spirit stick"—a bedpost painted a rainbow of colors—for good grades.”

Roth laments, “In the public school I attended, that would be a homing beacon for a beating: "There's the nerd with the stick. Jump him!" But in geeked-out schools, that wouldn't happen—because everyone would be a nerd. At the final spirit-stick ceremony last year, 220 kids erupted in applause as a teacher read aloud the 14-year-old honoree's thesis. It started by calling America an "unfair and superficial nation." Hey, kids are going to rebel; better to have them cheered for doing it with contentious ideas.”

I’m not sure this formula would work everywhere. I was never a geek, but I wasn’t one of the “cool” kids either. I think the concept is interesting and if it can keep kids interested in academics to ensure their further education, then it should be modeled in as many schools as possible.

Online Classrooms Edging Out In Person Learning

An Information Week article provides a good breakdown on a U.S. department of education research study detailing the differences in learning online versus classroom with online edging out person-to-person classroom teaching. The study focused on four questions:

1. How does the effectiveness of online learning compare with that of face-to-face instruction?
2. Does supplementing face-to-face instruction with online instruction enhance learning?
3. What practices are associated with more effective online learning?
4. What conditions influence the effectiveness of online learning?

Meta-data used 51 independent studies of online vs. classroom learning methods. The SRI study found that, on average, online students would rank in the 59th percentile of all college students, while average classroom students would be in the 50th percentile.

“The study’s major significance lies in demonstrating that online learning today is not just better than nothing – it actually tends to be better than conventional instruction,” Barbara Means, the lead author of the study, told The New York Times.

Teaching with Technology - Is the Timing Right?

My thirteen year-old niece Sarah just started high school and if that was not bad enough, her family recently moved so now she has to take the bus with her 10 year-old brother, ugh! She doesn’t like her classes, the new students or the “stupid” teachers…just being a teenager right? Well, maybe, but perhaps there is a deeper issue.

As I was getting the low down from my sister, I heard something that caught my attention. It seems the class curriculum is not as advanced as her previous school. Even though the family moved into a much more upscale (at least in housing price) neighborhood. “But her teachers told me don’t worry about that, she won’t be bored,” my sister said. Really? Really? I think that is exactly what she will be. Why is it that from one school district to another, only divided by a few miles, the curriculum, teaching practices, administrators, etc. is so different?

I recently read an article in U.S. News & World Report Using Technology as Our Teacher, regarding the new Obama plan for educational funding that may or may not help the educational variances from school to school. Reporter Mortimer Zuckerman states, “Now, the Obama administration has announced a $4.35 billion Race to the Top fund—and it could be different this time around. It's the largest pot ever in the history of discretionary funding for education reform for grades K through 12.” Okay, but we’ve been throwing money at education for a long time, what makes this time different? Mr. Zuckerman says this time the difference is providing more good teachers as opposed to bad. Seems logical, but how do you determine the bad from the good.

Zuckerman says that through technology, “We could escape geography by using the technology to have the best teachers appear in hundreds of thousands of disparate classrooms. This is a force multiplier. The classrooms would be equipped with a large, flat-screen monitor with whiteboards on either side; the monitor would be connected to a school server that contains virtually all of the lessons for every subject taught in the school, from kindergarten through 12th grade. The contents would use animation, video, dramatization, and presentation options to deliver complete lessons, to convey ideas in unique ways that are now unavailable in conventional classrooms.”

He continues to quote, Liberating Learning: Technology, Politics, and the Future of American Education by Terry M. Moe and John E. Chubb throughout his article.

All well and good, but does it address the issues of schools that would need years to incorporate the technology into their classrooms? What about teachers with tenure that aren’t so “good?” There are many more questions than answers at this point. It will be interesting to see how our Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan administrates this increased fund to address the serious failings in the U.S. educational system.

I’m looking forward to keeping my eye on the administrations efforts. Now all I need to do is help my sister figure out how to keep my niece from killing her brother on the bus!

Engaging Students Visually in the Classroom

In yesterday’s blog I talked about the need for faculty to provide students the ability to engage in their learning. Today, we have an example of using visualization in the classroom to do just that. Tidewater Community College in Norfolk, VA has created a two-year degree program in modeling and simulation developed by Jody Strausser. Strausser states, "We created this laboratory for students who were new to basic programming and who were going to create virtual environments that could be experienced in the classroom." "The idea was to make it as real and hands-on as possible," he said. "When creating a virtual environment for training purposes, you need as much realism as possible. In order to train effectively, the visualization needs to be and act like a real-world environment."

Read the full article by Denise Harrison