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.

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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.

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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.

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