April 2013
4 posts
3 tags
Crisis in Legal Education
I’d like to veer off the focus of this blog(topics in primary or secondary education) and post a few links to articles on the state of legal education in the United States.
In the past several years, many have written about the grim job market that law school graduates face in this country. Even as job recovery is gaining pace this year, law schools and their graduates still seem to be...
3 tags
NYT series on continuing education
Check out the NYT special section on continuing education for notable articles.
The Great Aid Gap discusses the difficulty of students to finance noncredit certificate programs with federal financial aid. A recent Georgetown University study
found that men with nondegree certificates in computer/information services earned $72,498 a year on average — more money than 72 percent of men with...
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Musings on the Atlanta Schools cheating scandal
Recently, the Atlantic published two fascinating articles on the Atlanta Schools cheating scandal.
Here is what happened:
Nearly three dozen Atlanta Public Schools employees — ranging all the way up from classroom teachers to central office administrators to former Superintendent Beverly Hall — face stiff fines and jail time over allegations that they changed students’...
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colleges are failing to attract poor students
This was a front page article about an extremely interesting study published by Caroline Hoxby and Christopher Avery.
Only 34 percent of high-achieving high school seniors in the bottom fourth of income distribution attended any one of the country’s 238 most selective colleges, according to the analysis, conducted by Caroline M. Hoxby of Stanford and Christopher Avery of Harvard, two longtime...
December 2012
2 posts
4 tags
Health of American universities
Steep rises in tuition and student debt level have left many concerned about the health of American universities.
Start with the fees. The cost of university per student has risen by almost five times the rate of inflation since 1983 (see chart 1), making it less affordable and increasing the amount of debt a student must take on. Between 2001 and 2010 the cost of a university education soared...
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Degree inflation?
Despite heated debates on the value of college education, bachelor’s degrees have gotten more valuable over time.
Some of that wage premium has to do with the changing nature of American jobs and the skills (and social networks) attained in college. Some of it may have to do with a change in the mix of students who go to college and those who don’t. As college enrollment becomes more...
November 2012
2 posts
3 tags
Mixed picture of the School Improvement Grants...
An analysis released by the US Department of Education shows mixed results of the first year of the School Improvement Grant program.
Read the recap on Education Week blog here.
Out of 731 schools that received funding in the first year of the program, 25 percent posted double-digit gains in math, and 15 percent posted double-digit gains in reading. Forty percent posted single-digit gains in...
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New report implores school leaders to use...
Read the recap of the new report released by the Alliance for Excellent Education.
The Alliance for Excellent Education has released a new report that implores school leaders to take a more deliberate approach in using technology reforms as part of a comprehensive plan to address four pressures that face contemporary schools.
The report identifies those four pressures as the need for improved...
October 2012
3 posts
3 tags
Education issues in the coming election
Education dive has done such a wonderful job of summarizing key education issues at stake at this year’s elections!
Click here to read 5 education issues in the 2012 Presidential elections. Click here to read about 6 states with education issues on the ballot. Education Dive is a great source for keeping up with news in education.
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Minority students at elite boarding school
Read this incredible piece on New York Times, on experiences of minority students at elite private schools in New York City. Having attended boarding school myself, the part on the segregation within the student body rings very true.
But schools’ efforts to attract minority students haven’t always been matched by efforts to truly make their experience one of inclusion, students and school...
6 tags
College affordability in the presidential campaign
President Obama has been proactive in boosting college affordability through increased aid to community colleges, increased aid for low- and middle-income students.
While his efforts were praised by many education experts, conservative analysts have expressed doubts on effectiveness of his policies.
ome conservatives have pushed that critique further, saying that Mr. Obama’s policies are...
September 2012
2 posts
6 tags
Commentaries on the Chicago Teachers' strike
Here are a few commentaries about the ongoing teachers’ strike in Chicago.
This article offers a comprehensive review of the issues at stake during the Chicago strike and in the national education reform. A major contention between Mayor Rahm Emmanuel and the teachers’ union is the new teacher evaluation system based on student performance. Read the full article here.
Chicago,...
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Peter Thiel Fellows at work
Click on this link to read about the progress that the current Thiel Fellows are making in various parts of the world.
The push, which is luring a handful of select students away from the likes of Princeton, Harvard and M.I.T., is the brainchild of Peter H. Thiel, 44, a billionaire and freethinker with a remarkable record in Silicon Valley. Back in 1998, during the dot-com boom, Mr. Thiel...
August 2012
18 posts
3 tags
New code on suspension for NYC public schools
New York City public school students will no longer be suspended for one-time, low-level infractions. Youngest students can now only be suspended for 5 days for midlevel offenses. Read the article to find out the full details.
Under the new code, which is reviewed and revised annually, students in all grades will no longer face any form of suspension for transgressions like being late for...
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Assessing the Teacher Peer Review program
A new paper by John P. Papay and Susan Moore Johnson on the costs and benefits of teacher peer assistance and review programs:
Read the full abstract:
Peer Assistance and Review (PAR) is a local labor–management initiative designed to improve teacher quality. In PAR, expert “consulting teachers” mentor, support, and evaluate novice and underperforming veteran teachers. Evaluations under PAR can...
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DoE award $613,091 to the Institute for...
U.S. Department of Education today announced the award of $613,091 for a grant to The Institute for Rehabilitation and Research (TIRR), Houston, Texas,to conduct research on improving living situations for disabled people.
“This grant will help generate valuable new knowledge about how to improve the lives of those with disabilities,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. “It will...
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Six members named to the National Assessment...
“The Governing Board plays a crucial role in ensuring that The Nation’s Report Card reflects the results of a challenging assessment of our K-12 students,” Duncan said. “We can be sure that the Board’s insight, wisdom and recommendations will help sustain the NAEP assessment as a barometer for what our students know and can do in the core subjects.”
In overseeing The Nation’s Report Card, the...
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Paul Ryan's view on education policy
Washington Post put together a summary of Ryan’s voting history. Click here to read the full article.
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NC gubernatorial candidates on education policy
Click on this link to read about what the three North Carolina gubernatorial candidates think on various education issues.
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45 percent of eligible NYC teachers denied tenure
Only 55 percent of eligible teachers, having worked for at least three years, earned tenure in 2012, compared with 97 percent in 2007.
An additional 42 percent this year were kept on probation for another year, and 3 percent were denied tenure and fired. Of those whose probations were extended last year, fewer than half won tenure this year, a third were given yet another year to prove...
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Comparing school district financing in Texas
Read an interesting article about school district financing in Texas, here. Spending per student is not the best yardstick to analyze how well each school spends money, given a complex array of socioeconomic factors to consider.
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Case against single sex classrooms
Margaret Talbot discusses waves of trends towards single-sex classroom and her skepticism of the arguments that support it.
And there’s the real trouble with this single-sex approach. The presumptions behind it are fusty and often plain silly—which might make them easy for kids who don’t conform to them to dismiss, except that their teachers and principals are repeating them so earnestly. Girls...
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Third Grade Reading Policies
In 2012, 13 states passed legislations that intended to identify, intervene, and retain students who do not demonstrate reading proficiency by the end of 3rd grade. Stephanie Rose at the Education Commission provides a detailed analysis on this policy and the relevant context.
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Rhee vs. Ravitch
Read this article to hear different cases on education reform from Michelle Rhee and Diane Ravitch.
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West Virginia approves private college oversight...
West Virginia’s HIgher Education Policy Commission has approved a rule which expands its authority over private and for-profit colleges. The new policy requires information from every in-state private college on student retention rates, transfers, loan default rates, and other statistics.
Read the full article here.
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Schools lengthen school year to improve student...
According to the National Center on Time and Learning, around 170 schools across the country have extended their calendars in recent years to 190 days or longer; the standard length of the school year is 180 days.
Many charter schools, including those in the academically successful KIPP network, attribute their achievement in part to longer days and calendars. President Obama has repeatedly...
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DoE awards $11 million in grants to support...
The U.S. Department of Education announced three grants totaling $11 million, to support charter schools to construct and renovate their facilities.
“Adequate facilities are essential for providing a high-quality education and a safe learning environment,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. “The Credit Enhancement program supports charter schools and gives them more financial...
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UT defends admissions policy in the Supreme Court...
In response to a lawsuit from a Caucasian students who has claimed that she would have been admitted to UT if she had not been a caucasian, UT argued that its admission is a constitutional “holistic” review that promotes diversity. The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Fisher vs. University of Texas at Austin on October 10th. The Supreme Court previously upheld the use of...
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Suspensions are more frequent among disabled,...
New analysis of Department of Education data shows that the rate of suspension among disabled students is almost as twice as high as that of non-disabled students. The different is even greater for black disabled students.
The analysis, which reviewed data at the state and district levels, found that in 10 states, including California, Connecticut, Delaware and Illinois, more than a quarter of...
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Christie signs the bill that overhauls teacher...
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie signed a bill that significantly changes teacher tenure laws; this bill was passed unanimously in past June.
The key details:
Under the old law, tenure had been all but guaranteed for teachers after three years on the job. The new law requires teachers to work for four years, one of which must be under a mentor, and to earn ratings of “effective” or “highly...
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Grants awarded to art educators in high-poverty...
The U.S. Department of Education announced the award of more than $1.2 million to schools districts in California, Florida, Nevada, and New Work to train art teachers that serve in high-poverty districts. The funds will support elementary and secondary education in music, dance, drama, media arts, or visual arts.
“Creating by doing is a uniquely powerful way to learn. That’s why I...
July 2012
37 posts
7 tags
On fair assessment of school performance
NYT Room for Debate section has an excellent discussion on the effective measurement of school performance: if standardized tests do not fully capture teacher performance or students’ readiness for college, what are the alternative measures?
Here is a quote from the piece written by Pedro Noguera, a professor of education at New York University:
What’s needed is a fundamental shift in the...
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States with NCLB waivers offer varied goals
In granting more than half the states waivers from meeting requirements of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) education law, the Obama administration asked the states to develop alternative tools to measure and improve the progress of schools.
A new report by Center for American Progress shows that while some states have proposed similar stringent measures, others are introducing much weaker measures...
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NYC promises even distribution of high-needs...
In response to complains that special education and struggling students tend to be clustered in certain schools in New York City, Chancellor Dennis M. Walcott responded that the city is committed to working on the problem.
Some have criticized the Department of Education for setting up some schools to fail by giving them too many special education and ESL students.
Read the full article here.
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A new national corp for master educators in...
President Obama announced plans to create a new national Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) Teachers Corp comprised of the nation’s leading educators in the subject. This Corps program will begin with 50 members in 50 sites and will be expanded over 4 years to reach 10,000 Master Teachers. In exchange for participating in the program, Master Teachers will receive an annual...
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Debating the value of algebra education
Read the full article here.
A typical American school day finds some six million high school students and two million college freshmen struggling with algebra. In both high school and college, all too many students are expected to fail. Why do we subject American students to this ordeal? I’ve found myself moving toward the strong view that we shouldn’t.
My question extends beyond...
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Thiel Fellowship: an alternative to college?
Read a profile on Thiel Fellowship, which recently announced its second group of fellowship recipients. The “20 Under 20” Thiel Fellowship gives $100,000 to each of selected 20 aspiring entrepreneurs under the age of 20, as seed money to kickstart their own startups. This fellowship has also fueled an intense debate about the value of college education.
You increasingly have people...
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New working paper: Teacher Incentives through Loss...
Fryer et al. conducted an experiment that tested efficacy of financial incentives on teacher performance. The results show that when teachers were paid in advance and asked to give back the money if their students did not perform sufficiently well, the math test scores increased.
Read the full excerpt below and the link to the paper is here.
Domestic attempts to use financial incentives for...
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Problem with current model of special education
In my school, the most common reason is a lack of parental consent. And so the years go by, and students slip further and further behind, struck down daily by the barriers that have not been adequately evaluated.
The special education system fails these kids; the referral and evaluation process relies too heavily on parent advocacy and participation, and those students who are unlucky enough...
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Debate of the Decade: Charter Schools
Mary Ann Giordano writes an excellent recap of various arguments for and against charter schools.
Are charters really doing a better job educating the city’s public school students than the traditional public schools? That was the question of the week, after state test scores came out on Tuesday showing not only far greater proficiency in English and math by third through eighth graders who...
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Profile on CUNY New Community College
Here is an excerpt from an amazing article on New Community College, due to open in midtown Manhattan in August.
For these students, college is not an assumption but an aspiration, a potential salvation from the poverty most grew up in. Several would be the first in their families to attend college — some are the first to speak English — so they get no guidance from home about the leap to that...
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US students still lag behind foreign peers
A recent report by Harvard University’s Program on Education Policy and Governance found that American students are making much lower gains in academics than those in Latvia, Chile, Brazil, and many others, between 1995 and 2009. The new findings echo many previous studies that show foreign students outpacing their American peers in various disciplines.
Read the article here and the new...
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Enrollments decline in big districts
Enrollments in nearly half of the nation’s largest districts has dropped steadily over the past five years. Since school financing is often allocated on a per-student basis, low enrollment jeopardizes teacher employment and the quality of the education curriculum, in the neediest districts.
In contracts, enrollment in charter schools for all chartered districts has soared during the same...
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Joe Klein Launches a New Tech Venture
Former New York Chancellor Joe Klein announced that his company will team up with AT&T to deliver interactive digital education tools through 4G tablets for schools. HIs products will be customized to cater to a student’s individual strengths and weaknesses. Digital learning and products seem to be the next buzz word in education.
Education publishers,...
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Study on teachers' evolving outlooks on unions and...
Education Sector surveyed a representative random sample of more than 1,100 K-12 public school teachers on their opinions on education reform issues. Among the key findings:
- 54 percent of teachers agreed that assessing student knowledge was a good way to measure teacher effectiveness; however, 65 percent oppose including student test scores as one component of differentiated pay.
- 83...
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Merit aid in college
Students from middle-income families that do not qualify for need-based scholarships in most universities, should look into merit-based grants to pay for college costs. In most schools, however, such scholarships are offered to an extremely limited proportion of students, if at all. Read the full article here.
The University of Miami, however, awards merit scholarships averaging more than...
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Minorities underrepresented in selective colleges
A new Stanford study finds that black and Hispanic students were underrepresented in the most selective universities between 1982 and 2004. As recently as 2004, white students were five times more likely as black students to enroll in top schools even after accounting for income differences. White students were three times as likely as Hispanic students to enroll in such schools. Read the full...
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NYC charter schools post test score gains
Mayor Michael Bloomberg held a press conference which highlighted significant improvement in test scores. Charter schools outperformed non-charter, public schools in math and English for the third consecutive year.
In math, 72 percent of charter school students passed the state tests this year, compared to 60 percent of traditional public school students. In English, 51.5 percent of charter...
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Coursera adds a dozen universities to its...
Another piece of news on the future of online education:
Coursera, a year-old company founded by two Stanford University computer scientists, will announce on Tuesday that a dozen major research universities are joining the venture. In the fall, Coursera will offer 100 or more free massive open online courses, or MOOCs, that are expected to draw millions of students and adult learners...
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Top Colleges Experiment with Online Courses
Online courses have been around for a long time. But more recently, top universities such as Harvard, Stanford, and Carnegie Mellon have started to offer extensive online curriculums at free of cost.
Massive open online courses, or MOOCs, let colleges reach vast audiences at relatively low cost, but they have not yet made money from them. And if it becomes possible in years to come to get a...
