Remaking the University: Quality Public Higher Ed: From Udacity to Theory Y. Why Is College So Expensive? - To the Point on KCRW. College students and graduates have racked up more than a trillion dollars in student loan debt, as the cost of a higher education is rising fast.
Why are colleges and universities increasing tuition instead of cutting expenses? U.S. Subsidies to Profit-Making Colleges Keep Growing. Best content in ATL Future Visions. Democratic mayors challenge teachers unions in urban political shift. Villaraigosa is one of several Democratic mayors in cities across the country — Chicago, Cleveland, Newark and Boston, among them — who are challenging teachers unions in ways that seemed inconceivable just a decade ago.
“This is a very, very interesting political situation that is way counterintuitive,” said Charles Taylor Kerchner, who has written two books about teachers unions. What Ails Us. Forgive American consumers if they feel a bit perplexed.
Policymakers and pundits have been warning them about the prospect of deflation (a prolonged and widespread decline in prices), but there’s no sign of any decline in many of the prices that people pay every day. Car-insurance premiums jumped more than nine per cent last year. Health-insurance costs are soaring, to say nothing of the cost of a haircut. Cable-TV prices have risen sixteen per cent since 2000. And then there’s college: tuitions at private colleges have jumped 5.6 per cent annually over the past three years, according to the College Board, and public colleges are even worse.
How, and How Not, to Improve the Schools by Diane Ravitch. In his 2012 State of the Union address, President Barack Obama proposed that teachers should “stop teaching to the test” and that the nation should “reward the best ones” and “replace teachers who just aren’t helping kids learn.”
This all sounds sensible, but it is in fact a contradictory message. The president’s signature education program, called Race to the Top, encourages states to award bonuses to teachers whose students get higher test scores (they are, presumably “the best ones”) and to fire teachers if their students get lower test scores (presumably the teachers “who just aren’t helping kids”). If teachers want to stay employed, they must “teach to the test.” The president recommends that teachers stop doing what his own policies make necessary and prudent. Like George W. Schools We Can Envy by Diane Ravitch. Finnish Lessons: What Can the World Learn from Educational Change in Finland? By Pasi Sahlberg, with a foreword by Andy Hargreaves Teachers College Press, 167 pp., $34.95 (paper) In recent years, elected officials and policymakers such as former president George W. Bush, former schools chancellor Joel Klein in New York City, former schools chancellor Michelle Rhee in Washington, D.C., and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan have agreed that there should be “no excuses” for schools with low test scores.
Privatizing Public Education, Higher Ed Policy, and Teachers - Alec Exposed. Undermining Protections for Students With Disabilities The ALEC Special Needs Scholarship Act has been introduced in Wisconsin as AB 110 by Rep.
Michelle Litjens, and co-sponsored in the Senate by Leah Vukmir, who was an ALEC "Legislator of the Year" in 2009. The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction said: This bill strips special education students of due process rights and rights to services. ALEC Exposed: The Koch Connection. Duncan Calls for Urgency in Lowering College Costs. The characterized Mr.
Duncan’s remarks, at a Las Vegas conference of college financial aid workers, as the start of a “national conversation” about high costs, which have prompted raucous protests across the country and ignited an angry push among some borrowers demanding debt forgiveness, federal grants and interest-free loans. The department used the opportunity to call attention to steps the Obama administration had taken to reduce the net price that students and families pay for higher education and make it easier to repay .
Steven Brill's Class Warfare: What's wrong with the education reformers' diagnosis and cures. If you saw Waiting for "Superman," Steven Brill's tale in Class Warfare will be familiar.
The founder of Court TV offers another polemic against teacher unions and a paean to self-styled "education reformers. " But even for those who follow education policy, he offers an eye-opening read that should not be missed. Where the movie evoked valiant underdogs waging an uphill battle against an ossified behemoth, Brill's briskly written book exposes what critics of the reformers have long suspected but could never before prove: just how insular, coordinated, well-connected, and well-financed the reformers are. Class Warfare reveals their single-minded efforts to suppress any evidence that might challenge their mission to undermine the esteem in which most Americans held their public schools and teachers.
Big Philanthropy's Role in Higher Education - The Chronicle Review. By Stanley N.
Katz In a January speech at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, laying out his policy for higher education, President Obama opened by noting his agenda: "How can we make sure that everybody is getting the kind of education they need to personally succeed but also to build up this nation—because in this economy, there is no greater predictor of individual success than a good education. " Although the United States still has "the best network of colleges and universities in the world," he said, "the challenge is it's getting tougher and tougher to afford it. " Thus his primary policy concerns were high tuition and student debt.
At Ann Arbor, President Obama captured the spirit of the megafoundation program for higher education. What Americans Keep Ignoring About Finland's School Success - Anu Partanen - National. The Scandinavian country is an education superpower because it values equality more than excellence.
Sergey Ivanov/Flickr Everyone agrees the United States needs to improve its education system dramatically, but how? One of the hottest trends in education reform lately is looking at the stunning success of the West's reigning education superpower, Finland. Essay: Washington college grant program favors vocational over liberal education. Last year, as Washington State faced a severe budget crisis, legislators embraced a novel way to fund student financial aid: a public-private partnership between the state and private corporations.
Policy-Making Billionaires. How Online Learning Companies Bought America's Schools. This article was reported in partnership with The Investigative Fund at The Nation Institute. For-Profit College Rules Scaled Back After Lobbying. Mitt Romney Offers Praise for a Donor’s Business.