All Entries Tagged With: "education"

Texas schools move away from abstinence-only education: We don’t think it’s working.

Think Progress » Texas currently has the third-highest teen birth rate in the country and “the highest rate of repeat teen births.” It also leads the nation in the amount of government money it spends on abstinence-only education. But some school districts in the state are now shifting away from that approach, admitting that it isn’t working:

“We mainly did it because of our pregnancy rate,” said Whitney Self, lead teacher for health and physical education at the Hays Consolidated Independent School District. “We don’t think abstinence-only is working.” [...]

Both approaches to sex education teach that refraining from sexual activity is the safest choice for teens.

Full Story: Think Progress » Texas schools move away from abstinence-only education: We don’t think it’s working..

More school: Obama would curtail summer vacation

Students beware: The summer vacation you just enjoyed could be sharply curtailed if President Barack Obama gets his way.

Obama says American kids spend too little time in school, putting them at a disadvantage with other students around the globe.

“Now, I know longer school days and school years are not wildly popular ideas,” the president said earlier this year. “Not with Malia and Sasha, not in my family, and probably not in yours. But the challenges of a new century demand more time in the classroom.”

The president, who has a sixth-grader and a third-grader, wants schools to add time to classes, to stay open late and to let kids in on weekends so they have a safe place to go.

Full Story: More school: Obama would curtail summer vacation – Yahoo! News.

Texas History Lessons to Drop Mother Teresa, Neil Armstrong

All Spin Zone » The state Board of Education in Texas has come out with its new educational standards, and this time they rain teh stupid on sixth graders. They’ve decided to take some names out of the texbook, including Mother Teresa and Neil Armstrong. Evidently they aren’t evangelical enough.

By: Steven Reynolds

The new Texas schoolbooks are here! The new Texas schoolbooks are here!

We can’t help but be reminded of Steve Martin in The Jerk, all excited because the new phone books are here. Every once in a while news comes from Texas that the new textbooks are being planned and some new desecration to fact has been perpetrated. Usually this means creationism is being snuck into the texts, or the Texas powers that be have found a way to teach Christianity in public schools, and that’s the case this time with new guidelines for sixth graders that they learn the differences between a whole host of religious traditions. That’s what we’ve come to expect from Texas. But this time the school districts have struck a few names of people sixth graders don’t need to know about. From the Houston Chronicle:

Full Story: All Spin Zone » Texas History Lessons to Drop Mother Teresa, Neil Armstrong.

Private Student Loans Would Be Killed By House Bill

WASHINGTON — The House is poised to vote to push private lenders out of the federal college loan business and massively expand the government’s own lending program.

Lawmakers debated a student aid bill Wednesday that has widespread support, including from the White House. The measure is expected to win passage Thursday and go next to the Senate.

Proponents of putting the government in charge of all federal loans say it would save an estimated $87 billion, though this figure has been disputed.

The money would boost Pell Grants for needy students and pay for a new college completion fund, community college reforms and more college aid for veterans.

“No student in this great country of ours should have to mortgage their future to pursue their dreams,” said the bill’s sponsor, California Democratic Rep. George Miller, chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee.

Full Story: Private Student Loans Would Be Killed By House Bill.

The Underfunding of Education in America

by Ann Robertson

Teachers in public education throughout the country have been struggling for decades, trying to educate children with insufficient funds and resources. But the present economic crisis has gutted even these inadequate budgets so that many teachers can now only pretend to educate, given the impossible conditions.

Nor has higher education been exempt from budget cuts. The good news is that faculty members at Oakland University, a public university in Michigan, have decided to fight back, as reported in The New York Times, September 4, 2009. Their decision was triggered when asked to accept a three-year salary freeze, a request that came on the heels of an almost 50 percent pay raise for the campus president, elevating his salary from $250,000 to $350,000, far above the average faculty pay. The administration also wants to increase the number of part-time faculty and increase faculty health care co-payments.

The rationale for this unseemly raise for the president was the usual: those running the university wanted to make his salary competitive with presidents’ salaries at comparable universities. But those who advance this argument never explain why the presidents’ salaries in general have skyrocketed nor why the first were allowed to begin the ascent.

In fact, the elevation of presidents’ salaries has resulted from a carefully crafted policy foisted on universities by politicians who in turn are being pushed by business interests. Corporations have been clamoring for lower state taxes across the country, and education has constituted a huge drain on state budgets. When education costs are reduced, taxes can be lowered. So rather than playing their traditional collegial role with the faculty, campus presidents have been recast into the role of bosses with the directive to ferret out and eliminate what for those in power is inefficiency and waste. But such a role requires handsome monetary rewards because, for most, it is a thankless task. The fact that this new campus mode of operation is antithetical to a community of scholars and the pursuit of knowledge is of little concern to those whose only conception of value is money.

Full Story: The Underfunding of Education in America.

The Corporate Stranglehold on Education

Is Higher Education in Need of a Moral Bailout?

The Corporate Stranglehold on Education - By HENRY A. GIROUX

As the school year begins, colleges and universities in North America are doing everything possible to attract students, including making themselves over in the image of a high-end mall or a cool brand name. Some institutions are giving students free Apple iPhones and Internet-capable iPods. Others are building attractive athletic facilities, developing more retail stores on campus, and providing plenty of specialized coffee shops. Some welcome this change as a brilliant market strategy while others believe that any face lift will improve the often stodgy academic image many colleges project.

Even as more and more students are excluded from a decent higher education because of the recession, educators seem less concerned about the plight of poor students than they do about how they can find the right brand to sell themselves to attract new students. But there is more at work here than the development of a new campus aesthetic or a recognition that students are now considered clients who represent an important market niche.

There is also the move on the part of many universities towards embracing market mechanisms as a way of redefining almost every aspect of university life–in spite of the failure and excesses of this system as exemplified in the Bernie Madoff scandal, outrageous executive bonuses, financial corruption, the subprime mortgage crisis, and the corporate greed that caused the current economic recession. Rather than challenge the economic irresponsibility, ecological damage, and human suffering, and culture of cruelty unleashed by free market fundamentalism, higher education appears to be one of its staunchest defenders, uncritically embracing a view of itself based on a market model of the academy.

via Henry A. Giroux: The Corporate Stranglehold on Education.

College for $99 a Month

College for $99 a Month - by Kevin Carey | Washington Monthly

The next generation of online education could be great for students—and catastrophic for universities.

Like millions of other Americans, Barbara Solvig lost her job this year. A fifty-year-old mother of three, Solvig had taken college courses at Northeastern Illinois University years ago, but never earned a degree. Ever since, she had been forced to settle for less money than coworkers with similar jobs who had bachelor’s degrees. So when she was laid off from a human resources position at a Chicago-area hospital in January, she knew the time had come to finally get her own credential. Doing that wasn’t going to be easy, because four-year degrees typically require two luxuries Solvig didn’t have: years of time out of the workforce, and a great deal of money.

Luckily for Solvig, there were new options available. She went online looking for something that fit her wallet and her time horizon, and an ad caught her eye: a company called StraighterLine was offering online courses in subjects like accounting, statistics, and math. This was hardly unusual—hundreds of institutions are online hawking degrees. But one thing about StraighterLine stood out: it offered as many courses as she wanted for a flat rate of $99 a month. “It sounds like a scam,” Solvig thought—she’d run into a lot of shady companies and hard-sell tactics on the Internet. But for $99, why not take a risk?

via College for $99 a Month by Kevin Carey | Washington Monthly.

Decision to end ‘Reading Rainbow’ traced to a ‘shift’ in priorities during the Bush administration.

Decision to end ‘Reading Rainbow’ traced to a ‘shift’ in priorities during the Bush administration.  -  Think Progress »

“Reading Rainbow,” of the most beloved and long-running children’s education shows, is airings its last episode today. The show, hosted by actor LeVar Burton, started in 1983. John Grant, who is in charge of programming at Reading Rainbow’s home station, explains that part of the reason the show is ending is because no one — including PBS and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) — wants to continue funding it. The other reason can be traced back to a “shift” in priorities during the Bush administration:

Grant says the funding crunch is partially to blame, but the decision to end Reading Rainbow can also be traced to a shift in the philosophy of educational television programming. The change started with the Department of Education under the Bush administration, he explains, which wanted to see a much heavier focus on the basic tools of reading — like phonics and spelling.

Grant says that PBS, CPB and the Department of Education put significant funding toward programming that would teach kids how to read — but that’s not what Reading Rainbow was trying to do.

“Reading Rainbow taught kids why to read,” Grant says. “You know, the love of reading — [the show] encouraged kids to pick up a book and to read.”

via Think Progress » Decision to end ‘Reading Rainbow’ traced to a ‘shift’ in priorities during the Bush administration..

ACT prognosis: 23% could earn C, at best, in first-year college courses

ACT prognosis: 23% could earn C, at best, in first-year college courses – - USATODAY.com

Even as high school graduates in recent years have grown increasingly better prepared for college, too many members of the class of 2009 cannot adequately perform all of the academic skills they will need to succeed, a report says.

Just 23% of students, up from 22% last year, earned test scores suggesting they can earn at least a C in first-year college courses in English, math, reading and science, says the report, released today by the non-profit Iowa-based testing company ACT. It’s based on scores of 1.48 million 2009 high school graduates who took the ACT’s college entrance exam.

That’s up from 1.42 million test-takers last year and nearly 1.2 million in 2005. It also represents a 42% increase over five years in black test-takers and a 60% increase in Hispanic test-takers — two populations that tend to earn lower scores on average.

Meanwhile, test scores have remained relatively stable. This year’s national average composite scores was 21.1, on a scale of 1 to 36, the same as the past two years, and up 0.1 point from 2005 and 2006.

When the number of test-takers expands to include a more diverse population, “one would reasonably expect a drop,” says Cynthia Schmeiser, president of ACT’s education division. “We’re not seeing that, which to us is a positive indication.”

via ACT prognosis: 23% could earn C, at best, in first-year college courses – USATODAY.com.

States cut aid to college students as demand booms

States cut aid to college students as demand booms

Struggling with budget shortfalls that reach into the billions, several states are making deep cuts in college financial aid programs, including those that provide a vital source of cash for students who most need the money.

At least a dozen states are reducing award sizes, eliminating grants and tightening eligibility guidelines because of a lack of money. At the same time, the number of students seeking aid is rising sharply as more people seek a college education and need help paying the tuition bill because they or their parents lost jobs and savings during the recession.

Many of the affected programs are need-based grants that provide money that complements financial aid offered by schools and the federal government. Without that cash, some students may be forced to drop out, transfer to cheaper schools or simply have less money available for rent and groceries. Experts fear others will take on too much debt or spend even more time working as they pursue a degree.

via States cut aid to college students as demand booms – Yahoo! News.

Generation Lost

Generation Lost - Economyincrisis.org

Members of Generation Y were told that a college degree would virtually guarantee high income and long-term stability. Now, they are shocked to find that it cannot even get them through the front door.

In May and June thousands of graduates of the class of 2009 received their diplomas from colleges and universities across the country. They entered the professional world with finely tuned educations and hope for the future. But many American graduates are finding employment to be an increasingly difficult prospect for them.

The workforce in the United States is shrinking drastically. Since the recession began in December 2007 the economy has shed roughly 7.5 million jobs. These positions have yet to be replaced, and nationwide unemployment has risen to 9.5 percent. Even the most optimistic outlooks from Washington see double-digit unemployment by the end of 2009.

What are American graduates and prospective graduates supposed to do in the face of such obstacles?

via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.

America’s Greatest Threat

America’s Greatest Threat – Economyincrisis.org

The persistence of educational achievement gaps (between the U.S. and other advanced nations) imposes on the United States the economic equivalent of a permanent national recession.

The greatest threat to the American economy may not be credit default swaps, obscene executive bonus packages, “too big to fail” financial institutions or the lack of health care reform, but rather the growing achievement gap between American public school students and their foreign counterparts, according to an April report by McKinsey & Co.

“The persistence of these educational achievement gaps (between the U.S. and other advanced nations) imposes on the United States the economic equivalent of a permanent national recession,” the report found.

According to the report, U.S. gross domestic product would have been nine to 16 percent higher in 2008 if it had stayed on pace educationally with Canada, Finland and South Korea. Doing so would have grown the American economy by $1.3 to $2.3 trillion last year if that were the case.

In nearly every area, American students are falling behind. In 2006, the U.S. ranked 18th out of 24 industrialized nations in high school graduation rates. In 1995, American students had the highest college graduations rates in the world. By 2006, America’s ranking had fallen to just 14th overall.

via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.

15 EXCERPTS FROM COLLEGIATE STUDENT ESSAYS – A READING

15 EXCERPTS FROM COLLEGIATE STUDENT ESSAYS – A READING

As an instructor of art for the past 7 years, I encountered illiteracy at the college level with a frequency that far exceeded my expectations.

I have taught at the University of California, Santa Barbara; Fresno City College; Hillsborough Community College in Tampa, FL; and Bakersfield College. I decided to collect the hundreds of student essays for my classes that were abandoned by their authors, especially the ones that were the most poorly written.

This video is a reading of 15 of some of the most egregiously composed statements I found over the years (Of significant note: some were handwritten, thus excluding typographical error).

All statements read in the video appeared within official essays submitted for a course grade.

via YouTube – 15 EXCERPTS FROM COLLEGIATE STUDENT ESSAYS – A READING.

Conservatives say Texas social studies classes give too much credit to civil rights leaders

Conservatives say Texas social studies classes give too much credit to civil rights leaders  | Dallas Morning News

AUSTIN – Civil rights leaders César Chávez and Thurgood Marshall – whose names appear on schools, libraries, streets and parks across the U.S. – are given too much attention in Texas social studies classes, conservatives advising the state on curriculum standards say.

“To have César Chávez listed next to Ben Franklin” – as in the current standards – “is ludicrous,” wrote evangelical minister Peter Marshall, one of six experts advising the state as it develops new curriculum standards for social studies classes and textbooks. David Barton, president of Aledo-based WallBuilders, said in his review that Chávez, a Hispanic labor leader, “lacks the stature, impact and overall contributions of so many others.”

Marshall also questioned whether Thurgood Marshall, who argued the landmark case that resulted in school desegregation and was the first black U.S. Supreme Court justice, should be presented to Texas students as an important historical figure. He wrote that the late justice is “not a strong enough example” of such a figure.

via Conservatives say Texas social studies classes give too much credit to civil rights leaders | News for Dallas, Texas | Dallas Morning News | News: Education.

A Good Reason to Study Hard

A Good Reason to Study Hard.

Schools for sale: privatizing education in America

Schools for sale: privatizing education in America

Charter schools are not the answer to public school woes

America’s primary and secondary education systems need fundamental reform. Unfortunately, it seems inevitable that this much-needed change will come in the form of charter schools and universal voucher systems, given the political momentum of the privatized education movement. However, many of the arguments put forth by proponents of this movement are simply inaccurate.

One impetus for these trends lies in the frustrations of parents and students living in underserved areas, attending under-funded and under-performing schools. The public education system has failed these people, and they are right to demand improvements.

With no other promising reform proposals in sight, however, the efficacy of the deregulated school model has risen in the public’s eyes to a point of fact. For example, on April 5th the Hustler ran an opinion piece titled “Charter schools work.” In this thesis, the author suggested expanded funding for charter schools without actually proving that charter schools work; their merit is simply assumed.

However, data backing this assumption is lacking. One 2005 study conducted at Columbia University found no significant differences in charter schools’ performance against public schools performance in 49 out of 50 states. For impoverished Asian-Americans and Hispanic-Americans, charter schools actually scored four to five percent lower than public schools. Another study conducted in California showed that charter schools in that state reach their Adequate Yearly Progress less often than public schools. A policy brief released by the Education Policy Research Unit at Arizona State University went so far as to call charter schools “a failed reform.”

via Schools for sale: privatizing education in America – Opinion.

Higher Education Is Stuck in the Middle Ages — Will Universities Adapt or Die Off in Our Digital World?

Higher Education Is Stuck in the Middle Ages — Will Universities Adapt or Die Off in Our Digital World?

There is a huge clash between the model of learning offered by big universities and the natural way that young people who have grown up digital learn.

For fifteen years, I’ve been arguing that the digital revolution will challenge many fundamental aspects of the University. I’ve not been alone. In 1998, none other than, Peter Drucker predicted that big universities would be “relics” within 30 years.

Flash forward to today and you’d be reasonable to think that we have been quite wrong. University attendance is at an all time high. The percentage of young people enrolling in degree granting institutions rose over 115% from 1969-1970 to 2005-2007, while the percentage of 25- to 29-year-old Americans with a college degree doubled. The competition to get into the greatest universities has never been fiercer. At first blush the university seems to be in greater demand than ever.

Yet there are troubling indicators that the picture is not so rosy. And I’m not just talking about the decimation of university endowments by the current financial meltdown.

via Higher Education Is Stuck in the Middle Ages — Will Universities Adapt or Die Off in Our Digital World? | | AlterNet.

Obama Gives Bush a 3rd Term in Education

Obama Gives Bush a 3rd Term in Education   | CommonDreams.org

It is time to kill the Bush-era No Child Left Behind program

The great mystery of education policy today is why the Obama administration is embracing the Bush program. I recently wrote in Education Week (June 10) that it is time to kill the Bush-era No Child Left Behind program. The overwhelming majority of teachers agree with me. Those who educate our kids know that NCLB is a failed program that is not improving our schools but rather turning them into test-prep factories and dumbing down our kids. Bush’s main advisor Sandy Kress reacted with outrage on the website of Education Week, and Tom Vander Ark on Huffington Post called me an “edu-curmudgeon” for speaking plain truth.

Let me say it again: It is time to kill the Bush-era No Child Left Behind program. This is a program in which the federal government requires every state to test every student from grade 3-8 in reading and math every year. If states do not make “adequate yearly progress” towards 100% proficiency by 2014, then the schools face a series of increasingly onerous sanctions, ending with their being closed down. Vander Ark thinks that this punitive approach to school improvement is swell. I don’t.

If judged solely by test scores, the only coin that the NCLB crowd understands, the law has been a dud. Kids today are making less progress on national and international tests than they did during the Clinton administration years.

via Obama Gives Bush a 3rd Term in Education | CommonDreams.org.

Meet the ‘Experts’ Shaping New Social Studies Curriculum in Texas

Meet the ‘Experts’ Shaping New Social Studies Curriculum in Texas

We are delighted to welcome Dan Quinn of the Texas Freedom Network back for another eye opening guest post about the role of the Religious Right in Texas public education. — FC

Rumors began circulating earlier this spring that the faction of social conservatives controlling the Texas State Board of Education was moving to pack a key “expert” review panel for the social studies curriculum revision with like-minded ideologues (as reported in previous posts here and at TFNInsider). At last, the names of all the “expert” panelists are finally public. As with the panel of science “experts” the board appointed last year (a list that included several “intelligent design” proponents affiliated with the Discovery Institute), it appears that the social studies panel will be evenly split between mainstream academics and ideologues who advocate a “Christian nation” agenda.

The three mainstream academics on the panel are Jesus Francisco de la Teja of Texas State University, Jim Kracht of Texas A&M, and Lybeth Hodges of Texas Woman’s University. The three ideologues aligned with the board’s religious right faction are David Barton, the Rev. Peter Marshall, and Daniel Dreisbach.

Even a casual look at the vita for each of these “experts” makes clear grossly unequal qualifications. That examination also reveals the agenda of the board’s Christian right faction: use the social studies curriculum to promote a political argument against separation of church and state.

So let’s look at each of the so-called “experts” who will guide the revision of social studies standards for an entire generation of children in Texas public schools.

via Talk To Action | Meet the ‘Experts’ Shaping New Social Studies Curriculum in Texas.

Why Is the American Coal Foundation Setting the Curriculum at Elementary Schools?

Coal Mountain Elementary  – In These Times

Big Coal has worked its way into the classroom.

An elementary school curriculum designed by the American Coal Foundation suggests that students learn about the costs and benefits of coal mining by using toothpicks and paper clips to “mine” chocolate chips out of cookies. They also go about “reclaiming” the “land” damaged in the process by tracing the cookies’ outline on graph paper. Costs are to be calculated by the amount of time spent per chip and the expanse of graph paper that needs to be reclaimed.

One of the discussion questions to follow the lesson is: “What do you think are some of the costs associated with mining coal?”

In poet and organizer Mark Nowak’s new book Coal Mountain Elementary, this question is placed on an otherwise blank page. On the adjacent page is a photo from Sago, W. Va., of a sign, in bedraggled removable plastic letters and missing an “i”: “Pray for our mining families.”

via Coal Mountain Elementary — In These Times.

Sanford’s Priorities: Nix School Funding And Reform, Allow Guns At School

Sanford’s Priorities: Nix School Funding And Reform, Allow Guns At School

Mark Sanford Gun Free ZonesGov. Mark Sanford (R-SC) has been waging a months-long war against the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, refusing to apply for $700 million in federal stimulus funds, most of which would go to improving South Carolina’s failing schools.

Yet denying his state needed stimulus funds is just the start of Sanford’s recent highly partisan moves. Yesterday, ThinkProgress reported that Sanford had refused to join a national school reform effort to set curriculum standards. Sanford claimed that he refused to sign on because the “governor does not have a role in implementing education policy.”

Now the governor has taken action on two bills that show where his priorities really lie: He vetoed a bill reigning in predatory payday lending, and signed a bill allowing loaded guns on school grounds.

via Think Progress » Sanford’s Priorities: Nix School Funding And Reform, Allow Guns At School.

Obama Ordering States to Close 5,000 ‘Failing’ Schools!… Chicago Lies Go National | Black Agenda Report

The corporate narrative that public schools in minority neighborhoods are “failing” and must be replaced by unaccountable but often highly profitable “charter schools” is an inheritance from the Bush era that the Obama administration intends to continue and intensify. Despite any proof of improved educational outcomes, and contrary to the democratic wishes of the American people the push to discredit and privatize public education appears to be a hallmark of the Obama era.

Obama Ordering States to Close 5,000 ‘Failing’ Schools!… Chicago Lies Go National

by George Schmidt

This article was originally published in the print edition of Substance, May 2009.

Using language that most of the United States has not yet heard, but which will become familiar to democratically elected school boards from rural Maine to the Mexican border south of San Diego and El Paso, President Barack Obama’s Secretary of Education, former Chicago schools Chief Executive Officer Arne Duncan, launched a national campaign in May 2009 to privatize between five and ten percent of the remaining public schools in the USA.

Under the headline “Obama Wants to See 5,000 Failing Schools Close,” Associated Press reporter Libby Quaid released a three-paragraph story on May 11 that rocked the nation.

“Barack Obama wants to see 5,000 failing schools close and reopen with new principals and teachers over the next five years,” the AP reported.

via Obama Ordering States to Close 5,000 ‘Failing’ Schools!… Chicago Lies Go National | Black Agenda Report.

Finding A Better Way To Evaluate Teacher Effectiveness

Finding A Better Way To Evaluate Teacher Effectiveness

The New York Times has a good piece today on the challenges facing Education Secretary Arne Duncan as he goes about trying to reform our busted education system. As Chicago schools chief, Duncan’s claim to fame was closing down ineffective schools and reconstituting them as smaller institutions under new management. Duncan is evidently set to “persuade scores of local districts” around the country to do the same.

Of course, this approach causes some problems, namely with the teachers that are dismissed when a school shuts down. One of the goals of a school closure is to provide an opportunity to rehire effective teachers while letting the ineffective ones go, but this is much easier said than done. For instance:

The Chicago contract gives tenured teachers in schools shut down for low performance 10 months to be rehired by their reconstituted school’s new leader or by another Chicago principal, after which they lose their job. About 8 in 10 find jobs at other Chicago schools…Contracts in many other cities give teachers who lose positions more extensive rights, which could make school makeovers harder, experts said.

via Wonk Room » Finding A Better Way To Evaluate Teacher Effectiveness.

Matthew Tully: U.S. schools chief pushes change

U.S. schools chief pushes change

Arne Duncan, the nation’s energetic new schools chief, seems as puzzled as many Hoosiers by misguided efforts to cap the growth of charter schools in Indiana.

“The president and I have been very clear that having arbitrary caps on charters doesn’t make sense,” Duncan said when we talked by phone this week. “The goal is to get more children going to great schools. Not every charter is a great school. But where you have high-performing schools of any shape or size, we need to do more of those.”

It sounds so simple.

But when it comes to public education, common sense often flunks out in favor of union contracts, turf-protecting school administrators and the rest of the entrenched education establishment. In Indiana, Statehouse Democrats from Indianapolis, backed by that establishment, have been working for months to weaken a charter schools movement they complain is grabbing kids and money from traditional public schools.

“My question,” Duncan said, “is why are parents choosing to go to those schools? What is being offered there that the traditional schools can learn from? . . . To say that because people are choosing a school, we have to take away that choice, that doesn’t make sense.”

No, it doesn’t.

via Matthew Tully: U.S. schools chief pushes change | IndyStar.com | The Indianapolis Star.

Students Aren’t Customers; Education Is Not a Commodity

Students Aren’t Customers; Education Is Not a Commodity

By William Astore

By only viewing education as a way to a higher-paying job we’re giving a free pass to the prevailing machinery of power.

Hardly a week goes by without dire headlines about the failure of the American education system. Our students don’t perform well in math and science. The high-school dropout rate is too high. Minority students are falling behind. Teachers are depicted as either overpaid drones protected by tenure or underpaid saints at the mercy of deskbound administrators and pushy parents.

Unfortunately, all such headlines collectively fail to address a fundamental question: What is education for? At so many of today’s so-called institutions of higher learning, students are offered a straightforward answer: For a better job, higher salary, more marketable skills, and more impressive credentials. All the more so in today’s collapsing job market.

Based on a decidedly non-bohemian life — 20 years’ service in the military and 10 years teaching at the college level — I’m convinced that American education, even in the worst of times, even recognizing the desperate need of most college students to land jobs, is far too utilitarian, vocational, and narrow. It’s simply not enough to prepare students for a job: We need to prepare them for life, while challenging them to think beyond the confines of their often parochial and provincial upbringings. (As a child of the working class from a provincial background, I speak from experience.)

And here’s one compelling lesson all of us, students and teachers alike, need to relearn constantly: If you view education in purely instrumental terms as a way to a higher-paying job — if it’s merely a mechanism for mass customization within a marketplace of ephemeral consumer goods — you’ve effectively given a free pass to the prevailing machinery of power and those who run it.

via Students Aren’t Customers; Education Is Not a Commodity | | AlterNet.

The Educational Crisis

The Educational Crisis

In the past our K-12 policies created students who were capable of building the economic juggernaut that we became. Then the U.S. got sidetracked with other things and allowed 25 countries to surpass us in education.

The United States economy is falling apart for many reasons. We import more than we export, we have deregulated financial markets to the point of complete disarray, we have allowed our manufacturing sector to fall apart, and we have consolidated our wealth with the elites and left everyone else behind.

The collapse of this economy has many levels and nuances, some causes were preventable some were not. But one thing that was absolutely preventable is the decline of our educational system. Thomas Friedman’s Tuesday op-ed column in The New York Times has brought this issue back to the forefront.

This country was lulled into a false sense of security and superiority while the credit and housing bubbles grew, but we have since realized just how bad our situation really is.

via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.

Anti-Education Intentionally Dumbs Down Americans

Anti-Education Intentionally Dumbs Down Americans – by Heidi Stevenson

Something is deeply wrong in America and the world. It’s as if the vast majority of people have given up. Given up caring. Given up thinking. Given up common sense. Given up everything but gluttony. Even in the face of economic meltdown, the focus of government and most people seems to be only to get back to the seeming normality of borrowing and spending.

But why? What has brought us to such a state? Could it have just “happened”? Or was it intentional? To call it intentional, it’s necessary to demonstrate planning. Fortunately, John Taylor Gatto, who was once named Teacher of the Year in both New York City and New York State, has explained what happened, when it started, and why.

Perhaps you were like me as a child. You loved learning. You’d spend hours and hours studying something of interest. Yet, you hated school. It was unutterably boring. It was rigid. It stifled original thought, even punished for it. Give any answer other than the prescribed one, even if you had clearly demonstrated a full understanding of the subject, and you were given a bad grade.

via Gaia Health: Anti-Education Intentionally Dumbs Down Americans.

The Educational Crisis

OPS:  “sidetracked”?  What actually happened was that Conservatives got their hands on the educational system.

The Educational Crisis

In the past our K-12 policies created students who were capable of building the economic juggernaut that we became. Then the U.S. got sidetracked with other things and allowed 25 countries to surpass us in education.

The United States economy is falling apart for many reasons. We import more than we export, we have deregulated financial markets to the point of complete disarray, we have allowed our manufacturing sector to fall apart, and we have consolidated our wealth with the elites and left everyone else behind.

The collapse of this economy has many levels and nuances, some causes were preventable some were not. But one thing that was absolutely preventable is the decline of our educational system. Thomas Friedman’s Tuesday op-ed column in The New York Times has brought this issue back to the forefront.

This country was lulled into a false sense of security and superiority while the credit and housing bubbles grew, but we have since realized just how bad our situation really is.

via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.

High School Math And Reading Scores Have Been Stagnant Since The 1970’s

High School Math And Reading Scores Have Been Stagnant Since The 1970’s

Reading (1971-2008): reading1

Math (1973-2008): math1

Today, the National Assessment of Educational Progress released its 2008 Nation’s Report Card, which provides a look at long term trends in the educational achievement of American students.

The report reveals some pretty depressing information. For instance, while both 9 and 13 year-olds made modest gains in math and reading, high school students have been stuck in neutral since the 1970’s (which is when the first assessments were made):

These results eerily mirror America’s college graduation and retention rates, which have also both been stagnant for two decades.

via Wonk Room » High School Math And Reading Scores Have Been Stagnant Since The 1970’s.

End the University as We Know It

End the University as We Know It

GRADUATE education is the Detroit of higher learning. Most graduate programs in American universities produce a product for which there is no market (candidates for teaching positions that do not exist) and develop skills for which there is diminishing demand (research in subfields within subfields and publication in journals read by no one other than a few like-minded colleagues), all at a rapidly rising cost (sometimes well over $100,000 in student loans).

Widespread hiring freezes and layoffs have brought these problems into sharp relief now. But our graduate system has been in crisis for decades, and the seeds of this crisis go as far back as the formation of modern universities. Kant, in his 1798 work “The Conflict of the Faculties,” wrote that universities should “handle the entire content of learning by mass production, so to speak, by a division of labor, so that for every branch of the sciences there would be a public teacher or professor appointed as its trustee.”

via Op-Ed Contributor – End the University as We Know It – NYTimes.com.

Obama touts plan to change college loan system

Obama touts plan to change college loan system

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama on Friday renewed his call for the government to stop backing private loans to college students and replace them with direct government loans to young people, a challenge to a decades-old program with strong congressional support.

Obama’s plan to eliminate the Federal Family Education Loan program could save $48 billion for taxpayers over the next decade, but critics warn it could turn the Education Department into a national bank. Lenders and some college officials oppose the proposal, which Obama backed as a U.S. senator and pushed during the presidential campaign.

via Obama touts plan to change college loan system.

The Corporatization of Public Education

The Corporatization of Public Education

Education Secretary Arne Duncan. (Photo: Chris Walker / Chicago Tribune)

Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s pledge to put more big-city mayors in charge of their school districts would exclude democratic forms of school governance and let big businesses decide the fate of public schools.

Before an audience of big-city mayors and school superintendents in late March, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan offered an early – and troubling – indication of his vision for the future of public K-12 education in the United States. Duncan told audience members at the Mayors’ National Forum on Education in Washington, DC, that more mayors need to take control of low-performing, urban school districts, and that he was prepared to do whatever it takes to shift leadership of urban districts from school boards to City Halls. “I’ll come to your cities. I’ll meet with your editorial boards. I’ll talk with your business communities,” Duncan said. “I will be there.”(1)

Right now, seven major cities have complete mayoral control over their public school systems, including Washington, DC; New York, and Chicago, where Duncan spent eight years as the CEO of the Chicago Public Schools system working under Mayor Richard Daley. These districts under mayoral control, Duncan explained, are more stable and benefit from stronger leadership. “Part of the reason urban education has struggled historically is you haven’t had that leadership from the top,” Duncan said. “Where you’ve seen real progress in the sense of innovation, guess what the common denominator is? Mayoral control.”

via t r u t h o u t | The Corporatization of Public Education.

LA school board votes to lay off 5,400 employees

LA school board votes to lay off 5,400 employees

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The Los Angeles Board of Education has voted to lay off as many as 5,400 teachers and support personnel for the upcoming school year.

The vote came Tuesday as employees protested raucously outside the meeting. The board had voted hours earlier to save the jobs of 1,996 elementary school teachers using federal stimulus funds.

The Los Angeles Unified School District, the nation’s second largest school system, faces a $596 million budget shortfall for the 2009-10 school year.

The final number of layoffs remains to be determined because the exact amount of state and federal funds coming to the district remains unclear.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

via The Associated Press: LA school board votes to lay off 5,400 employees.

Bill would help schools, nonprofits teach financial literacy

Bill would help schools, nonprofits teach financial literacy

The numbers are startling. More than half of high school seniors have debit cards and nearly one-third have credit cards.

One-third of college students have four credits cards apiece when they graduate, and more than half of graduates have piled up $5,000 each in high-interest debt. The number of 18- to 24-year-olds who have declared bankruptcy has increased 96 percent in 10 years.

Surveys show that many of these young people also are financially illiterate: They don’t understand such things as interest, minimum payments, credit reports, identity theft or that they may be paying off their school loans for years.

The problem isn’t just with the young, however. One in five Americans thinks that the most practical way to become rich is to win the lottery.

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., remembers that her kids started receiving credit card applications when they were 16. She said that she repeatedly heard from people, young and old, who wished they knew more about financial matters.

Murray will introduce legislation this week that would authorize $1.2 billion in grants over five years to promote financial-literacy education beginning in grade school and stretching into adulthood.

“It’s a perfect time to be doing this,” Murray said.

Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, agrees.

via Ledger-Enquirer.com | 03/15/2009 | Bill would help schools, nonprofits teach financial literacy.

For college students, Obama offers a long-awaited boost for financial aid

For college students, Obama offers a long-awaited boost for financial aid

At a time of economic hardship, college students have gotten an unexpected surprise: more federal money.

President Barack Obama’s economic stimulus package dramatically ramps up spending for higher education by boosting financial aid, expanding work-study programs and creating a new tuition tax credit. Obama is promising much more in his newly released federal budget. Together the two financial plans signal a major investment in higher education at a time when many students are struggling to make ends meet.

via For college students, Obama offers a long-awaited boost for financial aid – San Jose Mercury News.