Ten State University Systems Sign Contracts with Coursera for MOOC Development Services!

Dear Commons Community,

The Chronicle of Higher Education is reporting that Coursera, the Silicon Valley-based provider of massive open online courses, announced a series of deals with state universities to provide MOOC development services.

Under the new deals, Coursera is recasting itself as a platform for credit-bearing courses that would be offered to students enrolled at multiple campuses within a public-university system.

The deals mark a shift for Coursera, which until now has focused on making free, online versions of courses taught by professors at elite colleges.

The company’s new partners are the State University of New York system, the Tennessee Board of Regents and the University of Tennessee systems, the University of Colorado system, the University of Houston system, the University of Kentucky, the University of Nebraska system, the University of New Mexico system, the University System of Georgia, and West Virginia University.

The Chronicle obtained a copy of Coursera’s contract with the University of Kentucky, and the document provides details on how the partnerships might work.

“The document differs substantially from the ones Coursera signed with its early university partners. Those contracts focused on the dynamics of producing and collecting revenue from MOOCs open to the public.

The Kentucky contract deals with additional kinds of collaboration. For example, the document outlines how the university would administer “guided” or “adopted” courses—courses that are developed, either by Kentucky or another Coursera partner, for use by students at the university. It also addresses how the university and the company would go about licensing Kentucky’s Coursera courses to other colleges, and how they would divide revenue generated by any of those courses.”

This has to be considered a major step forward in the MOOC movement.

Tony

 

New York’s School to Prison Pipeline!

Dear Commons Community,

One of the serious problems in our public education system that does not get anywhere near enough attention is what is generally referred to as the “school to prison pipeline”.  A New York Times editorial calls on officials particularly here in New York to examine policies that all too often remove our children, mostly black and Latino boys, from their schools for minor issues and subjects them  to the risk of a criminal justice system that simply does not deal with them properly.  As the editorial states:

“School officials across the country responded to a surge in juvenile crime during the 1980s and the Columbine High School shootings a decade later by tightening disciplinary policies and increasing the number of police patrolling public schools. One unfortunate result has been the creation of a repressive environment in which young people are suspended, expelled or even arrested over minor misbehaviors — like talking back or disrupting class — that would once have been handled by the principal.

The policies have not made schools safer. However, by criminalizing routine disciplinary problems, they have damaged the lives of many children by making them more likely to drop out and entangling them, sometimes permanently, in the criminal justice system. The policies are also discriminatory: black and Hispanic children are shipped off to court more frequently than white students who commit similar infractions.

The need to chart a new course in school discipline is underscored in a report scheduled to be released on Thursday by the New York City School-Justice Partnership Task Force, a working group led by Judith Kaye, the former chief judge of the State of New York, and composed of people from the fields of law enforcement, education, philanthropy, civil rights and child advocacy.

The task force examined disciplinary practices in the city’s 1.1 million-student system during the 2011-2012 school year. It found that “the overwhelming majority of school-related suspensions, summonses and arrests are for minor misbehavior, behavior that occurs on a daily basis in most schools.”

The numbers are startling. The city schools imposed nearly 70,000 suspensions in the 2011-2012 school year, 40 percent more than the period six years earlier. Of the 882 arrests during the school year studied, one in every six was for “resisting arrest” or “obstructing governmental administration,” charges for which there is often no underlying criminal behavior. The authorities also issued more than 1,600 summonses — tickets that require the student to appear in criminal court and that can lead to arrest for those who fail to appear. “

The Times editorial is on target.  This is an issue that needs attention and rectification.

Tony

Michelle Bachmann Won’t Seek Re-Election in 2014!

Dear Commons Community,

Michelle Bachmann announced yesterday that she would not seek re-election for a fifth term to her congressional seat in 2014.  Bachmann did not give any clear reason why she was leaving the Congress at this time. Bachmann announced her retirement in a video posted on her website and assured supporters her decision has nothing to do with recent ethics probes surrounding her 2012 presidential campaign and that she is confident she could win a fifth term. Bachmann beat Democrat Jim Graves in 2012 by just over one percent.

“My good friends, after a great deal of thought and deliberation I have decided next year I will not seek a fifth Congressional term to represent the wonderful people of the 6th District of Minnesota,” Bachmann said. “After serious consideration I am confident that this is the right decision.”

Gail Collins has a review of her tenure in politics:

“[Last year’s] presidential race was pretty much the peak of Bachmann’s career. Remember her high point, when she swept to victory in the Iowa straw poll? Which was followed by the low point of coming in sixth in the actual Iowa caucuses.”

In my opinion, Ms. Bachmann at times was an embarrassment to the Congress and  the Republican Party with her lack of command of facts and her wild assertions.  A lot like Sarah Palin in 2008.

Tony