Dear Commons Community,

Today, Monday, November 18^th,  is “National Don’t Send Your Child to School Day” in protest against the Common Core Curriculum. The eighteenth of November is significant because this is the first day of American Education Week, and is also Revolution Day!!

While no official group is backing the protest, grassroots organizers are promoting the protest on SayNoToCommonCore.com and through social media, including the Facebook page, “National Don’t Send Your Child To School Day… November 18, 2013.”  The protest organizers are asking parents to:

“Please participate in this event and encourage everyone you know to do the same! We recommend that you keep your children out of school on November 18th and help us send a message to the federal government. We the people want evidence-based curriculum that is locally controlled and which does not require data mining our children. Instead of sending your children to school on November 18th, get your children out in public and raise awareness by educating others on the dangers of the Common Core State Standards!!!”

This is  a worthwhile cause. The U.S. Department of Education has blinders on in terms of school reform and is out of touch with parents and educators.  Its policies have been poorly conceived and poorly implemented at the expense of the children in our public schools.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Paul Krugman has a sobering column today entitled, A Permanent Slump, that avers that our present, mild-depression-like economy may be the new normal.  Referring to the I.M.F.  research conference and specifically to Larry Sumners:

“Spend any time around monetary officials and one word you’ll hear a lot is “normalization.” Most though not all such officials accept that now is no time to be tightfisted, that for the time being credit must be easy and interest rates low. Still, the men in dark suits look forward eagerly to the day when they can go back to their usual job, snatching away the punch bowl whenever the party gets going.

But what if the world we’ve been living in for the past five years is the new normal? What if depression-like conditions are on track to persist, not for another year or two, but for decades?

You might imagine that speculations along these lines are the province of a radical fringe. And they are indeed radical; but fringe, not so much. A number of economists have been flirting with such thoughts for a while. And now they’ve moved into the mainstream. In fact, the case for “secular stagnation” — a persistent state in which a depressed economy is the norm, with episodes of full employment few and far between — was made forcefully recently at the most ultrarespectable of venues, the I.M.F.’s big annual research conference. And the person making that case was none other than Larry Summers. Yes, that Larry Summers.

And if Mr. Summers is right, everything respectable people have been saying about economic policy is wrong, and will keep being wrong for a long time.

Mr. Summers began with a point that should be obvious but is often missed: The financial crisis that started the Great Recession is now far behind us. Indeed, by most measures it ended more than four years ago. Yet our economy remains depressed.

He then made a related point: Before the crisis we had a huge housing and debt bubble. Yet even with this huge bubble boosting spending, the overall economy was only so-so — the job market was O.K. but not great, and the boom was never powerful enough to produce significant inflationary pressure.

Mr. Summers went on to draw a remarkable moral: We have, he suggested, an economy whose normal condition is one of inadequate demand — of at least mild depression — and which only gets anywhere close to full employment when it is being buoyed by bubbles.”

Sumners’ conclustion:

“… the crisis “is not over until it is over” — and economic reality is what it is. And what that reality appears to be right now is one in which depression rules will apply for a very long time.”

You do not have to be an economist to know but this is not good.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

I am heading to Orlando today to the Sloan Consortium’s Conference – Online Learning:  A Universe of Opportunities.  Approximately 2000 people will attend the conference in person this year with several hundred more attending virtually. This conference is very strong on research.  See the piece below from the conference chair, Eric Fredericksen, for highlights.  I also have a featured session on Thursday at 10:45 am entitled, Pioneering Higher Education’s Digital Future: An Evaluation of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation’s Anytime, Anyplace Learning Program.  Originally I was to give this session with Bruce Chaloux, who passed away suddenly on September 28th.

I hope to see some of you in Orlando!

Online Learning:  A Universe of Opportunities

With so many definitions and a variety of models, online learning in higher education provides a wide range of opportunities for faculty, students and institutions. Our three keynote addresses will help raise many important questions for us to consider.

What are the national trends and issues and how is the US Department of Education responding? Hal Plotkin of the U.S. Department of Education, will kick off our conference with a national perspective on online learning.

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have emerged as a new opportunity in online learning with the potential to impact millions of students. Daphne Koller, Stanford Professor and Co-Founder of Coursera, will share her insights about the progress and promise of Coursera in the Thursday keynote address.

A new partnership of highly respected universities are embracing online learning, including the opportunity to have a dramatic impact on traditional education. On Friday, Anant Argawal, MIT Professor and President of edX, will guide us through the development of this Harvard and MIT initiative and talk about his aspirations for edX.

The 2013 Sloan-C International Conference on Online Learning is the premier forum for online learning. It is also the opportunity for all of us that are concerned with the future of online learning to come together, collaborate and share experiences. Please join us for this year’s gathering and participate in the conversations that will help us chart the future course of high-quality online education. We look forward to your contributions!