Dear Commons Colleagues,

Here is a brief blurb on the announcement that Cathie Black has been asked to leave her position  as the NYC schools chancellor.

Tony

Cathleen P. Black, a magazine executive with no educational experience who was named as New York City schools chancellor last fall, will step down Thursday morning at the mayor’s urging, city officials said, after a tumultuous and brief tenure.  Ms. Black’s departure, which comes on the heels of the departures of several other high-ranking education officials, was nearly as surprising as her appointment.

Ms. Black will be replaced by Deputy Mayor Dennis M. Walcott, who has long aided the mayor in educational matters, officials said.   Mr. Walcott is to appear with Mr. Bloomberg at an 11:30 a.m. City Hall news conference to announce the change. Ms. Black will not be in attendance, according to a person briefed on the plans. The mayor’s office declined to comment.

Dear Commons Community,

Paul Krugman, Nobel laureate in Economics, professor at Princeton University and New York Times columnist, was at the Graduate Center last night where he responded to questions from Peter Beinart.  He also responded to questions from the audience. All in all it was quite an evening with great insights into the state of our economy.  However, I thought one of his best comments related to the pride he takes in writing about complex topics in a manner that the general public can understand.  About fifteen years ago, I attended a talk at Fordham University given by Herbert Simon, another Nobel Laureate in Economics (1978), who said almost the exact same thing.  It is grand to see that academics of such accomplishment think and care about the common citizen when sharing their knowledge.

Thank you, Prof. Krugman!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

The NY Times is reporting today on the expansion of online learning in K-12 education.  It indicates that several states are now requiring that students take a minimum number of online classes in order to graduate.  Idaho for instance is about to adopt a high school requirement that students take at least four online classes.  The major question with online learning at the K-12 level is whether it is being done to expand course offerings or simply to save money. Karen Aronowitz, president of the Miami teachers union says online learning ”[is] a cheap education, not because it benefits the students” .  The research on online learning at the K-12 level is modest.   In higher education, there is a good deal of research, most of which indicates that there is no significant difference in student outcomes in online v. face-to-face instruction.  A recent meta-analysis conducted by the US. Department of Education concluded that classes with online learning (whether taught completely online or blended) on average produce stronger student learning outcomes than do classes with solely face-to-face instruction. The mean effect size for all 50 contrasts was +0.20, p < .001.  However, the authors of this report also caution that this increase in learning might be due to an increase in class time in the online and blended modalities.  The NY Times article also refers to a national study which Jeff Seaman and I conducted two years ago for the Sloan Consortium.  A more recent study that Jeff and I completed on online learning in American high schools  is available at:  http://www3.babson.edu/ESHIP/research-publications/upload/Class_connections.pdf

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

In a survey of 772 New York City residents, the latest Marist Poll gives the NYC public schools a mixed rating.  Nearly four in ten residents — 38% — think the schools in their community are either excellent or good. This includes 8% who believe they are excellent and 30% who say they are good. 34% perceive them to be fair while one in five — 20% — rate them poorly. Eight percent are unsure.

The schools fair better among parents with children in the city’s public schools. 53% of public school parents give the schools either excellent or good marks. 35% rate them as fair while 12% believe they are performing poorly.  However, there is a racial divide. 45% of white residents rate the schools highly. 36% of Latino residents and 25% of African American residents agree.

Respondents approval rating of the job Chancellor Cathy Black was doing was 17% down from a 21% approval rating in early February.

Lastly, teachers and the UFT get fairly good grades from the respondents –65% — say that today’s public school teachers receive less respect than when they were in school;   and 55% — say that, when thinking about the public school system in New York City, the teachers union does more good than harm.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Joe Nocera, a new columnist for the NY Times, in “Who Can Blame G.E.?” provides a rationale for why G.E. is able to avoid paying any taxes.  (I mentioned the initial story in an earlier posting.)  Nocera lays part of the blame on the tax code that allows loop holes and part of the blame on the US Congress that enacts the code and is influenced by highly organized and well-financed corporate lobbyists.  I will go a step further, G.E. is a prime example of corporate greed at its worst.  As someone who loves New York, I will also remind everyone  that G.E. was one of the worst polluters of the Hudson River for decades.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Two colleagues of mine at Hunter, Jack Hammond and Manfred Kuechler, have posted on the Hunter Faculty LISTSERV on the topic of “Statistics Made Sexy” referencing the work of Hans Rosling.  Below are their postings with some very interesting links.

Tony

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At 09:01 PM 4/3/2011, Jack Hammond wrote:

The subject line a quote from Hans Rosling in the business section of today’s New York Times (Designers Make Data Much Easier to Digest, http://query.nytimes.com/search/sitesearch?query=rosling&srchst=cse ).  ,.

He is the creator of some fascinating statistical visualizations, not about statistics but using statistics to convey worldwide social change and international inequality on such things as wealth, health, education etc.  The visuals are fascinating and highly informative

Two of my favorites:
Hans Rosling’s 200 Countries, 200 Years, 4 Minutes – The Joy of Stats – BBC Four (even if overly optimistic about the prospects for the least developed countries)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbkSRLYSojo

Asia’s rise — how and when

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiK5-oAaeUs

Jack

There have been several postings on the subject before the NYT finally took note, the latest thread was from this January (2011):
https://hunter.listserv.cuny.edu/scriptshc/wa-hc.exe?A2=ind1101C&L=HUNTER-L&P=R3924

The posting contains detailed links to all of Rosling’s work. For convenience, I restate the links:
Beyond the videos (a complete list is at http ://www.gapminder.org /videos/ ), the apps used in these videos is also available for interactive work both online and by downloading the whole app:
Gapminder World (or “Health and Wealth of Nations”) http://www.gapminder.org/world (for interactive online use)
Gapminder Desktop http://www.gapminder.org/downloads/
Gapminder USA (compare US states) http://www.gapminder.org/labs/gapminder-usa

M.

Manfred Kuechler
Hunter College

Dear Commons Community,

Over the past weekend, we saw the horrific rioting in Afghanistan and other parts of the Middle East in response to the burning of the Koran by Pastor Terry Jones in his church in Florida.  In addition to the burning, rioting, and anti-American chanting, at least twenty people have been killed and in some cases beheaded. The Sunday morning political commentators as well as elected political leaders were asking what we can do other than condemn the violence as the over-reaction of religious radicals to the actions of one cult pastor with a congregation of about thirty parishioners.    In this country, our freedom of speech protects everyone to express their views as vile as they might be and in this case the burning of the Koran but we must also understand that parts of the rest of the world do not necessarily have or appreciate these same freedoms.   I think this raises the larger question of whether our goals in Iraq and Afghanistan (where the cultures are quite different) to build democracy with all its inherent freedoms can ever come to fruition.  The actions of the past weekend suggest that we cannot.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

The NY Times editorial today blasts the practice of lobbyists for special interest groups being hired by Congressional leaders.  The article describes a practice where “ nearly 100 lawmakers have hired former lobbyists as their chiefs of staff or legislative directors…. and [another] 40 lobbyists have been hired as staff members of Congressional committees and subcommittees, the boiler rooms where legislation is drafted.”

The article also names names including:  “Representative Raul Labrador, a freshman from Idaho, hired John Goodwin, previously a lobbyist for the National Rifle Association, as his chief of staff. Representative Fred Upton, chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, hired Howard Cohen, a longtime lobbyist for the health care industry, as his chief counsel. …Ron Johnson, senator from Wisconsin, hired as his chief of staff Donald Kent, whose firms have lobbied for casinos, defense industries and homeland security companies. “

Much of the data for this editorial came from the Center for Responsive Politics and Remapping Debate, non-partisan government watchdog groups.

Do our elected leaders have no shame in how they pander to the special and monied-interest groups of our country?

Money!   Money!  Money!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

On Thursday, I was invited to be part of a panel at Hostos Community College (along with Eva Fernandez (Queens College) and Helen Robinson (CSI)) to discuss online and blended learning.  I thought the discussions and give and take were quite good.   Yesterday in my email box was an alert to a policy brief entitled,  Online Learning: Does It Help Low-Income and Underprepared Students? issued by the Community College Research Center at Teachers College.   It covers a number of important issues raised during our discussions at Hostos and is based on a review of 36 studies conducted in the United States and Canada.   Among the findings:

“In terms of course completion, studies conducted in the community college setting strongly suggest that students are more likely to withdraw from online courses, even after controlling for a variety of student characteristics. Moreover, perhaps due to those high withdrawal rates, some tentative evidence suggests that taking online courses may discourage students from returning to the community college in subsequent semesters and from moving on to subsequent courses in their program sequence.”

There are a number of other interesting findings and comments.

This Brief is based on CCRC Working Paper No. 26, part of the CCRC Assessment of Evidence Series, which is available for download free of charge at http://ccrc.tc.columbia.edu/Publication.asp?UID=879

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Gail Collins has a fun piece in the NY Times today on Donald Trump and the weirdness of his campaign for president in 2012.  His basic platform right now is asking for President Obama’s birth certificate.   Ms. Collins has some real zingers for Mr. Trump including:

“In a potential Republican field that includes Michele Bachmann, Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich, it’s hard to come up with a line of attack loopy enough to stand out from the pack. But darned if Trump didn’t manage to find one. “  “If he wasn’t born in this country, it’s one of the greatest scams of all time,”

AND

“Trump’s main argument for why he should be taken seriously as a presidential contender is his business success. Has Obama ever hosted a long-running reality series? Owned a bankruptcy-bound chain of casinos? Put his name on a flock of really unattractive high-rise apartment buildings? No!”

AND

“Celebrity Apprentice” is widely regarded as terrible and cheesy programming, but, actually, it has its moments. I recently saw an episode in which a former top model had a serious discussion with a fellow competitor about whether this was the 20th century or the 21st.”

Great fun for a Saturday morning.  Thank you Ms. Collins!

Tony