Dear Commons Community,

Manfred Phillip (Graduate Center and Lehman College) passed this piece on to the CUNY University Faculty Senate LISTSERV.

Tony

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No Teachers, Administrators Named to Cuomo Education Panel!

By Gary Stern

School officials are surprised and bewildered that Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s new commission on education reform does not include representatives of school districts — administrators, board members, teachers or parents.  The high-powered commission, announced by Cuomo last week, includes 20 members, most of whom are academics or leaders of think tanks unknown to the general public.

“If I was setting up a commission like this, I would want representatives from school districts because we’re the ones who

actually educate children,” Port Chester Schools Superintendent Edward Kliszus said. “It’s a shame they won’t have input from educators who do the educating.”

Cuomo is charging the commission with a top-to-bottom review of New York’s education system, including: teacher recruitment and performance; student achievement; education costs and funding; the challenges facing poor districts; and the best use of technology. The governor asked for preliminary recommendations by Dec. 1.

Several officials from the Lower Hudson Valley said they agree with Cuomo’s agenda, but that school representatives are regularly left out of the state’s reform efforts.

“It appears that the public school educators who will be asked to actually implement the recommendations and are most familiar with the disparate challenges within each school system and in districts across the state will not be involved,” South Orangetown Schools

Superintendent Ken Mitchell said.

One member of the commission, Michael Rebell, executive director of the Campaign for Educational Equity at Columbia University’s Teachers College, said he agreed with educators’ concerns about the commission’s makeup.

“You can’t make solid policy without knowing how people on the front lines respond to these problems and issues,” he said. “If you’re going to have solutions that work, you have to engage people so they will support your proposals. I’m committed to reaching out to school boards, parents, educators, to get them in the conversation.”

Chancellor Goldstein and Vice Chancellor Marti are members of the

panel. see http://www.governor.ny.gov/press/4302012EducationReformCommission

Dear Commons Community,

Voters in North Carolina approved a constitutional amendment yesterday defining marriage solely as a union between a man and a woman, becoming the latest state to effectively slam the door shut on same-sex marriages.

The Huffington Post is reporting:  “With most of the precincts reporting, unofficial returns showed the amendment passing with about 61 percent of the vote to 39 percent against. North Carolina is the 30th state to adopt such a ban on gay marriage…

In the final days before the vote, members of President Barack Obama’s cabinet expressed support for gay marriage and former President Bill Clinton recorded phone messages urging voters to oppose the amendment.

Supporters of the amendment responded with marches, television ads and speeches. Church leaders urged Sunday congregations to vote for the amendment. The Rev. Billy Graham was featured in full-page newspaper ads backing the amendment.

North Carolina law already bans gay marriage, but an amendment effectively seals the door on same-sex marriages.

The amendment also goes beyond state law by voiding other types of domestic unions from carrying legal status, which opponents warn could disrupt protection orders for unmarried couples.”

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

The law school of Washington University in St. Louis  announced yesterday that it would offer, entirely online, a master’s degree in United States law intended for lawyers practicing overseas, in partnership with 2tor, an education technology company. The significance of this is that law schools have been slow to move to online classes, and the new master’s program is perhaps the earliest partnership between a top-tier law school and a commercial enterprise.  The New York Times is reporting that:

“Washington University will share the revenues from the $48,000 program — the same tuition paid by students at the St. Louis campus — with 2tor, which will provide marketing, the Web platform and technical support, including a staff member to monitor each live class and deal with any technical problems that arise.

2tor, a four-year-old company based in Maryland, has partnerships in place with the University of Southern California, Georgetown and the University of North Carolina for online graduate degree programs in education, business, public administration and nursing.

Largely because of American Bar Association rules, however — under which approved law schools may not count more than 12 credits of distance education toward a Juris Doctor degree — legal education has been slow to shift to online classes. Students who earn a J.D. from a bar association-approved law school are automatically eligible to take the bar exam nationwide.

But beyond that, each state sets its rules on who can take the bar exam. California, for example, is the only state that allows graduates of Concord Law School — which is not approved by the bar association, but offers a fully online Juris Doctor — to take its bar exam.

The bar association does not approve master’s programs, beyond certifying that a new one at an approved law school will not detract from the J.D. program.

About a dozen states allow some Master of Law holders to qualify for the bar exam, but in New York, those with master’s degrees are not eligible if they earned the degree online.”

Another online education barrier broken!

Tony