Dear Commons Community,

I just finished a book entitled, The Idea of the Digital University:  Ancient Traditions, Disruptive Technologies, and the Battle for the Soul of Higher Education, by Frank McCluskey and Melanie Winter.  Both authors have had extensive experience in non-profit and for-profit private higher education.  Frank is a colleague of mine who has done a good deal of work in online learning.  While retired now, his last position was as provost at the American Public University System.  Melanie’s expertise is as an administrator dealing with digital records.

This book covers a lot of ground and provides a good review of higher education’s past, present and future.  Frank has his Ph.D. in philosophy from the New School having specialized in Hegel and so there are several excellent references to classical philosophies and their relationship to education.  The book also provides insights into the growth of online learning including the current MOOC movement.  I particularly enjoyed Chapter 15.  Entitled How Traditional Non-Profits and Modern Online For-Profits Can Find a Balance…, it provides an even-tempered look at what each sector has to offer the other.  For instance, McCuskey and Winter argue that if the non-profit sector had  “a clearer idea about profit and return on investment, college cost would not have sky-rocketed”.   On another point they comment that the development of metrics and data analysis “must be done in the context of shared governance and an understanding of faculty control over academics.  This has not always been the case in the for-profit sector.”

In sum, this was well worth the read and a good addition to the literature that attempts to decipher where higher education is going as a result of the rapid expansion of digital instruction.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

In a major blow to Mario Cuomo’s efforts to withhold state aid to New York City public schools for the failure of Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the United Federation of Teachers to reach agreement on a new teacher evaluation system, Justice Manuel J. Mendez of State Supreme Court in Manhattan, issued a ruling on barring the state’s education commissioner from deducting any school aid due the city until the matter is decided in court.  The New York Times is reporting that:

“State officials, for now, cannot stop $260 million in aid from flowing into New York City’s schools as a penalty for the city’s failure to iron out a plan for evaluating public school teachers, a state judge ruled this week.

The preliminary injunction was a blow to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s promise to withhold the money after the Bloomberg administration and the city’s teachers’ union missed a Jan. 17 deadline for developing an evaluation system for the 75,000 teachers, which is also a core element of the state’s winning a lucrative federal grant.

Though the financial penalty was intended to motivate the two sides to act, they did not, and the judge, Justice Manuel J. Mendez of State Supreme Court in Manhattan, issued a ruling on Tuesday barring the state’s education commissioner from deducting any school aid due the city until the matter is decided in court.

Justice Mendez, in a four-page decision made public on Thursday, ruled that “innocent children,” particularly the neediest among them, could be hurt by financial cuts, as the plaintiffs had argued. He also agreed with the plaintiffs’ central argument that the matter revolves around a child’s constitutional right to a sound basic education.

“This decision is a substantial victory for all of New York City’s students,” said Michael A. Rebell, a lawyer who filed suit against the state on Feb. 5 on behalf of a group including nine parents and their children. “The judge clearly indicated that the state’s irrational penalty places innocent children at academic risk.”

Reaction to the decision underscored the bitterness over the issue, first outlined in 2010 state law.

Catherine T. Nolan, a Democrat from Queens and the chairwoman of the State Assembly’s education committee, called the ruling “tremendous,” adding, “No one should ever use formula-driven aid to punish kids.”

Congratulations to Judge Mendez for making such a sound judgment and taking New York politics and bureaucracy out of the education of children.

Tony