Dear Commons Community,

Joe Bruni’s column in the New York Times today focuses on the ever running circus that has become our federal government.  A government more concerned with political theater than solving the nation’s problems.  Here is an excerpt:

“Four Americans died in Benghazi, Libya: people with unrealized hopes, unfinished plans, relatives who loved them and friends who will miss them.

But let’s focus on what really matters about the attack and its aftermath. Did Hillary Clinton’s presumed 2016 presidential campaign take a hit?

We live in a country lousy with guns and bloody with gun-related violence, manifest two weeks ago in a Kentucky 5-year-old’s fatal shooting of his 2-year-old sister, evident over the weekend in a hail of bullets at a Mother’s Day parade in New Orleans.

But let’s cut to the chase. Did Kelly Ayotte, the New Hampshire senator, safeguard or endanger her political future by casting one of the votes that doomed gun-control legislation in the Senate? An d does the law’s failure mean that it’s time to write the obituary for Barack Obama’s presidency, which has more than 1,300 days to go, or can we wait — I don’t know — a week or maybe even two to do that?

Now we have a scandal at the Internal Revenue Service to factor in. And a scandal it is, in urgent need of a thorough investigation, which President Obama pledged at his news conference on Monday and which we’re very much owed.

But before we get a full account, let’s by all means pivot to the possible political fallout, politics being all that seems to matter these days. Will Republicans ever trust and be able to work with the administration again? (This is being asked as if there were all that much trust and cooperation in the first place.) Have they finally been handed the cudgel that can whack Obama and his crew into oblivion? Assess, discuss and please don’t forget to make predictions about the 2014 midterms.

It never gets better and may in fact be getting worse: the translation of all of the news and of all of Washington’s responses into a ledger of electoral pluses and minuses, a graph of rising and falling political fortunes, a narrative of competition between not just the parties but the would-be potentates within a party. On issue after issue, the sideshow swallows the substance, as politicians and the seemingly infinite ranks of political handlers join us journalists in gaming everything out, ad infinitum.

To follow the debate over immigration reform is to lose sight at times of the 11 million undocumented immigrants in limbo and the challenge of finding the most economically fruitful and morally sound way to deal with them and their successors. No, the real stakes are United States Senator Marco Rubio’s presidential aspirations. Will he pay a high price with the Republican base for pushing a path to citizenship? Or will he earn necessary centrist credentials?

And where does it leave him vis-à-vis Rand Paul and Ted Cruz, who are fellow Republican senators itching for prominence and are also hypothetical primary rivals? The next presidential election is three and a half years away — an eternity, really — but instead of putting a damper on speculation, that time span has encouraged it, letting a thousand theories and nearly as many contenders bloom.

We can wonder: if Clinton decided not to run, would a door open for another woman, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of the New York? Just how well has Gillibrand positioned herself for such a turn? That story is already out there, and in it her record is framed largely in terms of her prospects for national office, as if one exists in the service of the other, as if the point of a Congressional seat is leveraging it into an even better, more regal throne.

What about the actual business of governing? Between all the preening, partisan cross-fire and of course fund-raising that consumes members of Congress, is there any space and energy for that?

Not much, to judge from either the sclerosis that now defines the institution or the obsessions of those of us in the media. Our quickness to publicize skirmishes and divine political jockeying abet both. Actors tend to do whatever keeps the audience rapt.”

How is it that our elected officials can exhaust themselves to appeal to voters and win election points while accomplishing so little to improve the country and the lives of people.  It is reminiscent of the last two years of  Bill Clinton’s presidency when the entire government apparatus shut down to concentrate on what he did or did not do with Monica Lewinsky.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

The Broader Bolder Approach to Education (BBA) is a national campaign that acknowledges the impact of social and economic disadvantage on schools and students and proposes evidence-based policies to improve schools and remedy conditions that limit many children’s readiness to learn.  As provided on the BBA website:

“The Economic Policy Institute convened the original BBA signatories and Task Force and continues to provide in-kind technical and logistical assistance. It is funded in part by the Nellie Mae Education Foundation, the Annie E. Casey Foundation, and Atlantic Philanthropies. ”

BBA recently issued a major report claiming that many of the accomplishments in school reform in three major cities (New York, Chicago, and Washington, D.C.) have been exaggerated.  Specifically the Executive Summary of the report summarizes its findings as follows:

“Federal policies such as Race to the Top and No Child Left Behind, bolstered by organized advocacy efforts, is making a popular set of market-oriented education “reforms” look more like the new status quo than real reform.

Reformers assert that test-based teacher evaluation, increased school “choice” through expanded access to charter schools, and the closure of “failing” and under-enrolled schools will boost falling student achievement and narrow longstanding race- and income-based achievement gaps.

This report examines these assertions by assessing the impacts of these reforms in three large urban school districts: Washington, D.C., New York City, and Chicago. These districts were studied because all enjoy the benefit of mayoral control, produce reliable district-level test score data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), and were led by vocal reformers who implemented versions of this agenda.

KEY FINDINGS

The reforms deliver few benefits and in some cases harm the students they purport to help, while drawing attention and resources away from policies with real promise to address poverty-related barriers to school success:

.Test scores increased less, and achievement gaps grew more, in “reform” cities than in other urban districts.

.Reported successes for targeted students evaporated upon closer examination.

.Test-based accountability prompted churn that thinned the ranks of experienced teachers, but not necessarily bad teachers.

.School closures did not send students to better schools or save school districts money.

.Charter schools further disrupted the districts while providing mixed benefits, particularly for the highest-needs students.

. Emphasis on the widely touted market-oriented reforms drew attention and resources from initiatives with greater promise.

.The reforms missed a critical factor driving achievement gaps: the influence of poverty on academic performance. Real, sustained change requires strategies that are more realistic, patient, and multipronged.”

This report was written by Elaine Weiss and Don Long.  Dr. Weiss is the national coordinator of the Broader, Bolder Approach to Education. She has a J.D. from Harvard Law School and a Ph.D. in public policy from The Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public Administration at The George Washington University.

Don Long has been a consultant for BBA since November 2011.  Mr. Long was director of the State Collaborative on Assessment and Student Standards (SCASS) and program manager at Pearson Educational Measurement in Austin, Texas. Long has a Master of Public Affairs degree from the LBJ School of Public Policy at the University of Texas, Austin.

This report provides important commentary on school reform and is a “must-read” for anyone interested in urban education.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Jason Richwine, the co-author of a controversial Heritage Foundation report on immigration resigned yesterday.   As reported in the Huffington Post: 

“Jason Richwine let us know he’s decided to resign from his position. He’s no longer employed by Heritage,” spokesman Daniel Woltornist said in an email to HuffPost.

The report put the cost of immigration reform at a whopping $6.3 trillion. Though Heritage’s 2007 report was one of the reasons an earlier immigration bill failed, the 2013 report was widely mocked.

Richwine also came under fire this week for arguing in his Harvard dissertation that Hispanic immigrants to the U.S. have substantially lower IQs than whites.  Harvard accepted Richwine’s 2009 dissertation for a doctorate in public policy. In it, he spoke of the “growing Hispanic underclass.”

“Superior performance on basic economic indicators is to be expected from later generations, who go to American schools, learn English, and become better acquainted with the culture,” he wrote. “Despite built-in advantages, too many Hispanic natives are not adhering to standards of behavior that separate middle and working class neighborhoods from the barrio.”

“There can be little dispute that post 1965-immigration has brought a larger and increasingly visible Hispanic underclass to the United States, yet the underlying reasons for its existence cannot be understood without considering IQ,” he wrote.

It seems to me that some of the higher-ups at Heritage should also consider leaving for allowing the report to go public.  But at Heritage it is politics first, truth second!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

A group called New Yorkers for Great Public Schools (NYGPS) released a report Friday called “Rhee-ality Check” that calls into question Michelle Rhee’s success. It mostly relies on news clippings to assert that Rhee’s StudentsFirst reform advocacy group is ineffective in fundraising and legislative efforts.

“This is the first report of its kind to examine whether this education advocacy group founded by Michelle Rhee has made progress toward its key goals,” the report said. “A national education advocacy group with such a track record of ineffectiveness is not what Rhee’s investors signed up for.”  As reported in the Huffington Post:

In recent days, as the report’s release neared, a few allies of Rhee and her associates have sprung to her defense, offering accounts of her success. “National unions and other union front groups like NYGPS sure spend a lot of time, money, and attention on an organization they say is ineffective. The union bosses funding these groups are underestimating the public’s intelligence,” Erin Shaw, a StudentsFirst spokesperson, said in an email. “In the meantime, we are focused on passing laws and policies state by state … that put kids’ interests above all else.” Recently, Shaw noted, Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal (R) signed a teacher evaluation bill.

The report, and the back-and-forth in advance of its publication, touches on interesting questions at a time when philanthropies wield significant power over public policy: How can advocacy efforts be measured? What information can philanthropic groups use to guide their investments?

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Ambivalence about MOOCs, which has increasingly been voiced on campuses across the country, is also being heard among the faculty of Harvard University.  The speakers at a conference included faculty members from Harvard and elsewhere, many of them experts in what the day’s organizers framed as the “science” of learning and the “art” of teaching—which, when combined, result in something the speakers said is seldom realized on any campus: an excellent education.  The Chronicle of Higher Education has an article (subscription required) reporting on one of the forums::

“While the level of unease expressed at Harvard, during a conference on Wednesday and in other venues, is not as unified or oppositional as recent statements made at American, Duke, and San Jose State Universities, it is all the more notable for arising among the faculty of an institution that has invested $30-million in a nonprofit organization that produces massive open online courses.

At Wednesday’s forum, a conference on teaching and learning, several speakers touted the virtues of in-person, physically centered education. The gathering also served as an implicit and, at times, explicit pedagogical counterargument to the rise of MOOCs.

EdX, the nonprofit MOOC provider founded by Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was “the elephant in the room,” Jennifer L. Roberts, a professor of history of art and architecture at Harvard, said after her remarks at the meeting of the Harvard Initiative for Learning and Teaching.”

The initiative, which is supported by a $40-million gift from two benefactors, Gustave M. and Rita E. Hauser, is intended to encourage faculty members to experiment and improve the quality of teaching and learning at Harvard. While some projects supported by the grant feature technology, none are MOOCs.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

The backlash at California’s San Jose State University continues.  As reported in The Chronicle of Higher Education, the California Faculty Association issued a three-page statement against the development of MOOCs at the University, President  Mohammed Qayoumi, and Udacity and edX, the companies providing MOOC services.

Using fiery language, the statement says that San Jose State does not want “to be known as Wal-Mart U.”

Tha MOOC courses rather than providing greater access “contribute to the digital divide”.

The partnerships with Udacity and edX are designed “to put more money into the pockets of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs” at the expense of California taxpayers.

The statement also was highly critical of how San Jose’s President Qayoumi has ushered in the MOOCs.

The statement concluded that the Faculty Association is not against online education but questions the MOOC model and the companies that are developing them.

The battle goes on.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

In an editorial entitled, Heritage Foundation phony immigration study has political goal:   Right wing think tank offers nonsense to scare away support, the New York Daily News yesterday panned the Heritage Foundation as a mouthpiece for right wing causes and not as a serious think tank.  Referring to a study by Robert Rector and Jason Richwine that estimated a cost of $6.3 trillion as the supposed public expense if Congress would pass an amnesty program for immigrants,   the editorial characterized the Heritage Foundation as a producer of “political screed not serious analysis”.

“To reach the number [$6.3 trillion], Rector and Richwine purport to total up the cost of the services the undocumented-turned-documented immigrants would use and compare the figure with taxes they project the immigrants would pay.

Since those taxes would not cover the services, as calculated, Rector and Richwine brand each immigrant and the children of each immigrant dead weights — and multiply by 50 to pump things up to $6.3 trillion over the next half-century.

The study ignores every piece of the immigration bill that’s designed to provide a shot in the arm to the economy. Such as a dramatic hike in the number of highly skilled workers, a guest worker program that would deliver talent to a wide range of industries and a shift from immigration based on family ties to a system weighted toward job skills.

Still more, the report takes a horrendously dim view of upward mobility in the U.S. It portrays the immigrants and their kids as endlessly costing more money than they contribute because, in the authors’ estimation, they’ll never rise much above working class.”

We thank the Daily News and it editorial board for their diligence in exposing the Heritage Foundation for what it is – a political hack organization.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

This past weekend, faculty and scholars struck back at the unbridled enthusiasm for technology that is intruding many aspects of our personal and professional lives. As reported in The Chronicle of Education:     

“Companies, colleges, and columnists gush about the utopian possibilities of technology. But digital life has a bleaker side, too. Over the weekend, a cross-disciplinary group of scholars convened here to focus attention on the lesser-noticed consequences of innovation.

Surveillance. Racism. Drones. Those were some of the issues discussed at the conference, which was called “The Dark Side of the Digital” and hosted by the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee’s Center for 21st Century Studies. (One speaker even flew a small drone as a visual aid; it hit the classroom ceiling and crashed.)

After a week of faculty backlash against online education, including the refusal of San Jose State University professors to teach a Harvard philosophy course offered via edX, the down sides of digital learning emerged as a hot topic, too.

In a talk dubbed “Courseware.com,” Rita Raley, an associate professor of English at the University of California at Santa Barbara, described how societal and technological changes had “reconditioned the idea of the university into that of an educational enterprise that delivers content through big platforms on demand.”

On MOOCs:

“The conference’s organizer, Richard Grusin, a scholar of new media, worried about the potentially “dire” consequences of massive open online courses, known as MOOCs.

Education, Mr. Grusin said in an interview, is about teaching people how to think, how to question, how to sit in a room with someone and express a different opinion. Equating it with simple content delivery “denudes” what it means to teach and learn, in his view.

What’s more, when colleges start to award credit for MOOCs serving thousands of students, the result could be a reduction in the need for faculty members to teach those courses, said Mr. Grusin, a professor of English at UW-Milwaukee with a history of tech experimentation. Much of that reduction, he added, would hit teaching assistants. Rather than teaching their own sections or classes, they may find themselves managing online discussions.

Online courseware could create inequalities among colleges, Mr. Grusin added, as he and other professors discussed Ms. Raley’s talk over lunch. “Power gets aggregated by elite universities,” he argued. “Because it’s not San Jose State professors or UW-Milwaukee professors sending their lectures to Harvard students. It’s Harvard professors sending their lectures here. And so, not only is there already a built-in inequality, but this technology is going to enable that to be multiplied and leveraged, to even create a further inequality.”

It seems we here at CUNY should consider such a conference or at least raise these issues in an appropriate forum.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Ray Harryhausen, a cinema special effects genius died yesterday at the age of 92.  As a child growing up in the 1950s and 1960s, his movies were “must see” entertainment for my generation. At the time time I no idea  who he was but as a long-time devotee of Turner Classic Movies  (TCM) I came to learn of Mr. Harryhausen as the man behind many of the great movies of my childhood.  In his obituary, the New York Times mentions:

“Often working alone or with a small crew, Mr. Harryhausen created and photographed many of the most memorable fantasy-adventure sequences in movie history: the atomically awakened dinosaur that lays waste to Coney Island in “The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms”; the sword fight between Greek heroes and skeleton warriors in “Jason and the Argonauts”; the swooping pterodactyl that carries off Raquel Welch in “One Million Years B.C.”

Though his on-screen credit was often simply “technical effects” or “special visual effects,” Mr. Harryhausen usually played a principal creative role in the films featuring his work. He frequently proposed the initial concept, scouted the locations and shaped the story, script, art direction and design around his ideas for fresh ways to amaze an audience.

Mr. Harryhausen made use of many different photographic effects and often combined several in the same film. But he was best known for stop-motion animation, a painstaking process using three-dimensional miniature models that are photographed one frame at a time, with tiny, progressive adjustments made by hand to the models between frames to produce the illusion of movement….

The effects he achieved inspired the generation of filmmakers who produced the digital-effects-laden blockbuster films of the 1980s and beyond.

George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, James Cameron and Peter Jackson all cite his films as crucial antecedents for their work, and modern animators often slip homages to him into their films.”

His innovations were honored in 1992 with a career Academy Award for technical achievement. At the Oscar ceremony, Tom Hanks told the audience that he thought the greatest movie of all time was not “Citizen Kane” or “Casablanca” but Harryhausen’s “Jason and the Argonauts.”

Thank you Mr. Harryhausen for the hours of great entertainment you gave us!

Tony