Professional Staff Congress Endorses Bill de Blasio for Mayor and Needs Your Support!

Dear Commons Community,

The Professional Staff Congress has sent out a call to its members seeking volunteers to help in the campaigns of candidates it is supporting in this year’s citywide elections.  Below is the letter from Steve London, First Vice President of the PSC.

Tony

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Dear PSC Member:

 
The PSC has endorsed Bill de Blasio for Mayor, Letitia James for Public Advocate, and Scott Stringer for Comptroller.

The 2013 elections represent a special opportunity for union members and supporters of public education in New York City. After two decades of Giuliani and Bloomberg, we have a chance to elect a mayor and other officials who will change today’s policies of austerity – and we have eight weeks to make that happen.  The Democratic primary is September 10, and the PSC is working to make sure that the most pro-CUNY, pro-labor candidates will be on the ballot in November. I’m writing to ask you to volunteer in this effort.

Right now is a key time in this year’s elections. Most voters are undecided or not strongly committed to any candidate. In the next few weeks, they will start paying more attention to the race and decide who to support. That’s why we’re asking PSC members to volunteer some time to work on the mayoral race or other citywide contests:

BILL DE BLASIO FOR MAYOR: The PSC has endorsed Bill de Blasio for Mayor of New York City because of his clear progressive record and his focus on economic inequality. DeBlasio understands the strategic importance of education (and CUNY in particular) in expanding opportunity for New Yorkers who’ve been left behind in the Bloomberg era.

As The New York Times reported, De Blasio’s plan “to assess a tax on wealthier New Yorkers to pay for more prekindergarten and other programs,” and his proposal “that $150 million worth of corporate tax breaks be ended and the money invested instead in CUNY” helped him win the PSC’s support.

To volunteer on the de Blasio campaign in your neighborhood, you can sign up online at billdeblasio.com/get-involved/neighborhood, or contact Harold Miller at Harold@billdeblasio.com or 917-576-5403.

LETITIA JAMES FOR PUBLIC ADVOCATE: A long-time progressive who has represented City Council District 35 in Brooklyn for three terms, Tish James has supported increased funding for CUNY and introduced a Council resolution criticizing the Pathways project.  As Chair of the Council’s Committee on Contracts, James demanded an investigation of the disastrous CityTime payroll project, which cost the City millions in fraudulent billing by private consultants.  A Lehman College graduate, she has been at the forefront of efforts to curtail the NYPD’s “stop and frisk” policy, which disproportionately affects CUNY students.  She has also fought to preserve community interests in the Atlantic Yard development.

To volunteer on the James campaign, contact Gina Bull at gina@letitiajames2013.com or 845-596-6512.


SCOTT STRINGER FOR COMPTROLLER:
 Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer has a strong record of support for CUNY.  A graduate of John Jay College, Stringer has also backed expanding college access for undocumented immigrant students through the New York State Dream Act, priority legislation for the PSC.  A current trustee of the New York City Employees Retirement System, he has worked to protect City employees’ retirement security.  An advocate for transparency in government, Stringer is a strong supporter of the public campaign finance system and has released his last five years of tax returns (something his opponent has refused to do).

To volunteer on the Stringer campaign, contact Anaf Uddin at 917-982-6800.
The PSC’s political action work is a people-powered effort, and it’s your participation that makes us effective. Please consider volunteering now – and let us know that you’ve done so by e-mailing Amanda Magalhaes (amagalhaes@pscmail.org).

 
Steve London

PSC First Vice President

 

 

San Jose State U. Puts MOOC Project With Udacity on Hold!

Dear Commons Community,

The Chronicle of Higher Education is reporting that the University of California at San Jose is giving itself a “breather” from MOOCs after two semesters of experimentation.   Ellen Junn, provost of San Jose State, described the break as temporary. The university has not suspended its partnership with Udacity, she said, and the university and the company will probably create new courses together by next spring.

“This is a natural breather time, that’s all we’re doing,” she said.

News of the break coincided with the leaking of a slide show containing preliminary data on the spring trials, which included three mathematics courses that San Jose State instructors built with Udacity. The courses were offered to a mix of students, some who were enrolled at the university and others who were not, including some high-school students.

The pass rates for the San Jose State students in those courses ranged from 29 percent to 51 percent. For non-enrolled students, the range was 12 percent to 45 percent.”

Asked whether it was the preliminary findings from the spring trials that had prompted the university to take a “breather” from its experiments with Udacity, Ms. Junn said that the early data “did not necessarily cause this to happen” and that no planned courses had been canceled. She said she does not recall when the decision to put the trials on hold was made, only that “it was a joint decision” with Udacity and that many factors went into it.

Sebastian Thrun, the founder of Udacity, said the company was merely taking time to restructure its courses with San Jose State so that students could work through the material more at their own pace. “The No. 1 complaint we’re getting is that students need more time, they feel rushed,” said Mr. Thrun. “We never made the decision to stop” the pilot entirely, he added.

San Jose State has been ground zero for several projects aimed at testing how MOOCs—or, more precisely, technology developed by MOOC providers—might help traditional universities improve their online courses while lowering the cost to students. In a separate pilot, the university has pushed its instructors to use content and technology from edX, a nonprofit MOOC provider, in their courses, an experiment that has garnered both promising data and skepticism from faculty members.”

The Chronicle concluded its article as:

“…data from the spring trials can serve as a useful reminder that the outside providers cannot provide a miracle cure for the problems facing public higher education in California, said Lillian Taiz, president of the California Faculty Association.

“The problem is all the hype,” she said. “I think what these data do is bring us down to earth.”

Bring us down to earth indeed.  MOOCs are not silver bullets by any means.  They have been hyped by their providers, investors, politicians and the media looking for quick fixes.

Tony