Dear Commons Community,

The students, faculty, and staff of the CUNY Graduate Center and the Program in Urban Education lost one of our pillars with the death of Jean Anyon.  Jean had been fighting cancer for about a year and succumbed to it yesterday.  Up until the third week in August, she had hoped to teach her courses this fall.

Jean had been on the Urban Education faculty since its beginnings and in every sense was critical to its development and success.  Her thoughts, positions, and ideas added mightily to the vibrancy of our program.  Her scholarship on political economy as a lens to examine public policy regarding urban neighborhoods and schools is respected throughout the professional education community.   Her books, Radical Possibilities and Ghetto Schooling, are standard reading in every education program in the country.

She was incredibly loyal to and supportive of our students.  She guided and helped them in any way she could.  She taught them to be activists and led them on Occupy Wall Street marches.  To do a dissertation under  Jean’s tutelage was an experience that established a foundation for a scholar’s career and life’s work.

Jean was a friend from whom I sought advice and counsel.  In addition to our regular conversations throughout the academic year, I especially enjoyed having dinner with her at the end of each semester.  I used these occasions to help me reflect on the ups and downs of our program. Our discussions always turned to our students, both those who were succeeding as well as those needing more assistance.  I inevitably found myself using her insights to guide me during the coming semester.

We will all miss her dearly.

Our sincerest condolences go out to Jean’s family especially her daughter, Jessie.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

With all the discussion this summer of the federal Pell Grant program, a report released last week by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) examines the growth of the program and explores some ideas that have been proposed to deal with concerns about the program’s cost.

The report found that between the 2006-7 and 2010-11 award years, inflation-adjusted spending on Pell Grants increased by 158 percent, stemming from an 80-percent rise in the number of recipients and a 43-percent real increase in the average grant amount. The rise in the number of grant recipients was the most significant contributor to rising costs, the report says. But spending for the program declined in 2011–12, it says, because of a reduction in the amount of the average grant.  The report cites three major reasons for the increase in Pell Grant expenditures:

• Changes in the economy,
• Changes in the way postsecondary education is provided, and
• Choices made by policymakers to expand the program.

The recession of 2007–2009 and the subsequent slow recovery drew more students into the recipient pool. Eligibility increased as adult students and the families of dependent students experienced losses in income and assets; enrollment of eligible students also rose as people who had lost jobs sought to acquire new skills and people who would have entered the workforce enrolled in school because they could not find employment. The expansion of online education, particularly at for-profit institutions, attracted still more students, many of whom were eligible for Pell grants. Rising tuition has put more pressure on family finances and made applying for the program more attractive. Legislated policy changes, including larger grants, simpler applications, expanded eligibility, and the increased availability of federal aid for online study, provided more grants to students who would have enrolled even without the changes and encouraged others to enroll and submit grant applications.

The report also explores alternatives for the Pell Grant program including:

• Reduce the number of grant recipients,
• Reduce the amounts of the grants,
• Increase the grant amounts, and
• Simplify eligibility criteria and the grant application.

However, in keeping with the non-partisan nature of the CBO, the report does not make any recommendations.

As reported in The Chronicle of Higher Education, the report comes as Congress gears up for the next reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, the main law governing federal student aid. The act was last renewed in 2008 after five years of debate.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Last week, the news at Hunter College was the announcement of a gift of $25 million by alumni, Leon G. Cooperman and his wife, Toby.  The Chronicle of Higher Education yesterday listed the top five donations to colleges and universities in 2013 to an American college or university as follows:

1. $350 million from New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg to Johns Hopkins University.
2. $250 million from the A. Eugene Brockman Charitable Trust to Centre College (Kentucky)
3. $200 million from New York real estate magnate and Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross to the University of Michigan.
4. $151 million from real estate developer John Arrillaga to Stanford University.
5. $133 million from Qualcomm Inc. co-founder Irwin Jacobs and Joan Klein Jacobs to Cornell University and Technion-Israel Institute of Technology.

New York City’s mayor, Michael Bloomberg, who heads this list,  has given more than $1 billion to his alma mater, Johns Hopkins, over the past forty years.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

The Chronicle of Higher Education has an article (subscription required) commenting on President Obama’s plan for rating the quality of colleges.  The president’s plan has gained early support from proponents of bringing more accountability to higher education, but some analysts fear that a ratings system would punish colleges for accepting students from lower-income and other backgrounds who are less likely to complete degrees than their peers.  Once in place, the program the president has proposed would give larger Pell Grants and more-affordable loans to students attending higher-rated institutions.

The Chronicle article reports on a panel discussion featuring several prominent individuals commenting on the issues associated with the president’s proposal.  The forum, titled  Higher Education’s New Caste System, was sponsored by the New America Foundation and the magazine Washington Monthly, and was billed as a conversation about a broken higher-education system that puts low-income students at a disadvantage and perpetuates racial inequality. The Chronicle article, however, commented that the theme was largely eclipsed by a decades-old debate on:  How do we best measure quality across diverse postsecondary institutions that serve students with vastly different levels of preparedness?

President Obama says his proposed ratings system, which would take effect in 2015, would ultimately measure whether colleges are giving students a good deal. The trouble is, there is precious little agreement about which metrics best answer that question.    As the article points out:

“The federal six-year graduation rate, which is often cited by policy makers as a measure of quality, is criticized among higher-education experts because it discounts significant numbers of college students. The figure does not include students who transfer into an institution from a community college, for example, or students who transfer out of an institution and eventually graduate from a different college.

Diana S. Natalicio, president of the University of Texas at El Paso and a panelist on the program, said the federal six-year graduation rate fails to capture 70 percent of her students. The measure tends to “mislead rather than inform,” she said, and yet it plays a prominent role in shaping public policy.

Jamie P. Merisotis, president and chief executive officer of the Lumina Foundation, said the problem was not the use of graduation rates, but rather the “obsession we have with single measures.”

The article’s concluding comment focuses squarely on a most important issue:

“Kevin Carey, director of the education-policy program at the New America Foundation and guest editor of the Washington Monthly’s 2013 College Rankings, said there is a “distorted view” in the United States that excellence in higher education can be defined by how many students a college turns away. Mr. Carey, who is also a columnist for The Chronicle, said that view is harmful because it does not give colleges incentives to enroll students who face the greatest financial and preparatory challenges.”

Tony

Click to enlarge.

Dear Commons Community,

The New York media today are reporting that with the Democratic primary less than a week away, Bill de Blasio has surged ahead of his competition according to the latest Quinnipiac University poll. With 47 percent of black voters and 44 percent of women voters, Mr. de Blasio garnered 43 percent of likely voters in the Democratic primary for mayor, passing the 40 percent cutoff and possibly avoiding a runoff, according to the poll released yesterday.

Former City Comptroller and 2009 Democratic nominee William Thompson is at 20 percent, with 18 percent for City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, 7 percent for former U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner, 4 percent for Comptroller John Liu, 1 percent for former Council member Sal Albanese and 8 percent undecided.

This compares to results of an August 28 survey by the independent University which showed de Blasio at 36 percent, with 21 percent for Quinn, 20 percent for Thompson, 8 percent for Weiner and 6 percent for Liu.

In today’s survey, women likely Democratic primary voters go 44 percent for de Blasio, 19 percent for Thompson and 18 percent for Quinn. Men go 41 percent for de Blasio, 20 percent for Thompson and 18 percent for Quinn. Black voters go 47 percent for de Blasio, 25 percent for Thompson and 6 percent for Quinn. White voters go 42 percent for de Blasio, 28 percent for Quinn and 16 percent for Thompson.

The Democratic primary is next Tuesday on September 10^th.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

With the primaries fast approaching on September 10, interest in the New York City mayoral race is becoming intense.  Anthony Weiner’s sexting issues have provided much fodder for the media as well as an unfortunate distraction for the candidates and the voters. Nevertheless, as the primaries near and the opinion polls become more frequent, the candidates are sharpening their positions on issues in an attempt to distinguish themselves from the competition.   There are many issues that need to be reviewed and considered, but education is surely on the minds of voters, especially for parents of school children during this election year.

Republican candidates are supporting most of Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s policies of the past twelve years.  The majority of Democratic candidates agree that New York City needs a new direction.

Bloomberg, for the most part has performed his duties well:  the business community has confidence in the mayor and the New York City economy has emerged from the recession doing better than most other metropolitan areas of the country; his stance on gun control has been impeccable and inspiring; his initiative for bringing more technology companies to the city is visionary.

However, the mayor has also had his problems–arguably, the most controversial—has been the policy changes he brought to the New York City public school system.  While there is no doubt that the school system is better managed under mayoral control than under the previous community school board structure, schooling is not simply about management; it is and must be primarily about learning and education.

Some of his education policies have polarized segments of the City’s population by pitting the school reformers who seek greater privatization, charter schools, testing, undergirded by a corporate culture, against the teachers and unions, ultimately alienating teachers, parents, community groups, and students, alike.

The most visible conflict the Bloomberg Administration advanced has been against the United Federation of Teachers.

Among the mayor’s greatest failings was his appointment of Joel Klein, a non-educator, to be the City’s schools chancellor.  Klein created a confrontational environment where teachers were vilified and parental input was ignored.  Many of Klein’s perceived accomplishments, advanced by Tweed spin doctors, did not reflect the substandard realities (more than 400 schools received failing to middling grades of F, D, or C on the recent school “report card” evaluation system) that continue to exist in many public schools.

During Klein’s tenure, test scores barely improved.  Results on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, which administers a test every two years to fourth- and eighth-graders across the country, show that New York City results have been basically flat with little if any improvement.  Graduation rates have improved but college readiness declined, indicative of a system that was simply pushing students through, but not truly educating them.  For example, under Klein, the high school graduation rate climbed from 46 percent in 2005 to 65 percent in 2011.  All that is to the good and required enormous hard work, however, more than 70 percent of the graduates still fell short of college readiness.

The present chancellor, Dennis Walcott, has toned down the vitriol considerably, but was appointed too late to leave a constructive policy mark on the school system.  He also presided over the horrific implementation of the Common Core Curriculum; because it was rushed into New York State public schools, many districts including New York City, were not prepared to develop materials or do the teacher training needed to teach the new curriculum.    The results were that just under 30% of New York City students were proficient in math and 26% in reading – a drop by more than half of the number of city students making the grade in each subject compared to 2012. But the real tragedy in these results is in the differences in achievement between black and Hispanic students and their white and Asian counterparts. In math, for instance, 15 percent of black students and 19 percent of Hispanic students were proficient in mathematics, compared with 50 percent of white students and 61 percent of Asian students.   These disparities are not due to the Common Core but to the systemic failure of the New York City public schools to improve the education of minority students.

So where does this leave the candidates who hope to succeed Bloomberg?

The Republican candidates (Joseph Lhota, George McDonald, John Catsimatidis) generally support Bloomberg’s education policies and if any of them is elected, New Yorkers can expect more of the same of the past 12 years.  Lhota, however, has leveraged his experience as a City University of New York Trustee, to comment regularly on the fact that New York City high school graduates are not ready for college.  He frequently mentions that in 2012, 81 percent of the CUNY applicants who graduated from New York City public schools were not ready for college and required remediation classes to enable them to successfully enter academic programs.

If elected, Lhota will likely take a hard, critical look at the present policies, such as credit-recovery (a program that uses various strategies, often involving online class work, that give students, who have failed a course, the chance to “recover” credits that otherwise would be lost) that pushes students through to graduation without necessarily mastering subject matter.

However, within the crowded field of Democratic candidates (Christine Quinn, John Liu, William Thompson, Bill de Blasio, Anthony Weiner, Erick Salgado, and Sal Albanese) many of the candidates have put forward different policy approaches to reforming education in the City.  Specifically, Quinn, Liu, Thompson and de Blasio have all criticized Bloomberg education policies.  The highlights of their respective positions follow:

• Quinn has stated that the present system views the closure of a public school as an accomplishment, when it should be seen as a failure in effectively solving problems.
• Liu regularly comments that school choice has value, but believes the deck is stacked in favor of the charter schools because these schools enroll fewer English language learners and children with special needs.  He would stop the co-locations of charters in public schools.
• De Blasio views student performance as an important aspect of teacher evaluations but notes there has been a corrosive effect on teacher morale due to standardized testing and a curriculum based on test preparation.
• Thompson has characterized public education under Bloomberg as a system where “parents feel shut out, teachers feel demonized,” and “too many classrooms have been turned into test-prep centers.”

So if education is important to New Yorkers and their children:  whom should we support and vote for in the mayoral primaries?

The Republican candidates will likely continue Bloomberg policies.  Choosing among the four major Democratic candidates requires a more careful analysis.  The UFT has endorsed Thompson and he might have the strongest education credentials of all the mayoral candidates, having served on the New York City Board of Education in the 1990s.  Liu has done his homework and clearly understands what public education could and should become.  De Blasio has delved deeply into education issues.  His knowledge and political style enables him to move public education debate forward in a new direction.  Christine Quinn has said a lot of the right things but has for the most part been for the status quo, by supporting many, if not most of Bloomberg’s policies.

My position is that Thompson, Liu, or de Blasio would be good for public education in New York City.   Liu, however, has a nagging campaign-finance issue that is not going away and will become more of a political problem in a general election, leaving Thompson or de Blasio who both have put forward policies that emphasize teaching, learning and more community and parental involvement in public education.  Either of these candidates would move New York City public education in a new and right direction.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

The Chronicle of Higher Education has a lead story today about Mitchell Duneier, a Princeton University sociology professor, who was has been a MOOC star but who now objects to the format. As reported in the article:

“Worried that the massive open online courses might lead legislators to cut state-university budgets, the Princeton University sociology professor [Mitchell Duneier] has pulled out of the movement.

After teaching introductory sociology through Coursera last year, Mr. Duneier extolled his experience in a Chronicle commentary. The New York Times featured him on its front page, and Thomas L. Friedman wrote about him in a column. One of Coursera’s founders, Daphne Koller, plugged his course in a TED talk.

But Mr. Duneier has now ceased teaching his sociology MOOC. The change of heart happened, he says, after Coursera approached him about licensing his course so other colleges could use the content in a blended format, meaning a mix of online and face-to-face instruction. That could save the colleges money.

“I’ve said no, because I think that it’s an excuse for state legislatures to cut funding to state universities,” Mr. Duneier says. “And I guess that I’m really uncomfortable being part of a movement that’s going to get its revenue in that way. And I also have serious doubts about whether or not using a course like mine in that way would be pedagogically effective.”

We laud Professor Duneier for his stance.  More of his MOOC colleagues should also examine their consciences and reconsider what they are doing.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

New York Times columnist Paul Krugman comments on the history of Labor Day and what it has come to mean in 2013.  On the history, he reminds us that in 1894, Pullman workers, facing wage cuts in the wake of a financial crisis, went on strike — and President Grover Cleveland deployed 12,000 soldiers to break the union. He succeeded, but “using armed force to protect the interests of property was so blatant that even the Gilded Age was shocked”. So Congress, in an attempt at appeasement, unanimously passed legislation symbolically honoring the nation’s workers.

Fast forward to 2013:

“what’s unimaginable now is that Congress would unanimously offer even an empty gesture of support for workers’ dignity. For the fact is that many of today’s politicians can’t even bring themselves to fake respect for ordinary working Americans.”

He specifically references Eric Cantor:

“Consider, for example, how Eric Cantor, the House majority leader, marked Labor Day last year: with a Twitter post declaring “Today, we celebrate those who have taken a risk, worked hard, built a business and earned their own success.” Yep, he saw Labor Day as an occasion to honor business owners.

More broadly, consider the ever-widening definition of those whom conservatives consider parasites. Time was when their ire was directed at bums on welfare. But even at the program’s peak, the number of Americans on “welfare” — Aid to Families With Dependent Children — never exceeded about 5 percent of the population. And that program’s far less generous successor, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, reaches less than 2 percent of Americans.

Yet even as the number of Americans on what we used to consider welfare has declined, the number of citizens the right considers “takers” rather than “makers” — people of whom Mitt Romney complained, “I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives” — has exploded, to encompass almost half the population. And the great majority of this newly defined army of moochers consists of working families…”

On this day, we honor our workers, and remember that America was built on their effort and toil.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

As pressure mounts, President Obama said yesterday that while he reserves the right as commander-in-chief to attack Syria, he will seek Congressional approval.  This will be viewed as a way to cover his decision.   Opposition to a military strike in Syria has been growing both here in the United States and abroad.  As the New York Times reports:

“The proposal would empower Mr. Obama to order military action to “prevent or deter the use or proliferation” of chemical or biological weapons “within, to or from Syria” and to “protect the United States and its allies and partners against the threat posed by such weapons.” Still, White House officials indicated that Mr. Obama might still authorize force even if Congress rejected it.

As Syrian forces braced for attack, the president’s decision effectively put it off for more than a week, since Congress is not due back in Washington until Sept. 9. Mr. Obama did not push for Congress to come back sooner, and House leaders opted to keep to their schedule. Senate leaders set committee hearings to begin on Tuesday with a floor vote “no later” than the week of Sept. 9.”

There are differing opinions in Congress over what to do in Syria. A deeply divided Congress was already gearing up for bitter fights this fall over federal spending, the debt ceiling, immigration and government surveillance, and the surprise Syria vote will invite a complicated, multilayered debate crossing party lines and involving other actors like Israel supporters who worry that failure to follow through in Syria will embolden Iran.

Many lawmakers welcomed the chance to vote. “At this point in the country’s history, it’s important that we have this debate, that we take this vote,” said Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee, the senior Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee.

But some argued that Mr. Obama had blinked in the face of a tough choice and possible backlash, and abdicated responsibility. “I strongly believe that the commander in chief has the absolute right to take military action,” said Representative Peter T. King, Republican of New York. “The president seems like he’s weak at every level.”

Within the country, the growing consensus is that Americans are not supportive of involvement in another war in the Middle East.

Tony