Dear Commons Community,

A panel appointed by the NYS Board of Regents made public a list of nineteen recommendations to address the growing concerns with the implementation of the Common Core Standards.  As reported in the New York Times,  Andrew Cuomo was less than thrilled with what was recommended especially with regard to language concerning teacher evaluations.

“Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo attacked state education officials on Monday for what he saw as an attempt to water down a new teacher evaluation system that was one of his earliest legislative triumphs.

The governor’s message was delivered to the State Board of Regents, which sets education policy and appears likely on Tuesday to give teachers more leeway to contest poor evaluations. But he could have also been addressing the State Legislature, which appoints the Board of Regents and whose leading members of both parties last week called for a more significant change to the evaluation system.

Lawmakers have proposed a two-year moratorium on the use of standardized test scores in the evaluations, after complaints that teachers have had problems adapting to the new curriculum standards known as the Common Core. Test scores plummeted last year after the state rewrote the exams to match the new, tougher standards. Major problems, teachers said, were that curriculums had not been in place and important teaching materials had not reached their classrooms.

In his statement, Mr. Cuomo criticized the regents for the Common Core rollout, but he added, “There is a difference between remedying the system for students and parents and using this situation as yet another excuse to stop the teacher evaluation process.”

A working group of the Board of Regents on Monday recommended several changes to how the state’s schools use the Common Core. It did not call for a moratorium as legislators have done, but it proposed letting teachers who earn the poorest evaluations — “ineffective” — to raise the bumpy Common Core rollout as a defense. Teachers rated ineffective two years in a row are at risk of losing their jobs. The full board is expected to approve the change on Tuesday.

In a conference call with reporters, John B. King Jr., the state education commissioner, who reports to the regents, said the idea was designed to ensure “that no teacher will be unfairly removed” as a result of students’ posting poor scores on the tests aligned with the Common Core.

In an email, Catherine T. Nolan, the chairwoman of the State Assembly’s education committee, said that the board’s proposal “sounds reasonable,” though she would seek more input, including from the New York City schools chancellor, Carmen Fariña.”

In sum, it is obvious that there is a serious problem in Albany among all the key players regarding the Common Core.  However, the NYS Regents and Commissioner King bear the brunt of the responsibility for the poorly implemented and rushed roll-out of the Common Core that has just about everybody (the Governor, the Legislature, teachers, parents, school boards, and students) upset.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Mayor Bill de Blasio gave his first state of the city address yesterday at LaGuardia Community College.  He commented on many of his campaign issues including a “tale of two cities”, universal pre-K, immigration, and economic development.  Mr. de Blasio indicated that he will move as quickly as he can and not wait for lawmakers in Washington, D.C. or Albany.

He also specifically mentioned City University of New York as having a vital role to play in accomplishing his goals. Here is an excerpt from his address:

“We’ll offer a fair shot to the workforce of tomorrow…changing a mindset that focuses on tax breaks for big corporations rather than making it easier for our people to earn the skills they need to land jobs at those companies.

We know the soaring cost of CUNY makes higher education harder and harder for everyday New Yorkers to afford.

And we understand that higher education is the path to a better life…the great equalizer…the key to lifting oneself into the middle class.

To that end, we will focus on the training and skills that individuals need to meet the demands generated by large and small employers of our city.

And we’ll not only fight to shift resources from corporate subsidies to tuition assistance, we’ll work to connect higher education to the jobs that the 21st Century workforce requires.

CUNY has always been the engine that drove New York’s economy, making sure that our great industries had the workforce they needed to thrive.

Today, new industries are driving an economic future with jobs we could not have envisioned just a few years ago.

And CUNY is going to help us fill those jobs with New Yorkers who are educated and ready to work.

We will forgo big giveaways to a select few companies and instead pursue a city economic strategy that grows whole sectors of small businesses in emerging industries – from technology, to green jobs, to food exports, to advanced manufacturing – companies that can generate good jobs at decent wages in all five boroughs.

We will create an Entrepreneurship Fund for low-income New Yorkers and a Fashion Manufacturing Fund — which will leverage private capital to ensure small business growth and fashion manufacturing across all five boroughs.

As we celebrate Fashion Week, we plan to grow this industry to the benefit of New Yorkers from all walks of life.

And we’ll create jobs for young people who are growing up in this city… who have always called this home.

Here’s how:

First, we will advance a dedicated Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math program at CUNY…to start preparing more graduates of our public high schools for jobs in the city’s tech industry.

To that end, our aim is that within eight years, the majority of skilled technology-related jobs in New York City are being filled by those educated in New York City schools. We will look to the innovation economy not just to grow companies, but also to put New Yorkers to work.

Second, as our health sector continues to rapidly grow, we will prepare more of our unemployed, and our young people, for middle-skill, middle-class jobs: by scaling-up innovative programs like the Bronx’s Health Education and Research Occupations High School that connects New Yorkers to CUNY and to relevant work experience at Montefiore Hospital.

Third, for people without a college degree, we will reinvent our maze of overlapping and often-ineffective job training programs — and invest in industry-linked apprenticeship programs that directly connect New Yorkers to jobs in emerging industries such as green building innovation, information technology, and telecommunications.

Fourth, we will connect city high schools to colleges, apprenticeship programs, or industries that correspond to the skills our students must learn. We will reverse the trend of importing engineers, nurses, and other skilled workers to fill New York City jobs — and start in-sourcing good jobs for those who live here now, and are desperate for work.”

I am sure that CUNY is more than willing to do what it can for the Mayor!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

The New York Times has a featured article today on the plight of Howard University and other historically black colleges and universities (H.B.C.U.s).   The article mentions finances, enrollment issues, and competition with other segments of American higher education as the main problems facing Howard and the other H.B.C.U.s.  Here is an excerpt from the article:

“Historically black colleges and universities, known as H.B.C.U.’s, once held a monopoly. Today, they struggle to compete with elite colleges that have stepped up recruiting for the best and brightest black students. Howard admitted almost 60 percent of applicants last year; among current freshmen, the top 25 percent in SAT math and reading scored 1190 and up; 15 years ago the threshold was 1330.

Other uncomfortable realities include new restrictions on the federal loans that many students depend on (89 percent of Howard’s receive some sort of financial aid). Howard’s teaching hospital has also been a drain on resources; once the sole choice for middle-class patients in a segregated society, it is now used mostly by those who cannot afford to pay elsewhere. And Howard has been hit with a downgrade of its credit rating by Moody’s Investors Service that makes fund-raising even more difficult. This week, the university announced it is cutting about 200 staff positions.”

While overall economic issues in the United States have been problematic for all of higher education, the point made about competition with other elite colleges is probably the most pressing for the H.B.C.U.s and especially for Howard often referred to as The Mecca of black scholarship and leadership.  When higher education was desegregated in the 1960s, many black students including high achievers decided to enroll in what were predominantly white colleges.  The reverse was not true and the percentages of white students attending HBCUs has remained relatively small.

The H.B.C.U.s have been an important and critical segment of American higher education.  It will take dynamic and visionary leadership for them to overcome their problems.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

After months of parents and teachers calling for New York State Commissioner John King’s resignation, Gov. Andrew Cuomo appointed a panel to recommend improvements in the state’s rollout of the Common Core Curriculum.  As reported in The Post-Standard:

“The governor announced in his budget address last month that he would create a panel to recommended fixes to what he said was a “flawed” implementation of the new standards.

The panel will begin its work after a Board of Regents task force discusses its recommendations Monday, and after top legislative leaders already have recommended their own changes.

The governor said the panel should “speedily recommend improvements,” but gave no timeline other than “before the end of the legislative session.”

The panel is chaired by an IBM executive and includes two teachers and one member whose sole designation is “parent.”

The members are:

• Stanley S. Litow, vice president, IBM Corporate Citizenship and Corporate Affairs and president, IBM International Foundation (Chair)
• State Sen. John Flanagan, Senate Education Committee chair (Senate appointee)
• Assemblywoman Catherine Nolan, Assembly Education Committee chair (Assembly appointee)
• Linda Darling-Hammond, Charles E. Ducommun professor of education, Stanford University Graduate School of Education
• Todd Hathaway, teacher, East Aurora High School (Erie County)
• Alice Jackson-Jolley, parent (Westchester County)
• Anne Kress, president, Monroe Community College
• Nick Lawrence, teacher, East Bronx Academy for the Future (NYC)
• Delia Pompa, senior vice president of programs, National Council of La Raza
• Charles Russo, superintendent, East Moriches UFSD (Long Island)
• Dan Weisberg, EVP & General Counsel, The New Teacher Project”

The panel make-up is “downstate” heavy.  Regardless, something has to be done to clean-up the disastrous implementation of the Common Core in New York.

Tony

Click on to enlarge.

Dear Commons Community,

The Opening Ceremony of the Winter Olympics in Sochi was a stunning display of images celebrating Russian culture and history.  The vastness of the country (it covers nine time zones) and its people was evident in the colorful costumes of its performers.  The soprano, Anna Netrebko,  sang the Olympic Hymn.  A little girl suspended about 50-60 feet in the air by cables appeared to walk among clouds.  Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake was performed by dozens of dancers who appeared to fly across the stadium.  All in all a wonderful evening of pageantry and national pride.

Let the Games begin!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Momentum is gaining in the New York State Legislature to delay implementation of the Common Core curriculum.  As reported in several media outlets, state assembly speaker Sheldon Silver is being joined by Senate leaders Dean Skelos and Jeff Klein in calling for a delay of two years.  As reported in The Daily News:

“State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and his education committee chief said Tuesday that high-stakes testing associated with the new Common Core curriculum should be delayed for two years — at least.

Common Core standards for math and English have been adopted by most states — and have rankled parents who say they’re being implemented too quickly to give students a chance of hitting the goals.

In a statement, Silver and Education Committee Chairwoman Cathy Nolan (D-Queens) said while “New Yorkers share the same goal – to improve our schools and help prepare our students to be successful and college and career ready upon graduation,” the process is moving too fast.

“The use of Common Core aligned tests for high-stakes decisions for teachers, principals and students should be delayed, at a minimum, for two years,” they said, while the state Education Department works with local districts to develop a game plan.

Gov. Cuomo has also stepped into the debate, saying in his budget address last month that “corrective action” is needed in how New York’s Board of Regents is putting Common Core into action.

As our Glenn Blain previously noted, state Education Commissioner John King Jr. got worked over for hours by legislators from both sides of the aisle during a January hearing on instituting Common Core.

At that time, King defended the standards as necessary to improving schooling, and said the debate about Common Core has been “conflated” with controversies about standardized testing and teacher evaluations.

Silver and Nolan also reiterated their concerns about the safety of giving an outside vendor access to student information, which could include not only grades and test scores, but data on disabilities and discipline.

No data should be handed over, they said, until questions are answered about protection against security breaches “as well as the highly inappropriate potential for commercialization.”

As I have posted a number of times on this blog, the Common Core as a curriculum is not the problem but the implementation here in New York was problematic at best.  This delay is warranted.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Tennessee’s Gov. Bill Haslam, in his State of the State address, unveiled a plan to waive tuition for students at community colleges and technology centers.  As reported in The Tennessean:

“The Republican governor proposed setting aside $300 million from the Tennessee Education Lottery to fund an endowment that would cover all tuition and fees to two-year institutions for all graduating high school seniors. The plan also calls for reducing Hope scholarships for incoming students at four-year universities by $1,000 for the first two years.

Haslam said the program, which he called Tennessee Promise, would draw new students into the higher education system.

“We are committed to making a clear statement to families that education beyond high school is a priority in the state of Tennessee,” Haslam said. “Tennessee will be the only state in the country to offer our high school graduates two years of community college with no tuition or fees along with the support of dedicated mentors.”

Gov. Haslam has his priorities right.  Free college tuition is an idea that had a rich history in this country including here at CUNY.

Bravo!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Two articles were published yesterday commenting on the state of higher education and specifically on the escalating costs for administrative and student services.

Bloomberg Reports commented:

“An examination of federal data on the explosion in college costs reveals how far colleges have gotten away from their original mission of providing “higher” education.

The National Center for Education Statistics reported that in 2010-11, nonprofit colleges and universities spent $449 billion. Less than 29 percent of that — $129 billion — went for instruction, and part of that amount went for expenses other than professors’ salaries. Yes, the $449 billion includes money spent on auxiliary enterprises (food and housing operations, for example), hospitals and “independent operations” (whatever they are). Suppose we subtract the $85 billion that pays for all of that from the total. That leaves $364 billion. The $129 billion for instruction of students is still only 35 percent of that.

So for every $1 spent on instruction, $1.82 is spent on non-instructional things such as “academic support, student services, institutional support, public service” and a catchall category called “other.”

The Chronicle of Higher Education referred to:

“Thirty-four pages of research, branded with a staid title and rife with complicated graphs, might not seem like a scintillating read, but there’s no doubt that a report released on Wednesday will punch higher education’s hot buttons in a big way.

The report, “Labor Intensive or Labor Expensive: Changing Staffing and Compensation Patterns in Higher Education,” says that new administrative positions—particularly in student services—drove a 28-percent expansion of the higher-ed work force from 2000 to 2012. The report was released by the Delta Cost Project, a nonprofit, nonpartisan social-science organization whose researchers analyze college finances.

What’s more, the report says, the number of full-time faculty and staff members per professional or managerial administrator has declined 40 percent, to around 2.5 to 1.”

It should also be mentioned that shouldering the increases in administrative expenditures is student tuition.  This is a sad state of affairs because so many of our policy makers in Washington D.C. and in state governments continue to assume that the way to rein in the escalating costs of higher education is to find savings in instruction.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

I spent most of my day presenting at three sessions at the ELI meeting.  I had been scheduled for two sessions but did a third because a presenter could not rebook a cancelled flight to New Orleans.  My session titles/abstracts were as follows.

Featured Session:  Seeking Evidence of Impact in Blended Learning: New Models, Designs, and Results

Presenters: Chuck Dziuban, Charles Graham, and Anthony Picciano

Abstract

The presenters will describe their work over the past two years with 53 researchers in blended learning from all over the world. The result of the project was the book Blended Learning Research Perspectives: Volume II that summarizes the evidence of impact in blended learning in numerous educational settings and extends the scope of research this area. Topics include: scaling blended learning, long haul impact in specific disciplines, improved pedagogy, non-traditional settings, and international perspectives on blended learning.

This was followed by a “learning circle” session where participants were able to engage in a dialogue with the panel on the issues raised in the above featured session.

For the fill-in session, I gave a presentation similar to one I had given at the CUNY IT Conference in December 2013.

Featured Session:  Blended Learning Meets MOOCs:  Education’s Digital Future!

Presenter:  Anthony G. Picciano

Abstract:
The purpose of this presentation is to examine the influence of two developments in online learning namely blended learning and massive open online courses (MOOCs) on the future of education.    The major thrust of this presentation is that the pedagogical value of blended learning combined with the scalability of MOOCs will be major drivers in education for the foreseeable future.

A busy but stimulating day of discussions on blended learning.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

I spent the day attending sessions at the 2014 EDUCAUSE – ELI Meeting here in New Orleans.  All the sessions I attended were very good.

The most provocative session was the keynote on The Learning Brain delivered by John Medina, Developmental Molecular Biologist and Researcher at the University of Washington.  His delivery was most entertaining and kept the audience fully engaged with what he was saying.  He described the collaboration of brain science and education as “the professional equivalent of a blind date, yet there are exciting reasons for them to grab a dinner and a movie”.

I have attended other symposia and meetings on brain research over the years and while I greatly respect the work being done by the brain scientists, I do not have confidence that it will lead to a major integration with pedagogical practice in the near future.  Medina expressed similar concerns in his presentation while also providing excellent information on  crystallized intelligence, fluid intelligence, memory, and adaptability.  However, while it is beneficial for educators to be familiar with the basics of brain science research, I still believe we have a long way to go and we need to know a good deal more about how the brain functions before trying to integrate the research in this area with education practice.

If you are at the conference, I have several presentations today.  Please stop by.

Tony