Dear Commons Community,

The latest issue of the Allen & Seaman studies, Grade Level: Tracking Online Education in the United States, was published yesterday and is available as a free download. Anyone who has followed the development of online learning knows that their work is the most extensive collection of survey research on the topic. Here are some of my reactions.

First, student enrollment in fully online courses has plateaued.

Second, there is new data on the perceptions of chief academic officers to the various modalities (fully online, blended, face to face).  Their preference for blended learning (see above chart) supports the results of a survey of college presidents published last year and commissioned by The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Third, this study also supports an observation that the MOOC hype is clearly over. The Chronicle had a an article entitled, The MOOC Hype Fades,  stressing this point.

Tony

Click to enlarge.

Dear Commons Community,

A new report out earlier this week from the Horace Mann League, a public education advocacy group, and the National Superintendents Roundtable, a community of school administrators, argues that more than just test scores should be taken into consideration when comparing countries’ education systems. In the report, researchers look at 24 indicators in six categories — student outcomes, school system outcomes, social stress, support for families, support for schools and economic inequity — in order to evaluate the educational success of nine countries. As reported in The Huffington Post:

“Study authors compare school systems in the G-7 nations, seven of the world’s largest economies — the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the U.K. — writing that it is “important to draw comparisons among nations that are as similar as possible.” Authors also include Finland and China “due to global interest in the educational performance of their students.”

“The goal was to look at the whole iceberg, not just the tip — and provide a clearer snapshot of each country’s performance, including its wealth, diversity, community safety, and support for families and schools,” Gary Marx, president of The Horace Mann League, said in a press release.

Comparison results were bleak for the United States. While the U.S. is the wealthiest nation in the report and has an exceptionally well-educated adult population, the study found high levels of economic inequality, low levels of support for families and higher levels of social stress than any other country examined. Countries’ levels of social stress were measured in the report based on factors such rates of violent deaths, death from drug abuse and teen pregnancy.

“With respect to social stress, the indicators suggest the U.S. has the highest rates of deaths from violence and substance abuse, and that American society is 13 to 16 times more violence-prone than other nations in this study,” the report said”

An excerpt of the Executive Summary says it all:

“To often…policymakers, educators, and the public are inclined to narrow their focus to a few things that are easily tested.

They become captives of the results and their goal becomes raising test scores rather than developing fully educated people. To avoid that mentality, the Horace Mann League and the Roundtable want to emphasize the power of a consistent and comprehensive framework that looks at all the measures involved in shaping our future citizens.”

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

For those of us who read Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird” in high school or saw the movie with Gregory Peck, it appears that we will be treated to a sequel to be published later this year. As reported in the New York Times:

“Ms. Lee’s publisher (HarperCollins) announced plans to release a novel, recently rediscovered, which Ms. Lee completed in the mid-1950s, before she wrote “To Kill A Mockingbird.” The 304-page book, “Go Set a Watchman,” takes place 20 years later in the same fictional town, Maycomb, Ala., and unfolds as Jean Louise Finch, or Scout, the feisty child heroine of “To Kill a Mockingbird,” returns to visit her father. The novel, which is scheduled for release this July, tackles the racial tensions brewing in the South in the 1950s and delves into the complex relationship between father and daughter.

Although written first, “Go Set a Watchman” is a continuation of the same story, with overlapping themes and characters. But Ms. Lee abandoned the manuscript after her editor, who was captivated by the flashbacks to Scout’s childhood, told her to write a new book from the young heroine’s perspective and to set it during her childhood.”

“To Kill a Mockingbird” sold over 40 million copies yet Ms. Lee never published another book until now. When asked why, she stated she said all she wanted to say in “To Kill a Mockingbird”.   In the 1960s, she retreated to a quiet life in her native Monroeville, Alabama.

Her new book will surely be a bestseller and a special treat for her fans.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Following programs in three other states, Pennsylvania’s community colleges have begun a statewide project to let adult learners earn college credit for previous training or work experience.  In a news release, the Pennsylvania Commission for Community Colleges announced the initiative called “College Credit FastTrack,” which sets up common standards for awarding life experience credits across the state.  Montana, Texas, and Ohio announced similar initiatives in 2013.  The Chronicle of Higher Education reported:

“Some postsecondary education is as necessary now as a high-school degree was in previous generations, and many adults want to gain a degree and gain re-employment with as little time in the classroom as possible,” said Nicholas C. Neupauer, board chair of the commission, in the release. “College Credit FastTrack will enable these students to complete a life-changing degree program more quickly and at a reduced cost.”

Critics of prior-learning assessment say it takes emphasis away from classroom experience. Advocates say it eases the path to a degree.

This initiative was made possible by a $2.5 million Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training (TAACCCT) grant from the U.S. Department of Labor.

Tony

Click to enlarge.

Dear Commons Community,

Income inequality has taken the center stage in our country and around the world as a defining socio-economic issue affecting many of our institutions including higher education. Income inequality in higher education has widened over the last 45 years. As reported in The Chronicle of Higher Education, that’s the case made in a report just released by the Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Higher Education and the University of Pennsylvania’s Alliance for Higher Education and Democracy.

The report, “Indicators of Higher Education Equity in the United States,” uses government data to illustrate disparities in the educational experience of students from different family-income backgrounds. It also includes strategies for making higher education more equitable.

Above is one of the many charts featured in the report. It illustrates that low-income students enroll disproportionately in for-profit and two-year public colleges, while high-income students enroll disproportionately in colleges that grant doctoral degrees.

The report concludes with sixteen recommendations for widening equity of participation in higher education.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

It must be a poor news day for The Chronicle of Higher Education to be citing a report recently released by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI).  Long-known as one of the most conservative, neoliberal think tanks in the country, nobody except other right-conservatives take AEI seriously.  AEI receives extensive funding from the likes of the ultraconservative Scaife and Koch families. The study, entitled: “Quality Assurance in Other Sectors: Lessons for Higher Education Reformers” by Kevin J. James lays out lessons from four industries—health care, job training, charter schools, and housing finance—that could inform efforts to improve the quality of higher education. With reference to charter schools,  here is an excerpt from the Executive Summary.

“The most fundamental lesson that emerges from the charter sector is that building a parallel path for market entry can fundamentally change the supply side of a quasi-market such as higher education. Char­ter schools did not emerge from a complete overhaul of public schooling. Instead, they emerged because policymakers created space for new schools whose leaders were willing to be held accountable for student outcomes. Likewise, in higher education, reforming the accreditation process directly will be a long and difficult road. But that should not prevent policymak­ers from creating space for promising organizations that are willing to be held accountable for their stu­dent outcomes.”

Charter school in many parts of the country have had modest gains at best and undermine the funding of public schools.  In many cases, they also “cream” the better students from the public schools.

If The Chronicle must report on materials produced from organizations such as AEI,  it should do so with a big asterisk indicating that it represents a completely partisan viewpoint.

Tony

Source:  NSF

Dear Commons Community,

Charles Blow examines gender and racial segregation in STEM fields in his New York Times column today.  Citing data from the National Science Foundation (see chart above), he points to a gloomy future because of the small percentages of  females and minorities going into STEM occupations.

“Few women and minorities are getting STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) degrees, although STEM jobs are multiplying and pay more than many other careers.

This raises the question: Will our future be highly delineated by who does and who doesn’t have a science education (and the resulting higher salary), making for even more entrenched economic inequality by race and gender?

According to the NSF: “STEM job creation over the next 10 years will outpace non-STEM jobs significantly, growing 17 percent, as compared to 9.8 percent for non-STEM positions.”

And yet, the group says, we are not producing enough STEM graduates; other countries are moving ahead of us.

When you look at women and minorities, the situation is even more bleak…

The Associated Press said in 2011 that “the percentage of African-Americans earning STEM degrees has fallen during the last decade” and that this was very likely a result of “a complex equation of self-doubt, stereotypes, discouragement and economics — and sometimes just wrong perceptions of what math and science are all about.”

It continued: “Black people are 12 percent of the United States population and 11 percent of all students beyond high school. In 2009, they received just 7 percent of all STEM bachelor’s degrees, 4 percent of master’s degrees and 2 percent of Ph.D.s, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.”

It doesn’t get better in the workplace. In a 2013 editorial, The New York Times pointed out: “Women make up nearly half the work force but have just 26 percent of science, technology, engineering or math jobs, according to the Census Bureau. Blacks make up 11 percent of the work force but just 6 percent of such jobs and Hispanics make up nearly 15 percent of the work force but hold 7 percent of those positions.”

Even when minority students do get STEM degrees, there seems to be a disproportionate barrier to their finding work in those fields. “Top universities turn out black and Hispanic computer science and computer engineering graduates at twice the rate that leading technology companies hire them,” an October analysis by USA Today found.

Furthermore, the paper reported in December: “In 2014, leading technology companies released data showing they vastly under-employ African-Americans and Hispanics. Those groups make up 5 percent of the companies’ work force, compared to 14 percent nationally.”

This issue did not suddenly appear but has been building for several decades.  Initiatives by federal and state governments have failed to ease the situation.  What is obvious is that early on in child and youth development both in our culture and in our schools, women and minorities start moving away from mathematics and science as education and career choices.  We need new ideas!

Tony

NOTE:  After this posting was made, I was made aware of a website that provides a list of thirty-five initiatives that encourage more women to enter into the cybersecurity field. 

Dear Commons Community,

For decades, American higher education has faced the question of what are college faculty paid to do:  teach, conduct research, and/or provide service to their society/communities.  Faculty at most non-profit four-year colleges would focus on some combination of the three and especially the first two.  Research I universities would give the edge to research while liberal arts colleges and  community colleges would give it to teaching.     Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin sparked interest in the question when he remarked last week, during a discussion of his proposal to cut state appropriations for the University of Wisconsin system by $300-million over two years, that the universities “might be able to make savings just by asking faculty and staff to consider teaching one more class a semester.”  As reported in Milwaukee’s Journal Sentinel and The Chronicle of Higher Education:

“The governor’s comment… bares “one of the most enduring sources of friction” in American higher education: What is the primary function of the faculty? On one side of the question are critics of universities who see it as working with students in the classroom. On the other are defenders of advancing knowledge through research, and sharing it in ways that go beyond the classroom.

The question is part of a larger public debate that goes back to at least 1967, when another Republican governor, Ronald Reagan of California, asserted that taxpayers should not be “subsidizing intellectual curiosity.” (See an article in The Chronicle, “The Day the Purpose of College Changed.”)

On campuses in Wisconsin this week, Governor Walker’s comment was met with incredulity. “Most faculty members I know are working 60, 70 hours a week,” Jo Ellen Fair, a journalism professor and chair of the faculty’s University Committee on the Madison campus, told the Journal Sentinel. “I’m not sure what else they can do.”

The university system’s president, Raymond W. Cross, has expressed similar dismay. Asked during a radio interview about the governor’s remarks, Mr. Cross paused before giving a measured response. “I’m frustrated over that,” he said. “I think it’s a shame that people don’t understand what faculty really do.”

During this era of fiscal constraint for much of higher education, it is surprising that more policymakers have not raised the same issue.  We know that there is no standard for teaching load across American higher education.  Some community college faculty have teaching loads of 30 contact hours per year; senior professors at four-year colleges frequently have about six; and research professors might not teach at all.   Governor Walker’s comment is more than fiscal conservative rhetoric.  It goes to the heart of the purpose of higher education and what it means to be faculty.

Tony