Dear Commons Community,

Hillary Clinton at meetings with the leadership of the NEA and AFT, expressed concerns about the climate of testing that has dominated federal education policy for the past fourteen years.  As reported in The Huffington Post:

“On Monday, Clinton met with Lily Eskelsen García, president of the National Education Association, the largest teachers union in the country. García interviewed Clinton as part of the NEA’s candidate endorsement process for the 2016 election. In the interview, Clinton expressed skepticism about contemporary standardized tests.

“Are tests important? Yes. Do we need accountability? Yes. But we’ve gotten off track in what we test and what we test for that we sacrifice so much else in the curriculum, in the school day and school year,” said Clinton in an interview excerpt released by the NEA.

“So many of our poorer schools have cut off all the extracurricular activities. We’ve taken away band, in so many places we’ve taken away a lot of the sports. We’ve taken away arts classes. We’ve taken away school productions,” Clinton said in another excerpt. “I would like to see us get back to looking at individual children, looking at age appropriate learning experiences, looking at enriching the classroom experience.”

…

The interview comes a week after Clinton, along with fellow Democratic presidential candidates Gov. Martin O’ Malley of Maryland and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), attended the executive council meeting of the American Federation of Teachers, the nation’s other major teachers union.

During that meeting, Clinton emphasized her appreciation for teachers, saying, “It is just dead wrong to make teachers the scapegoats for all of society’s problems.”

“I want to work with you to make sure we do what needs to be done based on evidence, not ideology. … And from what I’ve seen, all of the evidence, and my own personal experience, says that the most important and impactful thing we can do for our public schools is to recruit, support and retain the highest-quality educators,” Clinton said, according to an excerpt of the meeting.”

Hillary Clinton is saying the right things and will have an easy time of securing the endorsements of the NEA and AFT.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

The New York Times has an editorial today complimenting Arne Duncan”s recent decision to forgive the federal loans of tens of thousands of students who attended Corinthian Colleges.  The decision provides relief for those who were seduced into taking on debt in exchange for useless degrees and certificates. As stated in the editorial:

“Corinthian, a for-profit company, filed for bankruptcy last month after finding itself in the cross hairs of federal and state lawsuits and multiple investigations. The Education Department’s decision, announced Monday, is a rebuke to members of Congress who have steadfastly defended these companies, which have feasted on federal student aid, despite clear evidence that many earn their profits by preying on low-income students and veterans.

The flaws in this system have long been clear. For-profit colleges account for only about 12 percent of student enrollment but for nearly half of student loan defaults. In addition, an analysis of federal data by the Institute for College Access and Success, a nonpartisan policy organization, shows that graduates of for-profit schools are much more likely than graduates of other institutions to have debt of $40,000 or more. In other words, the problem of excessive debt goes well beyond schools that may be guilty of fraud.

The schools compound the problem by misleading students about the value of their degrees. This spring, for example, the Department of Education fined Corinthian $30 million for misrepresenting job placement rates in one of the chains it owns, saying that the company had “violated students’ and taxpayers’ trust.” This came on top of a 2014 lawsuit by the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which charged that the school had “lured tens of thousands of students to take out private loans to cover expensive tuition costs by advertising bogus job prospects and career services.”

The Department of Education has broad authority to forgive debt in cases where schools have committed wrongdoing. The pressure on it to do more in this area has been building in the states where attorneys general have taken the initiative in shielding people from predatory schools. In April, nine attorneys general petitioned the department to forgive the debts of students harmed by schools that have broken the law and to pursue large companies that “seem to exist largely to capture federal loan dollars and aggressively market their programs to veterans and low-income Americans.”

Speaking bluntly, Mr. Duncan said that some for-profit schools had brought “the ethics of payday lending into higher education.” The department’s proposal promises forgiveness to students who were enrolled in Corinthian schools that closed after June 20, 2014, or who withdrew after that date without completing their program. Students at other institutions who believe they were defrauded by their schools may seek debt relief, whether their schools closed or not. The department will appoint a special master to design and manage a system for processing those claims.

Critics are already casting this as a windfall for former students. But it is important to remember that this loan money flowed to fraudulent institutions that fleeced people and gave them nothing in return. Congress needs to tighten the standards against which these schools are judged and the rules under which they operate.”

This was a good move on the part of Arne Duncan. More definitely has to be done in Congress but the for-profit colleges make huge contributions to candidates of both parties running for office to say nothing about a well-funded lobbying operation. Below is an excerpt from the book, The Great-American Education Complex.

Tony

===========================

[Private, for-profit higher education] has a major lobbying organization, the Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities, as well as a number of smaller organizations and committees that pay and press government officials on behalf of its interests. In 2010, it was estimated that for-profit higher education spent more than $8 million dollars on lobbying federal government lawmakers and administrators.  Among the highest lobbying payments made by the for-profit colleges for a fifteen month period in 2010-2011 were:

• Kaplan University – $1.7 million
• Corinthian Colleges – $1.5 million
• Career Education Corporation – $1.5 million
• Education Management Company – $1.1 million
• Apollo Group – University of Phoenix – $1 million (Burd, April 28, 2011)

In addition, it contributed more than $2 million directly to political action committees. These campaign contributions were given to candidates from both parties and include congressmen and senators such as:

• Harry Reid (Democrat, Senate majority leader),
• George Miller (Democrat),
• Barbara Mikulski (Democrat)
• John Boehner (Republican, House majority leader)
• Howard McKeon (Republican)
• Lamar Alexander (Republican)
• John Kline (Republican)

(Kirkham, April 25, 2011)

Furthermore, for-profit college representatives support, contribute and are otherwise active in major political campaigns.   In 2012, at the height of the Republican Party’s presidential primaries, the New York Times reported that at a New Hampshire town hall meeting, Mitt Romney, in a response to a question about the cost of higher education, suggested that students should consider for-profit colleges like the Full Sail University in Florida.  A week later in Iowa, Mr. Romney offered an unsolicited endorsement for:

“a place in Florida called Full Sail University.” By increasing competition, for-profit institutions like Full Sail, which focuses on the entertainment field, “hold down the cost of education” and help students get jobs without saddling them with excessive debt, he said”. (Lictblau, 2012)

The article went on to comment on several issues associated with Romney’s endorsement.

=======================

Picciano, A.G. & Spring, J. (2013). The great American education-industrial complex: Ideology, technology, and profit. New York: Routledge. pp. 111-112.

Dear Commons Community,

The saga of the for-profit but now defunct Corinthian colleges continues in what may be their last chapter. It was announced yesterday that the U.S. Department of Education was implementing a plan that would forgive the debt of students who were victimized by Corinthian. As reported by the Associated Press:

“The federal government will erase much of the debt of students who attended the now-defunct Corinthian Colleges, officials announced Monday, as part of a new plan that could cost taxpayers as much as $3.6 billion.

Corinthian Colleges was one of the largest for-profit schools when it nearly collapsed last year and became a symbol of fraud in the world of higher education and student loans. According to investigators, Corinthian schools charged exorbitant fees, lied about job prospects for its graduates and, in some cases, encouraged students to lie about their circumstances to get more federal aid.

In a plan orchestrated by the Department of Education, some of the Corinthian schools closed while others were sold before the chain filed for bankruptcy this spring. The biggest question has been what should happen to the debt incurred by students whose schools were sold. The law already provides for debt relief for students of schools that close, so long as they apply within 120 days…

The amount of debt relief could be staggering. Officials estimate that some 40,000 borrowers at the Heald College alone took on more than $540 million in loans that potentially qualify for debt relief.

But the final amount could climb significantly when looking across all Corinthian Schools, which include Everest and WyoTech. In all, the department estimates that about $3.6 billion in federal loans was given to Corinthian students.

…Former officials at Corinthian Colleges couldn’t be immediately reached for comment. A former lawyer for the school said he no longer represents the chain of colleges since it went bankrupt. Most of the company’s assets have been sold and its stock worthless.”

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

The New York Times has a featured article today that examines the moneyed interests behind Scott Walker. The article starts with establishing the close relationship of Scott Walker and Michael W. Grebe who was Walker’s campaign chairman for governor of Wisconsin. Grebe is also president of the Bradley Foundation, a leading source of ideas and financing for American conservatives. While the Milwaukee-based Bradley Foundation could not endorse candidates outright, it provided more than $2 million in grants to think tanks that implicitly championed Mr. Walker’s small-government platform, and $520,000 to Americans for Prosperity, a national group that held Tea Party rallies at which Mr. Walker spoke. The article also mentions:

“Scott Walker didn’t have the stature, influence or money to become governor on his own or to end collective bargaining on his own,” said Phil Neuenfeldt, president of the Wisconsin A.F.L.-C.I.O. “All of that flowed from Mike Grebe, the Bradley Foundation and a network of influential conservatives, including the Kochs.”

Mr. Neuenfeldt added: “He wouldn’t be running for president without these people. He would be their guy in Washington.”

… In the Wisconsin Legislature and as Milwaukee County executive, he always liked going to extremes and basking in his own brand of boldness. What he needed, as he climbed the political ladder, was the money and endorsements that Mr. Grebe and his conservative allies brought. As for the fight against the unions, it went far better than Mr. Walker, Mr. Grebe or anyone else could have expected…

“It made Scott Walker a national candidate,” said Tommy G. Thompson, a Republican who was governor of Wisconsin from 1987 to 2001.

…David Koch offered an opinion at a recent private gathering that Mr. Walker was the favorite for the Republican nomination. And Mr. Walker’s old allies are hungry once more for a leader who will go to extremes, this time as president.

Last week, Mr. Grebe and the board of the Bradley Foundation gathered again, this time at the Kennedy Center in Washington. “Strong American leadership will return,” said Jack Keane, a retired general and a recipient that night of a $250,000 Bradley Prize for innovative achievement. “We are one leader away.”

…in his speech, Mr. Grebe did not mention Mr. Walker, just the conservative forces that wanted big, bold change. “In recent years at the Bradley Foundation, we’ve placed even greater emphasis on collaboration with other like-minded foundations and donors,” Mr. Grebe said in a video presentation as symphonic music soared in a crescendo. “We believe that through that collaboration, together we can help change the world.”

We cannot underestimate the moneyed interests that are influencing our democratic system at all levels. The relationships of foundations to conservative think tanks to government officials is appalling but it is not going way. If anything, it is getting stronger.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

The New York Times has an op-ed piece today written by the author Lee Siegel who explains his decision to default on his student loans.  He offers advice to others considering the same decision and essentially advises don’t be afraid of the consequences.

“When the fateful day comes, and your credit looks like a war zone, don’t be afraid. The reported consequences of having no credit are scare talk, to some extent. The reliably predatory nature of American life guarantees that there will always be somebody to help you, from credit card companies charging stratospheric interest rates to subprime loans for houses and cars. Our economic system ensures that so long as you are willing to sink deeper and deeper into debt, you will keep being enthusiastically invited to play the economic game.

I am sharply aware of the strongest objection to my lapse into default. If everyone acted as I did, chaos would result. The entire structure of American higher education would change.

The collection agencies retained by the Department of Education would be exposed as the greedy vultures that they are. The government would get out of the loan-making and the loan-enforcement business. Congress might even explore a special, universal education tax that would make higher education affordable.

There would be a national shaming of colleges and universities for charging soaring tuition rates that are reaching lunatic levels. The rapacity of American colleges and universities is turning social mobility, the keystone of American freedom, into a commodified farce.

If people groaning under the weight of student loans simply said, “Enough,” then all the pieties about debt that have become absorbed into all the pieties about higher education might be brought into alignment with reality. Instead of guaranteeing loans, the government would have to guarantee a college education. There are a lot of people who could learn to live with that, too.”

We are at the point in our country where serious thought should be given to free universal higher education. Tennessee provides free community college for all state residents.  President Obama and Congressional Democrats have made free tuition proposals that are mostly symbolic and have little chance of being acted upon.  However, sometime in the future, maybe when our government leaders might cease and desist from spending a $1 trillion on pointless excursions such as the Iraq War, we as a nation might find the wherewithal of this type of investment in our young people.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Neuroscientists have uncovered a previously unknown direct connection between the brain and the immune system — a finding that could have significant implications for the treatment of brain disorders like Alzheimer’s disease, multiple sclerosis and autism.  As reported in The Huffington Post:

The discovery came as a surprise to Dr. Kevin Lee, chairman of the University of Virginia’s neuroscience department.

“The first time these guys showed me the basic result, I just said one sentence: ‘They’ll have to change the textbooks,’” Lee said in a press release Monday.

The study’s lead author, Dr. Jonathan Kipnis of the University of Virginia’s Center for Brain Immunology and Glia, echoed the sentiment.

“When we discovered the lymphatic vessels we were very very surprised, because based on the textbooks — these vessels do not exist,” Kipnis said in an email to The Huffington Post.

While previous research held that there was no direct connection between the brain and the lymphatic system, the new findings, which were recently published in the journal Nature, present a model of the lymphatic system that includes the brain.

Though not a part of the immune system, the lymphatic system carries lymph, a clear fluid filled with white blood cells that helps remove toxins from the body. The lymphatic system is connected to every other system in the body, and was believed to end at the base of the skull.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

A New York Times editorial this morning blasted Governor Scott Walker’s proposal for weakening tenure at Wisconsin’s highly respected state university system and undermining the faculty’s role in campus governance is designed to appeal to conservative voters whose support he needs to win the Republican presidential nomination. But if this proposal becomes law, it will damage the university, perhaps irreparably. It will make it harder to recruit top-tier faculty members, who have the pick of other institutions that respect academic independence and where they do not have to fear dismissal for taking controversial views or for doing research that might be frowned upon by politicians. The editorial commented:

“It has become fashionable to portray academia as a haven for people who enjoy job security while others are subject to layoffs and downsizing. But most college instructors are not protected by tenure. According to federal data, only 20.35 percent of instructional faculty at American colleges are full-time, tenure-track workers (down from 45 percent in 1975). Colleges rely heavily on miserably paid part-timers who flee the campus when class is finished so they can get to the next job.

Tenure protections were devised in the mid-20th century to protect academics from political reprisals. Current Wisconsin state law respects this tradition, allowing tenured faculty to be fired for just cause or in financial emergencies.

A committee of state lawmakers last week approved a new proposal that would remove tenure from state law, leaving the matter to the university system’s 18-member Board of Regents, 16 of whom are appointed by the governor with the confirmation of the State Senate. Under the proposal, the board would be able set new, vaguer standards for firing tenured faculty: “when such an action is deemed necessary due to a budget or program decision requiring program discontinuance, curtailment, modification or redirection.” Another provision would weaken the faculty’s voice in policy and personnel decisions.

Faculty members have ample reason to suspect Mr. Walker’s motives. Earlier this year, he issued a budget containing devastating spending cuts that also sought to amend the university’s mission statement to make it sound more like a trade school than a prominent research institution. He backed away from the new language after the state erupted in protest.

The Legislature, which will take up the new proposals later this month, can still reject them. Rubber-stamping them would set the state university on a course that Wisconsinites could regret for decades to come.”

Regret indeed!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Disney has announced a series of layoffs of white collar staff who will be replaced by lower-paid immigrant workers. As reported in the New York Times:

“The employees who kept the data systems humming in the vast Walt Disney fantasy fief did not suspect trouble when they were suddenly summoned to meetings with their boss.

While families rode the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train and searched for Nemo on clamobiles in the theme parks, these workers monitored computers in industrial buildings nearby, making sure millions of Walt Disney World ticket sales, store purchases and hotel reservations went through without a hitch. Some were performing so well that they thought they had been called in for bonuses.

Instead, about 250 Disney employees were told in late October that they would be laid off. Many of their jobs were transferred to immigrants on temporary visas for highly skilled technical workers, who were brought in by an outsourcing firm based in India. Over the next three months, some Disney employees were required to train their replacements to do the jobs they had lost.

“I just couldn’t believe they could fly people in to sit at our desks and take over our jobs exactly,” said one former worker, an American in his 40s who remains unemployed since his last day at Disney on Jan. 30. “It was so humiliating to train somebody else to take over your job. I still can’t grasp it.”

Disney executives said that the layoffs were part of a reorganization, and that the company opened more positions than it eliminated.

But the layoffs at Disney and at other companies, including the Southern California Edison power utility, are raising new questions about how businesses and outsourcing companies are using the temporary visas, known as H-1B, to place immigrants in technology jobs in the United States. These visas are at the center of a fierce debate in Congress over whether they complement American workers or displace them.

According to federal guidelines, the visas are intended for foreigners with advanced science or computer skills to fill discrete positions when American workers with those skills cannot be found. Their use, the guidelines say, should not “adversely affect the wages and working conditions” of Americans. Because of legal loopholes, however, in practice, companies do not have to recruit American workers first or guarantee that Americans will not be displaced.

Too often, critics say, the visas are being used to bring in immigrants to do the work of Americans for less money, with laid-off American workers having to train their replacements.

“The program has created a highly lucrative business model of bringing in cheaper H-1B workers to substitute for Americans,” said Ronil Hira, a professor of public policy at Howard University who studies visa programs and has testified before Congress about H-1B visas.”

A letter to the New York Times editor today summed up well the feelings of a lot of people to Disney’s crassness.

“I was appalled and disappointed reading “Pink Slips at Disney. But First, Training Foreign Replacements” (front page, June 4). I have previously read accounts of this happening at other companies, but I have trouble reconciling such a gross lack of human compassion at a company that constantly strives to project an image of happiness, gentleness and well-being.

I have owned Disney stock for over 30 years. It has shown admirable profits. But now, it appears tainted in my portfolio. As I grow older I realize — thank heavens — that the “bottom line” should not be a financial one, but instead one that shows fellow humans dignity and respect. It is ironic how miserably Disney has failed in this.”

JOAN B. ODEAN – Hendersonville, N.C.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Governor Scott Walker is proposing a major change to tenure throughout the University of Wisconsin system. A committee of state legislators approved along party lines a proposal that would remove the notion of tenure in the university system from state statute, leaving the sensitive matter to the state’s Board of Regents, which oversees the system’s 13 four-year universities. Under the proposal, the board’s 18 members — 16 of whom are appointed by the governor subject to the confirmation of the State Senate — would be permitted to set a standard by which they could fire a tenured faculty member “when such an action is deemed necessary due to a budget or program decision requiring program discontinuance, curtailment, modification or redirection,” not only in the case of just cause or a financial emergency, as permitted previously. Critics deemed it tenure with no actual promise of tenure. All of the changes require a vote by the state’s full Senate and House. The proposal is expected to come to the full chambers later this month as part of the state’s budget for the next two years. As reported in the New York Times:

“Education experts are calling the proposal significant.

“This is monumental in my opinion,” said Barmak Nassirian, director of federal relations and policy analysis at the American Association of State Colleges and Universities. “My reading of the changes suggests that whatever the Board of Regents adopts as its policy on tenure and shared governance can’t possibly be as robust as what has been on the books thus far.”

For years, Mr. Walker has been interested in changing the structure of the state’s public university system. Mr. Walker, who did not complete college and has a son who attends the Madison campus, is expected to announce his presidential run shortly after the state’s budget is approved…

On Thursday, some leaders of the Board of Regents, meeting in Milwaukee, said the board was committed to tenure, and had already planned a task force to examine how to proceed if the proposals are enacted.

“We are as a board and always have been and always will be supportive of tenure,” Regina Millner, the regents’ vice president, said in an interview. “Our commitment to tenure, our commitment to academic freedom, our commitment to a strong faculty with secure support for the work they do, it’s absolute.”

Yet in academic circles nationwide, there was concern this week that the proposed changes in Wisconsin could bolster the forces pushing universities to operate more like businesses, eliminating departments or courses that do not attract many students or much research money.”

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Earlier this week, Maryland State Delegate Keith Haynes (D) spoke at Beechfield Elementary/Middle School in Baltimore to give the good news that Maryland has adopted The Hunger Free Schools Act. Haynes is the chief sponsor of the Act, a state law that allows any school and school district with at least 40 percent of its population considered low-income to offer free meals to all its students. That number means every single school in Baltimore is eligible and every student in the city, regardless of income level, is being offered free breakfast and lunch.  As reported in The Huffington Post:

“Last year, 84 percent of city students qualified for free or reduced-cost meals. Baltimore is one of many Maryland districts currently taking part in the new program.

“There is an increasing number of homeless students within the Baltimore school system,” Haynes told HuffPost. “Under the old system, if the student was homeless and didn’t have a parent or guardian to complete the proper paperwork, they weren’t getting any meals at all. Other times, families who are homeless don’t want people to know, so would never fill out the forms. This new law removes those barriers, so everyone is equal.”

The program lets children get both breakfast and lunch for free at a time when childhood hunger is on the rise and almost half of all low-income kids in America miss out on breakfast.

“It’s a win for everyone,” Haynes told HuffPost. “Students, whether they can afford to purchase food or not throughout the school year, now have the same access to balanced, nutritious meals while they’re in school, and I believe that’s the great equalizer.”

Haynes said he understands the important correlation between a healthy meal and good schoolwork.

“We know being able to eat at school is directly tied to better academic performance, better success and outcomes, and it lets students focus on getting through the day without having to be hungry,” he said. “We believe this is going to be tremendously successful for all the schools.”

“It makes you focus in school because you can’t do any work with an empty stomach,” Katia Stanford, a Beechfield student, told local TV station WBALTV.

The program will also bring federal money to participating schools, according to the Associated Press.”

This is a great move on the part of Maryland. Other states and cities such as New York are considering similar legislation.

Tony