Dear Commons Community,

It has been one week since the ISIS terror attacks that killed 130 innocent people in Paris.  Reactions to the horror have been swift and steady from around the globe. However, here in the United States, we are hearing embarrassing comments from our political leadership.

Starting with the Republican presidential nominees.

Ben Carson raised eyebrows when he compared blocking potential terrorists posing as Syrian refugees from entering the U.S. to handling a rabid dog.

“If there’s a rabid dog running around in your neighborhood, you’re probably not going to assume something good about that dog,” Carson told reporters at a campaign stop in Alabama. “It doesn’t mean you hate all dogs, but you’re putting your intellect into motion.”

Donald Trump supported establishing a national database for all Muslims.  When he was asked whether Muslims should be required to register. He replied, “They have to be.”  He said Muslims would be signed up at “different places” and said the program would be “all about management.”  Marci Hamilton, a Yeshiva University legal expert on religious liberty, said requiring Muslims to register appears to be a clear violation of the Constitution’s protection of religious freedom.

Jeb Bush called for a United States-led global coalition, including troops on the ground, to take out the Islamic State “with overwhelming force”.  This was the same mistake his brother George W. made in 2003 that destabilized the entire Middle East.

On the Democratic side, I was very disappointed in President Obama’s response to the Paris attacks  The day after the attacks, I thought his comments were wishy-washy and unfocused. On Monday and Wednesday, he launched verbal assaults on Republicans:  “We are not well served when in response to a terrorist attack we descend into fear and panic,” he said at a press conference in the Philippines. “We don’t make good decisions if it’s based on hysteria or an exaggeration of risks. The refugee debate is an example of us not being well served by some of the commentary taking place by officials back home and in the media.”.  He accused Republicans of aiding in Islamic State recruitment by suggesting that there be a religious test for refugees that would give preference to Christians. “I cannot think of a more potent recruitment tool for ISIL than some of the rhetoric coming out of here in the course of this debate,” he said, using an acronym for the Islamic State. “It’s counterproductive and it needs to stop.”

Rather than showing [deserved] distaste for the Republican rhetoric, Obama should be providing hope and ideas for dealing with terrorism.  The American people need to hear that there are solutions for the problem not “he said …she said” political pandering. Please Mr. President, in times of crisis, leave the politicking to others.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

On the occasion of the 50^th Anniversary of the Higher Education Act, Jeffrey Selingo has an article in The Washington Post examining the major issues that hinder many of today’s students from realizing their higher education aspirations.  He places the blame squarely on the baby boomer generation who have enacted higher education policies counter to the spirit and intent of the Higher Education Act.  Here is an excerpt:

“Fifty years ago this week, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Higher Education Act, ushering in an era of massive federal support for college students through a flurry of new programs: tuition grants, guaranteed student loans, and work-study funds. The law allowed a much greater swath of Americans to earn a college degree regardless of their family income. During the following decades, enrollment at campuses across the country grew threefold, to some 20 million students.

But today, Johnson’s vision of the Higher Education Act as a great equalizer in the American economy is at risk. Indeed, the divide between the haves and have-nots in higher education is almost as great today as it was in the mid-1960s. In the past decade alone, the percentage of students from families at the highest income levels who received a bachelor’s degree has grown to 82 percent, while for those at the bottom it has fallen to just 8 percent.

Who is to blame for this growing divide? In large part, the same generation that mostly benefited from the original ideal of the law: the Baby Boomers.

When that generation went to college in the 1960s and 1970s, many of them paid little in tuition at nearly-free public institutions or received generous federal and state grants that paid for most of their bachelor’s degree. But during the past two decades, as members of that same generation came to power — in Washington, in state legislatures, or as college presidents and trustees — they presided over the decay of the basic building blocks of the Higher Education Act as they drastically increased tuition and pulled back on financial aid.”

Selingo goes on to mention three major shifts in higher education policy:

1. States getting out of the public higher education business.
2. Financial aid is now an enrollment tool, not a public policy to help people afford college.
3. Student aid increasingly means loans, not grants.

Selingo presents sad but honest commentary about higher education policy in this country.  It is clear that we, the baby boomers, have not done right by our children and grandchildren in this regard.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Jeb Bush in an attempt to revitalize his Republican presidential candidacy is calling for a massive military operation against ISIS.  As reported in the New York Times:

“Seizing on the Paris terrorist attacks, Jeb Bush called Wednesday for a United States-led global coalition, including troops on the ground, to take out the Islamic State “with overwhelming force.”

Mr. Bush’s speech at The Citadel was originally meant to focus on his vision for overhauling the nation’s military to combat the threats of the 21st century. But after Friday’s terrorist attacks in the French capital, Mr. Bush decided to call for deploying ground troops and having the United States take the lead in the global fight against the Islamic State, and as he reworked his 24-minute speech to address what he called the “brutal savagery” that serves as “a reminder of what’s at stake in this election.”

“The United States should not delay in leading a global coalition to take out ISIS with overwhelming force,” Mr. Bush told an audience of cadets at the military college. “Militarily, we need to intensify our efforts in the air — and on the ground.”

Mr. Bush called specifically for removing self-imposed restraints on the Air Force, enforcing a no-fly zone over Syria and creating safe zones there, allowing the nation’s Special Operations teams to go after terrorist networks, and arming Kurdish forces already battling the Islamic State.

“We are at war with radical Islamic terrorism,” Mr. Bush said. “Radical Islamic terrorists have declared war on the Western world. Their aim is our total destruction. We can’t withdraw from this threat, or negotiate with it. We have but one choice: to defeat it.”

While the Republican presidential candidates have generally been critical of President Obama’s approach toward the Islamic State, they have shown some reluctance to offer detailed plans of how to respond. Further complicating matters for Mr. Bush is that his candidacy is viewed by many through the lens of his brother George W. Bush, who invaded Iraq in 2003 and lost support as the conflict dragged on.

At The Citadel, Mr. Bush was careful to stress that the United States should not work alone to spearhead a global fight against radical Islamic terrorism, and said that the majority of the ground troops would come from the forces of neighboring states in the region.”

I am sure Jeb Bush’s rhetoric will resound with some elements of the Republican Party but he needs to be reminded that it was his brother’s decision with the advice of war mongers Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld to invade Iraq in 2003 that destabilized the entire Middle East and has left the world with the mess we have today.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

My colleague, Chuck Dziuban from the University of Central Florida, and I had an article published earlier this year entitled, The Evolution Continues: Considerations for the Future of Research in Online and Blended Learning,  as an EDUCAUSE Center for Analysis and Research (ECAR) Research Bulletin.  Below is a brief abstract.  Joanna Grama, Director of Operations at ECAR emailed Chuck and I yesterday indicating that the article is now available as a free download at:  http://www.educause.edu/library/resources/evolution-continues-considerations-future-research-online-and-blended-learning

Chuck and I welcome feedback.

Tony

————–

Abstract

The model of online learning that has evolved over the past 20 years relies on ubiquitous data communications that are owned and operated routinely by all segments of the population. Today, people use laptops, cell phones, and other portable devices daily to stay connected with family, friends, and their studies. Online education has become integral to how instruction is being delivered in colleges and universities. It is no longer a novelty and is becoming fully integrated into all teaching and learning. The purpose of this bulletin is to attempt to predict where the research in online and blended learning is going.

This research bulletin is adapted from chapter 13 in Charles D. Dziuban, Anthony G. Picciano, Charles R. Graham, and Patsy D. Moskal, Conducting Research in Online and Blended Learning Environments: New Pedagogical Frontiers (New York: Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group, 2015).

Dear Commons Community,

On Monday, Attorney General Loretta Lynch and Secretary of Education Arnie Duncan announced “a landmark settlement with Education Management Corporation (EDMC)” for a false-claims lawsuit regarding student recruitment.  On second look, it appears that this settlement does little for the students who are saddled with debt.  As reported in The Chronicle of Higher Education:

“For all the claims that the $95.5-million settlement, announced on Monday, of a federal false-claims lawsuit against the Education Management Corporation was “historic,” “unprecedented,” and “a very clear warning to other career colleges out there,” the deal actually won’t do a whole lot for the thousands of students who may have been pressured to enroll by the company’s admissions recruiters over the past decade.

In fact, some of the biggest financial beneficiaries will be the lawyers for the four sets of whistle-blowers who brought the allegations of “boiler room”-style recruiting to light, beginning in 2007. The federal government joined the lawsuit in 2011. Assuming the company pays the full amount — it has a payment schedule that runs until 2022 — the lawyers will receive nearly $20 million of the total.

EDMC, as the company is known, has denied the allegations against it and has admitted no wrongdoing as part of the settlement.

But at a news conference on Monday at the Department of Justice, the U.S. attorney general, Loretta E. Lynch, said the company had broken the rules against paying incentives to its admissions representatives by “running a high-pressure recruitment mill.”

“Their widespread practices did generate a substantial drain on the public fisc,” said Ms. Lynch, but she said the parties had agreed to settle for a small fraction of that amount “after factoring in the company’s ability to pay.” The last time it reported finances publicly, EDMC said it had lost $664 million on revenue of nearly $2.3 billion for the year ending in June 2014, and in 2015 it closed a number of campuses. It now operates 110 locations in 32 states and in Canada.

A $78.5-million settlement that the University of Phoenix agreed to pay in 2009 had previously been the highest for a higher-education false-claims case.

‘The company agrees not to break the law going forward? None of this sounds like remedy to me.’

A companion settlement of a multistate consumer-fraud case, brought by the attorneys general of 39 states plus the District of Columbia, requires a range of new consumer-protection practices for EDMC, and potentially for other companies. That could have a broader effect, student advocates said. But several of them were skeptical of that, too.

In exchange for having broken laws, “the company agrees not to break the law going forward? None of this sounds like remedy to me,” said Toby Merrill, director of the Project on Predatory Student Lending, at Harvard Law School. “The company has taken billions of federal funding and distributed that to its executives and shareholders,” but students will see very little of it, Ms. Merrill said.

EDMC, which owns Argosy University, the Art Institutes, Brown Mackie Colleges, and South University, has agreed to forgive about $100 million in loans it made to as many as 80,000 students who briefly attended its colleges from 2006 to 2014. Eligible borrowers would receive an average of $1,370 in loan relief.

But to the dislike of several student advocates, the federal settlement makes no specific provision to help students who are still on the hook for billions of dollars in federal student loans they obtained to attend EDMC institutions. The secretary of education, Arne Duncan, said students who believe they qualify for a loan discharge because EDMC misrepresented information to them would have to present those claims to the Department of Education. “We’re open for business” to hear those claims, he said at the news conference.

“Once again, student victims are left holding the bag,” said Stephen Burd, a senior policy analyst in the education-policy program at New America who writes frequently about for-profit colleges. Mr. Burd, who was formerly a reporter for The Chronicle, said he was pleased that the states and the federal government had pursued the cases against EDMC but faulted the resolution.

“Too many of these cases are settled without finding fault,” he said, “and the for-profit industry has been able to say, ‘Oh, nothing is proven.’”

While this settlement is a small step in the right direction, much more needs to be done to protect students and to recoup funds from unscrupulous for-profit operators

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

I have attended several meetings over the past three weeks regarding a new initiative in New York City to integrate computer science throughout the K-12 curriculum.  I believe it is a good idea but has a number of logistical hurdles not the least of which is providing teachers who can teach computer science.  Regardless, earlier this year, Google commissioned a national survey with Gallup to get the perceptions of students, parents, and educators regarding teaching computer science in K-12 schools. The Executive Summary is below.  The Huffington Post ran a brief article summarizing the findings as follows.

“Teachers who work at the poorest schools are more likely to think that computer science is vital to their students’ futures, but are less likely to think their school boards agree, a new survey released Tuesday reveals.

The survey was conducted by Gallup on behalf of Google, and looks at perceptions of computer science for different groups, including students, parents, educators and school district administrators. It follows an earlier survey released in August, which looked at access to computer science courses and found that lower-income students have fewer opportunities to study the subject. However, this latest survey shows that low-income students’ lack of access is not due to apathy on the part of their educators.

Twenty-one percent of teachers who work at schools where more than half of the student body qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch said they thought access to computer science is more important to a student’s future success than other elective courses, like music or art. Only 10 percent of teachers who work at schools where 25 percent or fewer students qualified for free or reduced-price lunch said the same thing.

Sixty-three percent of teachers at the schools with the poorest students said they think most students should be required to take a computer science course. Fifty-one percent of teachers at schools with more affluent students said the same.

Still, teachers from schools with more affluent students were 13 percent more likely to say that their “school board believes computer science education is important to offer in our schools” than their counterparts at schools with more low-income students.

Brandon Busteed, executive director of education and workforce development at Gallup, called the findings a “huge call to action.”

“There are huge discrepancies between the will and the way,” Busteed told The Huffington Post. “There appears to be more will in these poorer schools but less access.”

He continued, “What seems to be missing here are school boards. There is such little conversation about this at a school board level … If I were to say, ‘What’s the one place I would want this data and research to land,’ it would be with members of school boards. They have to look at this and realize their constituents want this in schools.”

This is an interesting topic and should at least be discussed by policy makers at the local level.  However, school boards have been inundated with federal and state mandates for basic (reading, writing, mathematics) instruction, testing, and assessments that there is little room in many curricula especially at the K-8 level for new subject matter.

Tony

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

Executive Summary

• About half of all students say they’ve learned some computer science, either in school or somewhere else. However, students who are Hispanic, female or from lower-income households are less likely than their counterparts to have learned any computer science. Male students are generally more confident in their ability to learn computer science and are more likely to think they will learn computer science or have a job involving computer science in the future. Hispanic students are generally less confident than Black and White students in their ability to learn computer science. Students who are more confident in their ability to learn computer science are also more likely to say they will learn it in the future.
• Computer science careers are viewed favorably by many students, parents, teachers and administrators in the U.S. Most students, parents and teachers perceive computer science work to be fun and exciting, and most students, parents and principals say people who work in computer science make things that help improve people’s lives. All groups also believe computer science can be used in many different types of jobs. Two-thirds of students and 79% of parents further agree that most people who work in computer science have good-paying jobs. Although more than six in 10 in every group think that most computer science jobs pay well, Hispanic students and female students are less likely than their counterparts to believe this.
• Parents in lower-income households and teachers at schools with a greater percentage of free- or reduced-lunch-eligible students are most likely to value formal computer science education. Parents in lower-income households are most likely to think computer science learning opportunities are more important to a student’s future success than required classes, such as math, science, history and English. Teachers in schools with a larger percentage of students eligible for free or reduced lunch are more likely than other teachers to think computer science learning opportunities are more important to a student’s future success than other elective courses, but their schools are less likely to have computer science available. Among all teachers, three in four also say they would be interested in learning more about computer science if given the opportunity.

The widespread support for computer science learning from all stakeholder groups is encouraging. However, inequitable access to learning opportunities and ingrained stereotypes may hinder some students from participating, particularly females and underrepresented racial and ethnic minorities. Broadening computer science role models, as well as creating accessible learning opportunities that appeal to diverse youth, could help increase participation. Equally important is ensuring that all groups have a common understanding of what computer science is and how it can help students become better-informed consumers of technology.

Dear Commons Community,

Paul Walker, associate professor of English at Murray State University, has an article in The Chronicle of Education, proposing that his university treat football the same way it treated the philosophy department.  Here is an excerpt from Professor Walker’s piece:

“About 15 years ago, the English department at my institution, Murray State University, absorbed the philosophy department because it had too few majors to justify having its own administrative staff. It still has fewer philosophy majors than desired, which is quite likely true at other similar-sized institutions as well, and soon that shortage might lead to a reduction of philosophy faculty and a limiting of core philosophy courses.

That’s because the Kentucky legislature has voted to use performance metrics for public state universities. These metrics ostensibly reward institutions for meeting retention, graduation, and other quantitative measurements, but they will also mean potential punishments for academic programs that are unable to financially justify their place. That’s a consequence unlikely to be faced by athletic programs at my institution as well as others. This situation raises difficult questions for administrators, alumni, and fans, and it should be dealt with honestly.

Murray State, if anyone has heard of us, has a pretty good “mid-major” men’s basketball team, consistently winning 20 games or more a year, appearing in the NCAA top 10 ranking in 2011-12, and competing often in the NCAA tournament and other postseason tournaments.

The football team, however, is another story. A winning season is rare, though exceptional seasons occurred decades ago under the coaches Frank Beamer and Houston Nutt, both of whom bolted to larger institutions, leaving Murray State to its usual mediocrity as a steppingstone for ambitious coaches. And because football requires the largest number of athletic scholarships and highest costs to sustain, the question is: Can our university, or any university, exist without a football team?

The answer, of course, is yes. But such a suggestion, here and at most other public institutions, is met with doubt or disdain — not because our Racers football team is financially viable (it isn’t), but because intercollegiate football, or basketball, is perceived as the face of the modern public university, large or small. To reduce the role of football, whether by elimination or by designating it non-scholarship, represents a change that few dare to broach.

Murray State will most likely rely on the NCAA’s academic policies and consider any independent “performance measurement” as too disruptive to the athletics-conference structure to which we belong. Yet considering that 65 percent of our athletics budget is subsidized by the university rather than by athletics revenue, one has to wonder whether the money is well spent, and if nonstudent-athletes, who pay an athletics fee, and who compose the majority of the student body, are slighted in terms of funding.

Those who defend athletics point to intangibles such as “school spirit,” the communal experience of attending games, or keeping alumni involved. Our basketball team, without question, brings excitement to campus and beyond, but few people here care about football. It’s even possible that the award-winning Racer Marching Band draws more spectators to football games than the team itself does.”

Professor Walker makes a good point.   Public colleges and universities in some parts of the country such as the northeast have already abandoned Division I football.  As Professor Walker suggests, I am sure that the savings realized by merging philosophy into the English department was not very much compared to the costs of running the football program.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Last week, during a campaign stop in South Carolina, Hillary Clinton expressed concerns about charter schools.  This is a  reversal from her and her husband, Bill Clinton’s, position.  Both Clintons have been staunch supporters of charter schools for decades.  As reported in Politico:

“Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sounded less like a decades-long supporter of charter schools over the weekend and more like a teachers union president when she argued that most of these schools “don’t take the hardest-to-teach kids, or, if they do, they don’t keep them.”

Her comments in South Carolina came straight from charter school critics’ playbook and distanced her from the legacies of her husband, former President Bill Clinton — credited with creating a federal stream of money to launch charters around the country — and President Barack Obama, whose administration has dangled federal incentives to push states to become more charter friendly.

The change in tone on charter schools mirrors other moves Clinton has made to nail down the support of liberal blocs in the face of the progressive challenge of Bernie Sanders, including her recent decision to oppose the Trans-Pacific Partnership. And like her reservations about free trade, her new rebuke of charter schools suggests she’ll be less willing to challenge core Democratic constituencies than either her husband or Obama.

Teachers unions have been early and enthusiastic supporters of Clinton. American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, a noted opponent of many education reform efforts, is a longtime friend and informal adviser to her campaign. Unions say they aren’t anti-charter but often attack the schools, a majority of which employ teachers who aren’t unionized, accusing them of siphoning off money from traditional public schools.

“Hillary Clinton looks at the evidence. That’s what she did here,” Weingarten told POLITICO. “She called out that many charters don’t take the hardest-to-teach kids or don’t keep those with academic or behavioral issues.”

In contrast, the Democratic advocacy group Education Reform Now posted a statement from Director Charles Barone, who wrote that Clinton’s recent comments were “highly disappointing and seemed to reinforce fears about how her endorsements from both major teachers unions would affect her K-12 platform.”

Unions, along with some traditional school administrators and parents, have long charged that charter schools too often reject or push out special needs students or other kids perceived to be troublesome. The issue exploded recently in New York City when high-profile charter operator and former council member Eva Moskowitz conceded that one of her Success Academy campuses was found with a “got-to-go”list naming children considered to be difficult.”

Charter school leaders such as Eva Moskowitz share some of the blame for Hillary’s change of position. Originally charters schools were to be experimental sites that would promote best practices and share same with public schools.  However, many of them such as Success Academy have moved away from this goal and instead have evolved into political interest groups that bash public schools and teacher unions.  They have also been caught more than once with evidence that they cream the best students from the public school system.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

David L. Kirp, a public policy professor at the University of California, Berkeley, has an op-ed in today’s New York Times, that describes the Long Beach Promise, a collaborative program that guarantees high school graduates a tuition-free year at Long Beach City College.  Here is an excerpt:

“… In that predominantly immigrant city [Long Beach] south of Los Angeles, where a third of the children under age 17 live in poverty, the public schools have teamed up with the local community college and the state university to confront the impact of poverty, racial discrimination and limited educational opportunities.

The Long Beach College Promise guarantees high school graduates a tuition-free year at Long Beach City College. If they meet the minimum academic requirements, they’re assured admission to California State University, Long Beach, one of the country’s top regional schools.

This guarantee has been a game-changer for a city whose economy was battered by the closing of the naval base, the decimation of the local aerospace industry and, more recently, the Great Recession. Three-quarters of high school graduates now enroll in college, 10 percent above the national average. Many stay in Long Beach after earning a bachelor’s degree, improving the city’s economy. Early awareness, college preparedness, college access — it’s a strategy worth emulating.

Collaboration starts with 4-year-olds, as Mayor Robert Garcia has made universal preschool for disadvantaged children his top priority. Long Beach City College President Eloy Ortiz Oakley and Long Beach State President Jane Close Conoley have joined the mayor’s fund-raising drive. They understand the long-term value of early education. “We put up a picture of a preschool student,” Mr. Oakley has said. “Then I ask my staff, ‘What are we going to do today to ensure that in 2027 this student will be on the platform graduating?’”

All fourth and fifth graders, together with their parents, tour the local college campuses. “Most of our parents never thought college was a possibility for their kids,” the Long Beach school superintendent, Christopher Steinhauser, points out. “But those visits can change their minds.”

Every high school junior takes an early assessment exam, which few California districts require. Those who fare poorly get a rigorous dose of English and math, giving them the skills needed to satisfy the state universities’ admissions requirements. Going to college is increasingly on these students’ minds. Last spring they signed up for more than 10,000 advance placement exams, a two-year increase of more than 41 percent. This year’s graduates garnered $96 million in scholarships, $40 million more than in 2012.

Collaboration is ubiquitous, with about 200 joint ventures linking the public schools and colleges. Among these are high school courses in Mandarin and ethnic studies, designed by Long Beach State professors.

The university has demonstrated its commitment where it counts most — admission. With more than 56,000 applications, the eighth highest nationally, it could admit a class composed entirely of students with gleaming grade point averages to raise its national ranking. Instead, it keeps a seat for every eligible local applicant. Although they have high school G.P.A.s well below students from elsewhere, they are equally likely to graduate. The same holds true for Long Beach City College transfers, also favored in admissions. This locally focused strategy pays off — the overall graduation rate, 67 percent in six years, is 20 percent higher than that at comparable schools, and the 63 percent graduation rate for poor and minority students is 25 percent higher than at similar institutions.”

The Long Beach Promise is important for two reasons.  One, it illustrates what appears to be a successful partnership between K-12 and higher education.  Second, it may also suggest that the promise of free tuition is not enough but that there has to be a nurturing early on in child’s education to start the process of thinking about a higher education. A last night’s Democrat Party presidential nominee debate, the three candidates (Sanders, Clinton, and O’Malley) all promoted tuition or debt-free higher education.  This would be good policy if ever enacted but it may not be enough to guarantee admission and successful completion of a degree.  There needs to be a personal commitment and connection to achieving a higher education that starts in a child’s early years.  This might be the more important take-away in Long Beach.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

A series of attacks targeting young concert-goers, soccer fans and Parisians enjoying a Friday night out at popular nightspots killed at least 120 people in the deadliest violence to strike France since World War II. President Francois Hollande condemned it as terrorism and pledged that France would stand firm against its foes.  As reported by the Associated Press:

“The worst carnage was at a concert hall hosting an American rock band, where scores of people were held hostage and attackers ended the standoff by detonating explosive belts. Police who stormed the building encountered a bloody scene of horror inside.

When the attacks were over, eight attackers were dead – seven of them in suicide explosions, one killed by security forces in the music venue, Paris prosecutor’s spokeswoman Agnes Thibault-Lecuivre told The Associated Press.

Ambulances were seen racing back and forth in the area into the early hours of Saturday, and hundreds of survivors were evacuated in police buses. French television said Paris hospitals were overwhelmed with wounded.

News agencies quoted Michel Cadot, head of the Paris police, as saying early Saturday that all the assailants involved in shootings or bombings were believed to be dead, and the Paris prosecutor’s office said that eight attackers were dead, according to The Associated Press.

But the total number involved in the attacks, including accomplices still at large, remained unclear.

“We are going to try and determine what happened, determine what the profiles of these terrorists are, find out what their course of action was, find out if there are still accomplices or co-attackers,” said François Molins, the public prosecutor for Paris.

Within minutes, according to Paris police chief Michel Cadot, another group of attackers sprayed cafes outside the concert hall with machine gunfire, then stormed inside and opened fire on the panicked audience. As police closed in, three detonated explosive belts, killing themselves.

Another attacker detonated a suicide bomb on Boulevard Voltaire, near the music hall, the prosecutor’s office said.

Hollande, who had to be evacuated from the stadium when the bombs went off outside, later vowed that the nation would stand firm and united: “A determined France, a united France, a France that joins together and a France that will not allow itself to be staggered even if today, there is infinite emotion faced with this disaster, this tragedy, which is an abomination, because it is barbarism.”

In addition to the deaths at the concert hall, dozens were killed in an attack on a restaurant in the 10th arrondissement and several other establishments crowded on a Friday night, police said. Authorities said at least three people died when the bombs went off outside the soccer stadium.

All of the officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to be publicly named in the quickly moving investigation.

“This is a terrible ordeal that again assails us,” Hollande said in a nationally televised address. “We know where it comes from, who these criminals are, who these terrorists are.”

U.S. President Barack Obama, speaking to reporters in Washington, decried an “attack on all humanity,” calling the Paris violence an “outrageous attempt to terrorize innocent civilians” and vowing to do whatever it takes to help bring the perpetrators to justice.

Two explosions were heard outside the Stade de France stadium north of Paris during a France-Germany exhibition soccer game. A police union official, Gregory Goupil of the Alliance Police Nationale, whose region includes the area of the stadium, said there were two suicide attacks and a bombing that killed at least three people near two entrances and a McDonalds.

The blasts penetrated the sounds of cheering fans, according to an Associated Press reporter in the stadium. Sirens were immediately heard, and a helicopter was circling overhead.

France has heightened security measures ahead of a major global climate conference that starts in two weeks, out of fear of violent protests and potential terrorist attacks. Hollande canceled a planned trip to this weekend’s G-20 summit in Turkey, which was to focus in large part on growing fears of terrorism carried out by Islamic extremists.”

Our hearts are with the people of France!

Tony