Refunds for a "college" degree?

The New York Times reported today on the closing of Taylor Business Institute, a commercial 2-year business college in New York City. The New York State Education Department ordered the closing of Taylor following a panel report in August who found, among other things, that “In the bulk of its educational activities, the institute operates more as a high school equivalency preparation enterprise than as a college.”

The NY Board of Regents is in the midst of re-writing its regulations for accrediting commercial colleges, a process other states will have to revisit as these institutions continue to grow. This means having to face the difficult task of determining what it means to operate as a “college” in an increasingly diverse arena of institutions, students, and degrees. This is no small matter. Considering the cost (in Taylor’s case, $80,000 - $90,000 per student), it is important that state oversight be able to determine in a timely manner whether an education is sub-par.

State accreditation and monitoring is likely the best method of preventing colleges from selling students a bag of goods, but on a more adventurous note: if the students attending Taylor find that they aren’t qualified to attend another 2-year institution in New York City, should they get a refund?

Kid Lit and thinking about Education

So, when I was trying to think about what books influenced my thinking about education, I had a strange thought. I realized that a substantial share of the books I loved and cherished as a child were about characters who were teachers. My hands-down favorite books as a child were the Anne of Green Gables books by L.M. Montgomery. Anne teaches one-room school in Anne of the Island and a high school principal in Anne of Windy Poplars. Laura in the Little House books also grows up to be a teacher, as does Mable in the Grandma's Attic books, and while Jo Marsh is a writer she and Professor Bhaer run a school for boys in Little Men and Jo's Boys. This isn't surprising: many classic children's books were written at a time when teaching was virtually the only career option available for middle-class women, so as these female characters (two of whom are based on real people) grow up (they all started their series as children), it's natural that they become teachers. Another thing that strikes me is how young these women are when they take on their teaching responsibilities. Laura Ingalls is 15 when she gets her teaching certificate. Anne Shirley and Mabel O'Dell are similarly still teenagers, with the equivalent of a high school diploma (Anne later goes to college and earns a bachelor's degree that allows her to become a principal). And while the schools these women work in aren't today's inner city schools, they do have to deal with some pretty difficult things.

That got me to thinking about whether any similar contemporary books are being written for children and young women now. These books are somewhere between young adult literature and chick lit--they were intended as entertainment for adolescent and early/mid teen girls, the characters are flawed but are also supposed to offer something of a role model, and romantic interests come into play once the characters get to be an age where that makes sense (which in most of these stories is about the same time they start teaching). I don't read a lot of contemporary young adult or chick lit, so I don't know if there's anything comparable. The sense I get of chick lit, at least, is that everybody seems to be a publicist or work for a fashion magazine. So where's our modern Anne Shirley or Laura Ingalls? I'm thinking Alice in Eduland would make a great heroine.

EduMeme

There are three sets of blogs I attempt to read on a regular basis. The biggest group are the ed blogs that I read for work, which you can see in the blogroll to the right. I also read a few select political blogs. Finally, there are a couple of individual blogs I read for my own amusement.

One phenomenon I enjoy on individual blogs are blog memes--basically a set of questions that people answer on their blogs and then pass onto other bloggers they read/admire/like/what have you. For an example, see this post on Matthew Yglesias' blog.

In my time blogging about education and reading education blogs, I've never come across an edublog meme. So I'm going to try to start one, taking a page from the book meme that's popped up lately on some individual blogs I read. Questions below, with my answers.

1. What book has most influenced your thinking about education?

This is a hard one. Virtually all the books listed below (except Robbins) have had some impact on my thinking, particularly Hirsch, Ravitch, and the cursed Emile. It's not so much that any of them caused me to have a particular policy position, but they've impacted what I bring with me when I think about issues in education, the questions I ask and the things I prioritize. My religious beliefs about the need for social justice, which are particularly shaped by the Gospels and the book of Isaiah, also play a role here. There's no earth-shattering moment or revelation for me that changed my thinking, so much as a slow process of building up ideas over time from reading and experience. (I know this is a lame start)

2. What education-related book do you think is way over-hyped?

The Overachievers, by Alexandra Robbins. I'm just tired of books about the terrible, terrible stress and pressure we put on those poor, poor, affluent kids facing the dire(!) possibility they may not get into the Ivy League school of their (parents') dreams. Why do we waste so much time and energy on such a tiny segment of the population?

3. What education-related book do you think a lot more people should pay attention to/read?

Unequal Childhoods, by Annette Lareau. This book is based on sociological research about the different approaches to childrearing and experiences of children in low-income/working class versus affluent/middle-class homes. It's centered around a series of fascinating in-depth case studies of individual children and their families

4. What is an important issue in education that you would like to see a good book written about?

I'd like to see a really good book that explores historical trends in how we think about children and childhood; the legal and social history of thought around the respective rights and responsibilities of parents, the state and kids themselves with regard to making decisions about children's lives; and what that means for how we think about public education and other social services that impact children.

5. What is a book related to education that you wish hadn't been written?

Emile, by Jean-Jacques Rousseau. It's not an original choice, but I do think Rousseau's ideas are at the root of a line of thought that has had horrible educational results for a lot of youngsters.

6. What are five books you'd recommend to an aspiring educator, education researcher, or education policy person? (Not necessarily the five most important books, just five that are worth reading)

Left Back and/or The Troubled Crusade, by Diane Ravitch. The historical story is very interesting. I don't think you can really know or question current educational systems and practices effectively without first knowing how we got here.
A Hope in the Unseen, by Ron Suskind. Suskind followed Cedric Jennings, a very smart African-American teenager from southeast DC who was determined to go to an elite university. The story tracks both the education Cedric received at DC's Ballou High School and his experiences at Brown. There are a number of good books in this vein, but I recommend this one because it's about DC and Suskind is an excellent journalist and writer.
Emile, by Jean-Jacques Rousseau. It's been hugely influential, so people should be familiar with it.
The Schools We Need: And Why We Don't Have Them, by E.D. Hirsch. The argument for content and coherent curriculum, with lots of evidence to back that up. Particularly worth reading if you think you disagree with Hirsch.
The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. If you're going to write about or do analysis on the law, it's a smart thing to know what it actually says. A shocking number of people opining in this area don't.

I'm passing this along to my co-bloggers Kevin, Elena, and Erin; Joe Williams; Leo Casey; and Jenny D.

Sexy Tees!!!!!

Frontpage WaPo article today on the dilemmas posed for educators when teenagers show up on campus in tee shirts bearing suggestive slogans.

The article put me in mind of a visit I made a while back with a group of female state legislators to Young Women's Leadership Charter School in Chicago. As we were walking down the hall, a young woman passed us wearing a shirt with the slogan: "Men are Like Chocolate--the Richer, the Better." Every single female state legislator in the group did a double take. We all agreed the shirt was cute--if not necessarily completely in synch with the school's female empowerment goals.

I must admit, I'm a fan of the cheeky tee and have been known to sport one myself on occassion. But I do frequently see young girls in my neighborhood sporting shirts that can only make me think: "Your momma let you out of the house wearing that?!?!?!?" (A twelve year old wearing a t-shirt that says "Jail Bait" is just plain creepy.) I certainly don't envy the school administrator who has to confront this on a day to day basis.

The lines here for educators can certainly be tough. Cracking down on inappropriate tee shirt slogans is among my dad's myriad responsibilities as a principal. From my school days I mostly remember him cracking down on profanity and shirts promoting guns, tobacco, alcohol and illegal drugs--not today's cheeky tees. The most suggestive tee shirts I remember from high school were the old "co-ed naked" which were tame, albeit dopey. A particularly controversial incident arose when the women's cross country team made shirts sporting the slogan "I may be just a pile of dookey, but dookey gets tougher in time." They were not happy when my dad asked them to cover the word "dookey" with duct tape. And I am not making this up.

Spellings Speech Reax

Fairly high-profile coverage today of Sec. Spellings' recent speech on higher education, most prominently the lead above-the-fold piece in USA Today, along with articles in the WaPost, NYTimes, Chronicle, and InsiderHigherEd.

Most of the coverage noted the lack of outrage from the higher education community; after months of rumblings and complaints about the Secretary's reform commission, the various higher ed lobbyists and trade organizations generally struck a conciliatory tone, promising lots of future consideration, dialogue, etc.

Many of the articles zeroed in on the Secretary's endoresment of a federal privacy-protected student-record data system, which has been highly controversial and subject to strident attacks from the private college associations, particularly the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities. In fairness to NAICU, they signed onto a statement released by a consortium of major higher ed associations last week that at least promised to consider the issue, rather than simply rejecting it out of hand. That's actually a big step from where they've been. However, they're not exactly leading the way here:

In her speech, Ms. Spellings sought to reassure critics of the proposal, stressing that the system would be "privacy protected" and "would not identify individual students, nor be tied to personal information."

"It wouldn't enable you to go online and find out how Margaret Spellings did in her political-science class," she said.

Critics of the plan, however, remain unconvinced. In an interview following the secretary's speech, one private-college lobbyist said that even if the system could be made secure, privacy would remain a concern.

"This isn't about protecting Social Security numbers," said Sarah Flanagan, vice president for government relations at the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities. "It isn't an identity-theft issue; it's a privacy issue. It's about whether or not, in this country, we want to cross that bridge and create registries of students' academic info."

That actually represents a noteworthy rhetorical shift. Just a few months ago, NAICU was using much stronger language:

"It is ironic that we are considering such an assault on Americans’ privacy and security in the shadow of the Fourth of July, when we celebrate the American values of freedom and choice," said David L. Warren, president of the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities.

"This is not a partisan issue," said Rolf Wegenke, president of the Wisconsin Association of Independent Colleges and Universities. "It is a matter of student privacy and the security of personal information."

So while the "security" threat appears to be off the table, the "privacy" problem apparently remains.

I'd be the first to say that privacy is an issue of growing concern in this country, both because of the explosion of personal data stored on computers and the unfortunate attitude of some of our national leaders towards issues like individual rights and the Constitution.

But to say that this system crosses some kind of important line in that respect is simply wrong. Electronic records about individual students are already being maintained by colleges and universities themselves. Many state governments are also gathering the information. And the federal government itself already gathers data about individual students for the purposes of tracking things like financial aid and tax credits.

Most tellingly, a great many private colleges and universities--NAICU's constituents--already send detailed individual student records containing Social Security numbers and other private information to huge centralized databased located in the Washington, DC area. That database, maintained by the National Student Clearinghouse, was created by the student loan industry over a decade ago. Most colleges, including private colleges, participate because it saves them time and money in sharing information with lenders, who use the database to keep track of when students leave college so they can start the loan repayment process.

To be clear, I don't have anything against the Clearinghouse--it's a reasonable, limited use of privacy-protected personal data with a spotless track record of keeping information secure. The point is that standing on principle against the simple transfer of individual records to a central location is like trying to close a barn door that was opened about 30 years ago. We're way beyond that, and not going back. The only reasonable approach is to ensure that individual data is strongly protected and sensibly used.

The Wire Weeks Two and Three: "You Gotta Start Somewhere"

Travelling all last week and thus only now catching up on episodes two and three of The Wire.

All three episodes have begun with comedy, which is great, although I kind of hope the "beginning with full frontal male nudity" theme of the last two episodes isn't extended too much longer.

Per Craig's post last week, they're taking their time setting up the stories, characters, and themes, which is to be expected--one of the unique strengths of The Wire is the way it takes advantage of having 12 hours of time over a whole season to tell one long intersecting set of stories in far more depth than a series of single episodes could ever manage.

But even after three episodes the central theme is clear--the consequences of allowing children to grow up and be educated in a profoundly warped and dysfunctional environment like West Baltimore. The drug trade hasn't just damaged the culture there—for many children it is the culture, replacing normal social institutions and roles with horrible bizarro versions: Marlo the community leader, Bodie the small businessman, Wee-Bey scolding his son Namond for his laziness and unwillingness to get to work in the family business down on the Corner.

"You gotta start somewhere," he says, and of course that's the point of the entire series this year–everyone starts somewhere, and that starting point matters. Even the refuge of Dennis' boxing gym is overseen by the image of "platinum founder" Avon Barksdale, the jailed drug kingpin shown in a neat establishing shot using the Golden Gloves poster that played a key role in the original investigation all the way back in Season One.

I think Sara is correct that the "these kids are so screwed by their environment that trying to give them a high-quality education is a waste of time and money" attitude is far too prevalent and deeply damaging to public schools. But I'm not sure it's the responsibility of The Wire's creators to be mindful of that; their job is to tell stories about what they believe is true.

And what they show is that a society drenched in drugs, poverty, and violence transforms normal adolescent problems and conflicts into the terrifying scene of a razor attack in a middle school classroom that finished off episode three, Lex executing his romantic rival in episode one, and much more.

Episode two shows another consequence of West Baltimore's devastated family structures by introducing Bubbles' nephew, a student who has simply dropped out of the school system, unnoticed, for years at time, and has thus fallen almost irretrievably behind academically–illiterate, innumerate, and fast running out of chances to achieve a decent education and in all likelihood a decent life.

As it happens, Michael Lewis wrote about just such a student in Sunday's New York Times magazine, documenting the huge effort that went into bringing him back from brink of the educational abyss. The good news: it can be done. The bad news: Bubbles' nephew, unlike the boy Lewis profiles, doesn't have the advantage of being a prospective All-Pro left tackle in the NFL. Educating students in this predicament--and preventing them from ever getting there in the first place--is one of the central challenges facing education policymakers today.

Spellings' Higher Education Agenda

Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings gave a televised speech at the National Press Club today outlining her agenda for higher education. The impetus was the released of the final recommendations of the "Commission on the Future of Higher Education," which she convened last year. All in all she did a good job; while the speech was lacking in some needed specifics, it hit the right notes and pointed the way toward a future of real higher education reform.

Two big themes. First: our higher education system has a lot to offer, but it falls short to a degree and in ways that many people don't realize. Second, the best way to fix that problem is to create far more public information about quality for students and parents choosing colleges.

That's why the Secretary endorsed the creation of the privacy-protected "unit record" data system that has been the source of much controversy and which has been repeatedly attacked by representatives of the private college sector. It's also why she proposed new matching grants to colleges and universities willing to evaluate how much their students are learning and make the results public.

It's too bad the Secretary wasn't able to put a dollar figure on the amount of additional need-based financial aid the administration is going to support, or provide more specifics about how this year's push to increase high school preparation will succeed where previous attempts by the administration have fallen short.

And of course she didn't endorse any brand-new, envelope-pushing proposals, such as (to take a completely non-random example) the proposal Education Sector published last week to fundamentally re-order the existing status hierarchy in higher education by replacing the curent U.S. New & World Report rankings sytem with an entirely new rankings regime based on how well colleges teach students and help them learn, graduate, and succeed in life.

But given the political challenges inherent in taking on the often sclerotic higher education establishment, this speech was a good step in exactly the right direction. Now the question is what the Department of Education will do in the coming months and years to turn these recommendations and those of the commission from good ideas into real change.

Another Reason to be Worried About Iran

"The U.S. stopped enriching its students decades ago, and we call upon Iran to do the same," Bush said. "If the Iranians do not put an end to this program by the middle of December, and impose final examinations, they could face further isolation from the international community."

Don't say we didn't warn you!

Hat Tip: Abdul Kargbo.