Knocking Some Vegans Together to Start a Mosh Pit

Carrie Brownstein, of the late, lamented, forever awesome Sleater-Kinney, has a new blog. Here's a sample:

Each of us has a deal-breaker when it comes to songs, albums, or musicians....My deal-breaker is preciousness: when the music is a tiny, baby bird that needs us to be nurturing and respectful, otherwise it can't spread its wings. I like quiet music, folk music, solo artists--it's not a matter of volume or numbers, but it is a matter of art being able to stand on its own two feet. I don't think music needs to be coddled, no matter how delicate or soft it sounds. When a band or singer makes me go "awwww," as I would at the sight of a newborn child, then that is a band that needs a pacifier not an amplifier. Other indicators of preciousness include, but are not limited to: matching old-timey outfits; mumbling, soft-spoken stage banter that trails off and is quickly followed by a cutesy smile, which for some reason garners huge cheers from the audience; being so nervous on stage that someone in the crowd has to yell "you can do it!" or "we love you" (exception made here for child performers); asking people to lie down on the floor for the next song; and any audience sing-along or participation so complicated that it needs to be explained BEFORE the song starts. When I am at an overly precious show, I am often filled with contrarian, immature urges: suddenly banging a gong, stepping on a whoopee cushion, or knocking some vegans together to start a mosh pit. I think what bothers me the most about preciousness is that it takes good form and reduces it to good manners, and turns performance into charade. I have no trouble taking music seriously or considering it special, but I don't need to be instructed about why it is.

Normally I'd take the time to invent some half-plausible thematic connection between the underlying ideas of this post and various trenchant education policy issues as a means of justifying this being written on company time, but everyone's already left for Thanksgiving and seriously, who am I kidding? I miss Sleater-Kinney! Plus, I kind of think there's an entire life philosophy lurking inside this post.

Have a great holiday.

Don't Just Blame the Football Players

Via Inside Higher Ed, Rainy River Community College in International Falls, Minnesota decided to end its football program because of high student loan default rates. According to the International Falls Daily Journal article, Rainy River has the highest student loan default rate in the country at 31.1 percent—that means that one-third of Rainy River’s students that take out federal student loans default on those loans within two years of leaving the college. And as I showed in an October Charts You Can Trust, it is very likely that Rainy River’s 10-year loan default rate is actually much higher.

With such a high default rate, Rainy River is at risk of losing its eligibility to participate in the federal loan program completely, meaning that no students could receive federal loans. But what do student loan default rates have to do with the football program?

Apparently the school had a difficult time getting football players to find the right balance between athletics and academics. And so they cut the football program to remove the distraction. I hope, though, that they are planning more significant changes to address the high default rate. As I also showed in the October Charts You Can Trust, default rates are much higher for students with large amounts of debt or low salaries after graduation. Rainy River can make a big impact on its default rate by finding ways to reduce the amount students are borrowing, increase their graduation rate, and ensure students have marketable job skills when they leave.

As my colleague, Kevin Carey, showed in his Washington Monthly article on community colleges, some are doing a better job than others. And it looks like Rainy River has a lot to learn from community colleges like top-rated Cascadia Community College in Washington, which boasts a two-year default rate of just 5.6 percent.

On "Privatization"

According to the Post, DCPS Chanchellor Michelle Rhee is thinking about hiring some outside organizations to manage the district's lowest-performing schools. The article begins as follows:

As Rhee Weighs Privatization, Doubts Abound

By Theola Labbe and V. Dion Haynes
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, November 18, 2007

D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee, in considering turning over the management of 27 failing public schools to nonprofit charter education firms, is sending a clear signal that she intends to shake up the moribund bureaucracy that has failed generations of students.

But experts and school advocates say they are uneasy about the lack of details surrounding her idea, particularly given evidence across the country that charters and schools under private management sometimes fare no better than traditional public schools.

"There's nothing in the literature [to suggest] that privatization will get you revolutionary results," said Henry M. Levin, director of the National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education at Columbia University's Teachers College.

It's worth noting that the word "privatization" means different things in different contexts. In health care, for example, it can mean selling public or non-profit hospitals to private companies, which then own them outright and run them at a profit. That seems like a reasonable use of the word "privatize."

What Rhee is considering, by contrast, is hiring either a for-profit or a non-profit organization to take over certain administrative and management functions for a fixed period of time, with the schools, teachers, and students remaining firmly in the public realm--accountable to public officials, paid with public funds, remaining public employees, etc. That's a lot different then selling off a hospital, to the point where I'm not sure using the same word to describe both scenarios is useful.

As to whether this would be good for DCPS, I imagine that depends mostly on who they hire and how they structure the arrangement. If I said, "Hey, I'm thinking about renovating my bathroom, any advice?" and you said "There's nothing to suggest that hiring someone to renovate your bathroom guarantees that you'll end up with a great bathroom, or a better bathroom than you'd get if you did the work yourself. Historically, people who have hired bad bathroom renovators tend to end up with, statistically speaking, bad bathrooms." I'd think you were either an idiot or a jerk being deliberately obtuse. Of course. Doesn't that go without saying?

Perspectives on Immigrant English Learners

Edward Gresser is an expert on trade policy at PPI*, but he also spends his time tutoring first generation immigrant students. He offers his perspective on teaching these students in Education Sector's newest First Person essay. More practical ideas for educators of ELLs here.

Btw, Gresser also just released a new book on American liberalism and globalization.

*EdSector and Eduwonk leader Andy Rotherham is a senior fellow at PPI.

After Five-Year Absence, International Students are Returning to American Colleges & Universities

In March, 2007, Margery Yeager and I reported on the overall downward trend in foreign student enrollment at American colleges and universities. Of the many factors contributing to this decline, perhaps the most significant were the strict, hastily enacted F-1 student visa restrictions implemented in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. This led to a steep drop-off in the number of foreign students coming to the US, but the effects were especially pronounced for students from the Middle East. Political and diplomatic tensions with China also resulted in a decline in the number of students from that country, not to mention the fact that the subjects Chinese students were often most interested in—mainly in the physical sciences—were seen by the US government as being sensitive from a national security standpoint.

As a result of these new restrictions, fewer student visa applications were approved, resulting in a significant decline in the number of international students coming to the US. Coincidentally, this all happened as other countries were getting more aggressive in their efforts to recruit international students. In addition, some of the top sending countries, like China, Korea, and Japan were experiencing domestic transformations that resulted in fewer of their students seeking educational opportunities abroad.

However, the downward post-Sept. 11 trend appears to be ending. The Chronicle of Higher Education—citing the most recent "Open Doors" report put out by the Institute of International Education (IIE)—reports that the number of foreign students pursuing higher education in the United States is rebounding to pre-Sept. 11 levels. For the 2006–07 academic year, the number of new foreign students was 582,984, just shy of the all-time high of 586, 323, reached in the 2002–03 school year. Together, these new international students contributed about $14.5 billion to the US economy.

This upward trend has been attributed to several factors, the most prominent of which was the loosening of the post-Sept. 11 student visa restrictions that had resulted in the denial of many F-1 visa applications. The top 5 sending countries were the same as for the previous year, although the orders had switched somewhat, with India and China having replaced South Korea and Japan in first and second place respectively. Also, a Saudi government-funded scholarship program placed Saudi Arabia in the top 20 sending countries for the first time ever. Another newcomer to the top 20 is Viet Nam, where a growing middle class has produced a 30-percent jump in enrollment for Vietnamese students in the US.

The "Open Doors" report also reveals a changing pattern in enrollment among international students as more of them are enrolling in non-4-year programs. For example, in 2006, 6.7 percent of F-1 visas issued went to students enrolled at community colleges. The figures are even more striking in the case of Vietnamese students. Over 50 percent of approved visas went to students who were planning to attend community colleges in the US. Also, a sizeable portion of new enrollments have been in non-degree-granting institutions like English-language schools and professional-certificate programs. This particular category of student numbers around 39,000, a 27-percent increase over the previous year. This change in enrollment patterns is at least partly due to high tuition costs, since all international students have to pay the out-of-state rate at the institutions they attend.

But despite the positive trend in the overall student enrollment numbers, the "Open Doors" report contains some words of caution. It reports a 1.5 percent drop in undergraduate enrollments and no increase in Ph.D.-level enrollments. Also, the number of European students fell by 2.3 percent, a drop attributed to more European colleges and universities offering courses in English. Perhaps most seriously, a brief produced by the American Council on Education shows that other countries are increasing their efforts to recruit international students, and thus drawing potential students away from the US. From 1999 to 2004, international-student enrollment growth rates were: 108 percent for Japan; 81 percent for France; 46 percent for Germany; 42 percent for Australia; 29 percent for Britain; but only 17 percent for the US. And, while the numbers of students coming to the US is on the rebound, many international students are frustrated that there is no coordination among different agencies in the US. Victor C. Johnson, associate executive director for public policy at an international educators' association, says that although American colleges and universities are successfully recruiting more international students, some recently enacted rules and regulations make it harder for students to, for example, get drivers licenses or Social Security numbers once they are in the US.

Ultimately, the Chronicle of Higher Education and the authors of the "Open Doors" article are right to celebrate the return of foreign students to American universities and colleges. In addition to the money they put into the US economy through tuition payments and living expenses, foreign students represent a large and diverse talent pool that becomes even more valuable if international students choose to remain in the US after completing their studies. Demonstrating an understanding of the value of international students, the US government has eased many of the post-Sept. 11 visa restrictions that had kept so many away. That is a good first step. But as other countries are becoming more and more aggressive in recruiting international students, the US cannot afford to rest on its laurels. It's not enough to simply let students into the country and hope they can fend for themselves. The next step would be to put in place a streamlined system within which the various agencies foreign students have to deal with—Social Security Administration, Departments of Motor Vehicles, insurance companies—work more efficiently to make life easier for international students in the US.

--Posted by Abdul Kargbo

Ohio State Football and the Fallacy of Self-Accountability

A few weeks ago, I successfully predicted the exact number of points the University of Michigan would score against arch-rival Ohio State in their annual football showdown, thus outperforming legions of so-called sports experts while inadvertantly illustrating the fallacy of self-accountability in K-12 and higher education.

The prediction came at the annual meeting of the Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE), where I presented a paper on college rankings. The point of the paper, which we'll be re-publishing here at Education Sector in a few weeks, was to parse criticisms of the U.S. News and World Report rankings and criticisms of rankings per se. I wrote:

Reasonable consumers of rankings understand...that the real-world difference between institutions on a ranking list doesn't necessarily correspond to the ordinal difference.... If Ohio State's football team finishes the season ranked #1 in the country due its 14-0 record and 17-point average margin of victory, including a crushing 56-3 defeat of Michigan in front of 107,501 heartbroken fans in Ann Arbor, while the #2 and #3 ranked teams both finished at 12-2, people understand that the difference between #1 and #2 is bigger than the difference between #2 and #3.

The paper was scheduled for a late afternoon symposium, and I spent the preceding hours listening to discusions like "Community Colleges as a Critique of Neo-Liberalism." So when my turn to speak arrived, I didn't realize that my beloved Buckeyes had suffered a grievious home loss to Illinois, curse them and all they hold dear, just a few hours earlier, ending my hopes for an undefeated season. The Michigan game was yesterday, and I was way off on the first part of the score -- Ohio State managed only 14 points, not 56.

BUT--I was exactly right about Michigan. They scored only 3 points in losing to OSU for the fourth consecutive year and the sixth time in the seven-year career of OSU coach Jim Tressel, ending a regular season that began with humiliating home loss to a Division I-AA school, putting Michigan coach Lloyd Carr's career in jeopardy and vaulting the Buckeyes to their third consecutive Big Ten championship and a spot in the Rose Bowl. Clearly, I need to put together a chart comparing my on-the-record prediction with those of all the alleged football experts and pundits, as a means of selling a subscription-only tout newsletter to gamblers and pigskin junkies.

The point being, if you let individuals or organizations define how they'll be publicly evaluated, this is what you get. People are people, and few are going to be reliably objective about owning up to their successes and failures in a neutral way, particularly when the stakes are high. That's really what The Pangloss Index is all about, as well as this recent piece on higher education accountability I wrote for Change.

This principle was also in display on the front page of this morning's Washington Post, which documented how many states have defined "persistently dangerous" school (one of the eleven Pangloss components) in such a way that even the most violence-wracked schools aren't identified. This shows how nominally holding someone accountable for something, but letting them define how that something will be measured, is worse than not holding them accountable at all, because it creates the illusion of accountability that doesn't exist. When California education officials say "there are no persistently dangerous schools in this state," as they have every year since NCLB was enacted, someone might actualy believe them.

This also deserves comment:

Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-N.Y.) has introduced a bill that changes "persistently dangerous schools" to "schools which do not have a safe climate for academic achievement," on the grounds that the name alone was causing anxiety over the policy.

"It's not going to be as threatening for schools," she said. "This will remove the stigma associated with high violence."

Chuck Buckler, Maryland's director of student services and alternative programs, said the original term is unpleasant -- akin to telling parents that they were sending their children to a war zone.

"I don't like the title at all," he said. "When this all came about, I said, 'This is something that's going to be a death knell for a school. Everybody will transfer out.' "

He said he was surprised to find that most parents at the six persistently dangerous schools in Baltimore didn't transfer their children to other schools.

The designation, he found, caused communities to rally around their schools and try to make them safer, an effort he said had brought improvements.

Do we really want to remove the stigma associated with high violence? Because that strikes me as one of the more useful stigmas to have. Maybe parents will try to pull their kids out of persistently dangerous schools, or maybe--as in Baltimore--they'll try to make the school less dangerous. But surely both outcomes are better than pretending the school isn't violent, and leaving students to suffer the consequences.