Continuing the Search for Better Quality Indicators � The Quick and the Ed

Continuing the Search for Better Quality Indicators � The Quick and the Ed

Continuing the Search for Better Quality Indicators

by Bill Tucker

Since students will increasingly blend their learning experiences — taking virtual courses but also continuing to attend place-based institutions in some form, there’s a pressing need to develop a better set of course-level quality indicators.
Rob responds to my suggestion of four outcome-focused quality measures by warning about thepotential for providers to cream: soak up public funding but offer little real learning or value-add. In particular, he re-counts the story of how he self-taught himself to test out of his high school civics class. Agreed,

Too Much Institutional Autonomy is Bad

by Kevin Carey

Last month, for-profit Kaplan University and the California Community College Chancellor’s Office announced a mutual course articulation / transfer arrangement whereby CCC students who transferred to Kaplan would be able to bring their credits with them and get a 10 percent price discount on Kaplan courses, while students who stayed enrolled at a CCC while taking Kaplan courses would get a 42 percent price discount and be able to count those Kaplan credits toward their CCC degree. The arrangement was spurred by the fact that incompetent politicians and feckless voters in California have run their state into utter financial ruin and are thus unable / unwilling to provide space in public colleges and universities to tens of thousands of students despite the fact that economic down times are precisely when such access is needed the most.
Jane Patton, President of the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges, objected to the deal, saying “I’m hard pressed to see where we could … make this favorable to faculty.” Fellow Brainstormer Sara Goldrick-