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Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Violating Incentives � The Quick and the Ed

Violating Incentives � The Quick and the Ed


Violating Incentives

February 23rd, 2010 | Category: Undergraduate Education

One of the biggest ongoing fights involving the U.S. Department of Education and for-profit colleges is over what compensation strategies these schools may use to pay their recruiters and admissions counselors for bringing in students. Since 1992, schools that receive federal student aid are banned from offering any compensation based on recruitment incentives, but 2002 regulations provided 12 “safe harbor” conditions in which some form of this payment is allowed. For example, these exemptions permit schools to adjust salaries based on performance so long as changes are not made twice in a year and are not solely based on recruitment targets, are paid through a profit-sharing arrangement, are based on student completion benchmarks, and several other options.
But despite these exemptions, the Department of Education has found 15 schools in violation of the incentive compensation ban from 2002 through December of 2009 and another 17 institutions that fell afoul of this restriction from 1998 through 2002. In addition, another 22 schools reached settlements with the Department over incentive compensation practices.
These figures come from a new report released this afternoon by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (PDF), which provides numbers and specific details on incentive compensation violations from 1998 through December 2009.

Will Schools End up Under the Bus?

from The Quick and the Ed by Rob Manwaring
Governor Schwarzenegger visited Washington DC yesterday as part of the National Governor’s Association (NGA), but he was the only Governor to get a private meeting with the President afterward. Clearly, federal funding/jobs and health care were likely the central issues in the conversation. Schwarzenegger, a moderate Republican is supporting both the Presidents jobs package and his health care proposal. The President certainly needs any help that he can get from Republicans even if it is one who has often bucked his party on the national level.
An additional topic that likely came up is Schwarzenegger’s proposal to reduce K-12 funding below the maintenance-of-effort level to which California committed when it accepted federal stimulus funding. Basically to get stabilization funding, states had to commit to not reduce funding for education below the 2007-08 funding level. But, because California’s budget is in such bad shape – a $21 billion shortfall over the next 18 months – the Governor has proposed spending below the maintenance-of-effort level. John Fensterwald provides some more details on the potentially funny math that California is using to justify the waiver request. For schools in many states facing difficult budget, this maintenance-of-effort requirement is a saving grace that will likely minimize the budget cuts that schools would otherwise face as states balance budgets.


QUICK Hits

from The Quick and the Ed by Kris Amundson
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PLP Opportunity �Ideas and Thoughts from an EdTech

PLP Opportunity �Ideas and Thoughts from an EdTech

PLP Opportunity



I’ve been fortunate enough the last two years to work as a Powerful Learning Practices Community Leader.
I’ve played the role of utility man or 6th man depending on your sport of choice. It’s been enjoyable and has been a great personal learning experience both from a community building standpoint as well as simply connecting with passionate educators.
Sheryl and Will are now in the process of gathering new cohorts for the next school year. This is a great opportunity for schools and districts to move their practice forward.
PLP is not about technology and it is not about tools. While both of these things play a central role in the school and the curricula of 21st century focused learning, PLP is about pedagogy and teaching and learning. There are opportunities for both schools and school leaders to take part.
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New Analyses Find Common Standards Lacking - Curriculum Matters - Education Week

New Analyses Find Common Standards Lacking - Curriculum Matters - Education Week:

"New Analyses Find Common Standards Lacking

By Catherine Gewertz

President Obama wants to tie Title I aid to states' adoption of the common standards, as you already know from reading our story. But a couple of new reports are out today claiming that several states would have more to lose than to gain by adopting them.

One study comes from the Pioneer Institute for Public Policy Research in Massachusetts. The institute compared the September and January drafts of the common standards with the state standards in Massachusetts and California. The study concludes that the common standards will not ensure that students are college-ready in math or English/language arts.

The math standards draft includes fewer topics than the state standards, places some topics at inappropriate grade levels and 'dumbs down' others, it says. The English/language arts draft doesn't do the trick either, the Pioneer Institute co-authors say, because it doesn't step up the difficulty level enough from grade to grade, is 'unintelligible' in places, and doesn't specify the content knowledge necessary to develop certain skills."
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voiceofsandiego.org | News. Investigation. Analysis. Conversation. Intelligence. - Guest Blogger: Playing Games in Sacramento

voiceofsandiego.org | News. Investigation. Analysis. Conversation. Intelligence. - Guest Blogger: Playing Games in Sacramento


Bey-Ling Sha is president of the Language Academy Parent Teacher Student Association. She is in Sacramento lobbying lawmakers on education and sharing her thoughts on what she's learned. The views expressed here are her own, not those of her school or parent group. You can contact her at beyling_sha@yahoo.com or just post a comment on the blog.
Anyone who parents or works with children knows that kids like to play games. Duck-duck-goose, hide-and-seek, ring-around-the-rosy -- all are cherished traditions from our childhood playgrounds. I'm in Sacramento with other parent leaders to lobby lawmakers about education funding, and I'm learning that, apparently, adults like to play games, too.
Of course, the playground of politicians and lobbyists is a far more complicated and treacherous place than your average children's park. Yet some things are eerily similar - the neighborhood bully who throws his weight around, intimidating the other players; the whiner who cries to everyone at home that she didn't participate in making the mess; and the smooth-talker who manages to come out looking like the golden child to the "grown-ups" (read: voters) even though all the other players know that he is the one who instigates many of the problems.
The biggest losers in the games being played in Sacramento are the children of California.
From 1929 to 1935, at the height of the Great Depression, per pupil funding in our state was reduced 25 percent. In comparison, in the 2008-2010 budget cycles, per pupil funding has already declined 18 percent. For San Diego schools, the $17.6 billion cut to education in the last two years amounts to a loss of $2,100 per
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U.S. Department of Education - Open Innovation Portal

U.S. Department of Education - Open Innovation Portal



The Open Innovation Portal

Education

Join our online community
and help bring 
Innovation to Education!

  • Contribute your ideas
  • Collaborate on solutions
  • Find partners and resources

Connecting 

Innovators, Big and Small




Aneesh Chopra


Aneesh Chopra, Federal Chief Technology Officer
Kudos to the Department of Education for creating a 24-7, nationwide space for people to come together to identify the best ideas to improve our schools! As his first executive action, President Obama signed the Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government, calling for a more transparent, participatory, and collaborative government. In December, the White House issued an historic Open Government Directive directing agencies to take immediate, specific steps to engage Americans in the work of their government.
More >

Launching Today



arne-duncan 79x79




Arne Duncan, U.S. Secretary of Education
Welcome to the Innovation Web Portal! The Department of Education has developed this Portal as an online forum where key stakeholders in education can share their innovative ideas and collaborate to turn those ideas into a new reality. By connecting an idea from a teacher in Maine to a principal in Oklahoma, or a teacher-entrepreneur in North Dakota with a foundation in New York, the Portal will be a national marketplace of ideas of how we can ensure that every American child will graduate ready to succeed in college and the workplace.
More >
Learn more on the FAQand Blog.
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Hold Colleges Accountable For Improvement and, Mirabile Dictu, They Improve � The Quick and the Ed

Hold Colleges Accountable For Improvement and, Mirabile Dictu, They Improve � The Quick and the Ed

Let me also recommend Erin Dillon and Robin Smiles’ new report on how a group of HBCUs successfully and dramatically reduced student loan default rates. There’s an important lesson here about incentives and public accountability.
The story begins in 1990, when the federal government cracked down on thousands of fly-by-night colleges that were defrauding the government by signing up students for bogus loans. The national loan default rate peaked at 22.4 percent that year, costing taxpayers billions. Congress responded by banning any college where more than 25 percent of borrowers defaulted for three consecutive years from the program. The law was a spectacular success–over 1,000 colleges were kicked out and the national default rate dropped to the mid-single digits.
Most legitimate colleges were unaffected by the 25 percent standard. But a few–primarily those that served low-income and first-generation students–end up under the gun. Unsurprisingly, given their historical mission, this group included a number of HBCUs. Initially, HBCUs were exempted from the 25 percent rule. But when the federal Higher Education Act was reauthorized in 1998, the exemption was lifted. Because so many of their students relied on federal grants and loan, this was akin to the death penalty. A number of the threatened HBCUs were in Texas. They banded together to share resources and strategies. And it worked! The chart below tells the tale.

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The Educated Reporter: Prepare to define: “college-ready”

The Educated Reporter: Prepare to define: “college-ready”

Prepare to define: “college-ready”

The phrase of the moment! You know you should hyphenate it—but you, and the policymakers you love, are probably less clear on how to define it. You could make up your own definition, as this school system did (complete with jazzy videos), or you could look beyond courses taken and test scores to a more complex definition. I like this report by the Center for Educational Policy Research as a starting point. They have turned to research and theory to craft a definition that includes cognitive strategies, content knowledge and behavioral attributes. 

Measuring those attributes? Another story. Improving them? Yeah. The report says that “although measures exist currently or are in the process of being developed to generate high-quality information in all of the component areas of the definition, no system exists or is being developed to integrate the information and, more importantly, shape high school preparation programs so that they do a better, more intentional job of fostering student capabilities in all these areas.”
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Harvard Kids: On Speed Dial Where Life Is A Blur - THE DAILY RIFF - Be Smarter. About Education.

Harvard Kids: On Speed Dial Where Life Is A Blur - THE DAILY RIFF - Be Smarter. About Education.:

"'Harvard kids don't want to do 5,000 things at 97 percent;
they'd rather do 3,000 things at 150 percent.'"


One of our advisers, a NYC- based, Harvard-educated, well-known writer sent me a link to
this article with the word, "terrifying".   I sent a note back, "ever think there will be a sustainable backlash to balance this out?".  His response, "when we start seeing articles "Burned out at 30" and "Dead at 30" maybe a FEW will get the idea . . . people like busy, busy, busy - then they don't need to think" . . .

The article is from Harvard magazine and covers the frenetic, sleepless, driven, tornado-like jam-packed lives led by these students along with some of the cause and effects, such as the newish hover-craft parenting style and international competition.  It also covers the down side and ramifications of a young population who are lost without blow-by-blow structure. 

Yet one of the more interesting angles is how the intensity and perceived value of extra-curricular activities has increased, even though it has always been an important part of the Harvard culture. 

An interesting insight into the lives of some of our brightest college students with link to full story here and a few excerpts below:  

"College here is like daring yourself to swim the length of a swimming pool without breathing. A lap is a semester. I want to do everything I 
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California colleges, universities need new plan for 21st century - Sacramento News - Local and Breaking Sacramento News | Sacramento Bee

California colleges, universities need new plan for 21st century - Sacramento News - Local and Breaking Sacramento News | Sacramento Bee


It was as much a peace treaty as a plan, and it was built around a pledge: Every Californian would get a fair shot at a taxpayer-supportedcollege education.
"It is the most significant step California has ever taken in planning for the education of our youth," said Gov. Edmund G. "Pat" Brown, while signing the Master Plan for Higher Education on April 26, 1960.
Nearly 50 years later, the plan is faltering, burdened by decades of passive state oversight and a blurring of the roles the state's three branches of higher education were supposed to play.
The results are grimly manifest throughoutCalifornia.
A major role of the state's 110 public community colleges, for example, was to act as "feeder schools" to the University of California andCalifornia State University systems.
But studies have found that only about a quarter of the community college students who take transferable courses actually go on to aCalifornia public four-year school.
Sometimes there's no room to transfer: Earlier this month in San Diego, 1,000 students who in the words of one administrator "did everything they were supposed to do" at the community college level were denied admission to San Diego State University.
Sometimes there's no room even if they don't 
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This Week In Education: Roundup: All The Blog's A [Snarky] Stage

This Week In Education: Roundup: All The Blog's A [Snarky] Stage
Roundup: All The Blog's A [Snarky] Stage

Duncan: Governors Have Been Receptive to ESEA PK12
So far, governors appear open to the administration's proposal to make receipt of Title I funds contingent on states adopting higher, more uniform college- and career-readiness standards, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said today. [I'll believe it when the Govs say it themselves, thanks]

Moving Toward National Education Standards. TAPPED
I don't see how someone can read the Common Core Standards, which include things like knowing how to use fractions and percentages, and think these are skills that students in any community need not know.

Constants And Variables GothamSchools
A thunder storm or snow can produce plenty of excitement. A change in the day’s schedule — a substitute in the classroom in place of an absent gym teacher — can get kids pretty worked up too.Then there’s major disappointments like today, when we learned that tomorrow’s field trip was postponed.

Harlem Children's Zone: Hope or Hype? GOOD
We asked Helen Zelon, a freelance writer from Brooklyn, who spent the better part of a year reporting and writing the story, to answer a few of our questions. [I'll post my own somewhat jucier Q and A with Zelon later today or tomorrow.]

A “Social Agenda Trojan Horse?” Robert Pondiscio
An Obama Administration education official wants school safety measurements – ”a data system so parents know what kind of environment a kid will encounter in a school” — included in the Common Core State Standards.  
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voiceofsandiego.org | News. Investigation. Analysis. Conversation. Intelligence. - Saving the Arts From School Cuts

voiceofsandiego.org | News. Investigation. Analysis. Conversation. Intelligence. - Saving the Arts From School Cuts

Saving the Arts From School Cuts

Statement: The budget proposal before the San Diego Unified school board would preserve the arts, Interim Superintendent Bill Kowba said at a Feb. 16 school board meeting on the budget cuts.
Image: True
Determination: True
Analysis: Music and arts boosters have expressed concern to the school board that the district's proposed budget cuts would harm their programs.
Kowba made his statement to allay those concerns -- and it's an accurate one. While the school district didn't completely spare the arts, the cuts are modest enough that Kowba can fairly claim they were preserved.
San Diego Unified has 33 full and part-time teachers who teach music, splitting their time between different schools. Only one full-time position would be cut under the proposed budget changes, and the department plans to reduce the hours of two employees, rather than cutting one whole person. The cut would slash roughly $86,000 from the department budget of $4.3 million -- a 2 percent cut.
To put that in perspective, the school district is considering suspending other educational programs in Balboa Park and Old Town entirely -- something that would impact more than 60 

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