Latest News and Comment from Education

Sunday, December 8, 2019

ACT’s Push for Use of a “Superscore” Composite– Which Still Underestimates College Freshman GPA | deutsch29

ACT’s Push for Use of a “Superscore” Composite– Which Still Underestimates College Freshman GPA | deutsch29

ACT’s Push for Use of a “Superscore” Composite– Which Still Underestimates College Freshman GPA

ACT is promoting “superscoring,” which involves creating a composite score based upon the highest scores of individual subtests across multiple testing sessions.
On August 15, 2019, ACT released a statement about superscoring and how, beginning September 2020, ACT will include a superscore on ACT scoring reports.
Before we get into some details regarding the studies behind ACT’s decision to include superscores on student score reports, let us consider ACT’s statement about how use of a superscore (as opposed to a traditional composite score) is left up to colleges and universities:
…We empirically evaluated the validity and fairness of different score-use policies. Based on the findings, ACT now supports the use of superscoring in making college admissions decisions. And starting in September 2020, ACT will be automatically calculating the superscore for students.
That said, we believe that individual postsecondary institutions should decide which score-use policy is best for them, as they have unique needs and contexts within which the scores are being used. As colleges and universities go about the process of reviewing the existing score-use policy on their campuses, it is our hope that our latest research can serve as one source of evidence contributing to those conversations.
ACT says use of a superscore is left up to postsecondary institutions after ACT has basically set up colleges and universities to be pressured into using the superscore, which by nature will either be equal to or greater than the CONTINUE READING: ACT’s Push for Use of a “Superscore” Composite– Which Still Underestimates College Freshman GPA | deutsch29

enrique baloyra: DeVos seeks to block student loan forgiveness - YouTube

DeVos seeks to block student loan forgiveness - YouTube

DeVos seeks to block student loan forgiveness 





enrique baloyra

Everybody’s favorite education secretary, Betsy DeVos, tweeted out this week how she thinks her department shouldn’t be in the student loan business. Only she and her loan shark friends should be allowed to rip off desperate students who don’t have mummy and daddy to pay their outrageously expensive college tuition.
DeVos proposes creating a “standalone government corporation,” like Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, which cost U.S. taxpayers $100 billion back in 2008, “run by a professional expert.” Clearly not anyone she knows.
“Congress never set up the U.S. Department of Education to be a bank,” she said at the annual Federal Student Aid Conference in Reno on Tuesday. “Nor did it define the Secretary of Education as the nation's ‘top banker.’”
DeVos has recently come under fire for completely botching the loan forgiveness program for teachers and police officers, rejecting 99% of applicants. And for contempt of court after refusing to back down when a judge ordered her to stop collecting on loans to students defrauded by for-profit colleges.
Mike Pierce from the Student Borrower Protection Center tells Yahoo Finance, “The proposal seems to absolve the secretary and the industry from all responsibility for the mess that 44 million borrowers face today.”
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/studen...
But The Intercept’s Ryan Grim notes it looks like a scheme to prevent “the next president from unilaterally forgiving federal student debt, which she is well aware a president can do without Congress.”
https://twitter.com/ryangrim/status/1...
You see, very much like her boss and the rest of his shady administration, DeVos has refused to cut her extensive financial ties to the industry she’s supposed to be regulating.
“Normally the rich are moderately more subtle about rigging the system in their favor.
“They're scared. We're ready.”
https://twitter.com/briebriejoy/statu...



DeVos seems to be anticipating something big is about to happen. Sure enough, the Washington Post is reporting that that the president is demanding his advisers come up with a plan to counter Elizabeth Warren’s proposal forgiving over $600 billion in federal student debt.
“The internal frustrations and failure to come up with a student debt plan are feeding the president’s anxieties that Democrats such as Warren will tap into populist impulses that propelled his 2016 victory.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/...
So don’t be surprised next week when he tweets about his latest idea, student loan forgiveness. Only instead of a 0.5% tax on Wall Street transactions, as Bernie Sanders is proposing, Mexico’s gonna pay for it.
https://www.salon.com/2019/12/06/bets...


DeVos seeks to block student loan forgiveness - YouTube

CATCH UP WITH CURMUDGUCATION + ICYMI: New Car Edition (12/8)

CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: New Car Edition (12/8)


ICYMI:  New Car Edition (12/8)



So yesterday we replaced my wife's car, which has lost an argument with an errant deer. Used car shopping is a pain, but if you want to talk about something that has truly and completely been disrupted by technology. Little browsing, because everyone does that on line. Little haggling compared to the old says because everyone can go online and see what the car is worth. Few tremendous bargains, but few total rip-offs. But still enough paperwork to fell a tree. At any rate, we're mobile again. Now here are your readings from the week.

A Harlem School That Former Students Say Was Run Like A Cult 

Rebecca Klein at HuffPost with a scary tale of one private school that promises, among other things, to save its students "from te homosexual demons in the public school system."

Life For US Students Under Constant Surveillance 

The Guardian takes a look at how bad surveillance has gotten for US students. Spoiler alert: really bad.

How the Denver School Board Flipped  

Denver's super-reformy district was a point of pride for reformsters, but public school advocates just took it back with the last school board elections. The Have You Heard podcast has the story of how it was done.

Uber's Self-driving Car Didn't Know Pedestrians Could Jaywalk 

Speaking of Betsy DeVos's metaphor for school choice, and speaking of using AI for all sorts of edubusines... Wired reports on a cyber-car fatality and its cause-- bad programming.

PISA: Illusion of Excellence, Marketing Baloney 

Okay, I paraphrased the title a bit, but this Washington Post column from Yong Zhao, an education expert with a keen knowledge of China, is the week's best antidote to all the chicken littling over PISA scores.

The Teacher Walkouts

A California Sunday Magazine piece that interviews ten teachers with different perspectives on striking. Interesting piece, with photos by student photographers.

How GreatSchools Nudges Families Toward Schools With Fewer Black and Hispanic Students   

Matt Barnum ruffled many feathers with this Chalkbeat piece that takes a look at how those school ratings really work. Not well, as it turns out.

PA's Weakest Districts Targeted

The York Dispatch editorial board offers an absolutely blistering take on charter schools.

How Corporate Tax Credits Rob Public School Budgets

The headline of this CityLab article pretty well lays it out. A look at some fresh data shows just how bad the hit is.

Support for Charters in 2020 Elections Comes with a Price

Andre Perry, at the Hechinger Report, is just the king of nuanced and balanced looks at charter policy that clarifies some of the root issues. Here he talks about the week's flap over Black leaders anjd charter support.

Teacher Turnover and Retention   

Brookings did a big fat meta-analyis of the research on teacher retention and attrition. Interesting discussion starter ensues.

America's Epidemic of Unkindness  

From the Atlantic, the best thing not ab out education that I read this week, and a hopeful, thoughtful piece. God damn it babies, you've got to be kind.

End of Semester Bingo  

From McSweeney's, the end of the semester bingo card you've been waiting for. An oldie but a goodie.


CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: New Car Edition (12/8)



CATCH UP WITH CURMUDGUCATION






MI: Governor Whitmer Files Private School-Whomping Brief

Back in 2016, the Michigan legislature, always on the lookout for a way to send public tax dollars into private pockets, passed Section 388.1752b , a little amendment to the School Aid act that required the state to reimburse private schools for any money they spent "complying with health, safety, or welfare requirement mandated by a law or administrative rule of this state." In other words, the s
White Flight, Without The Actual Flight

We can talk about lots of complicated economic and sociological forces that have fed the problems of school segregation in this country, but the root causes are pretty simple–historically, we have a whole lot of white folks who don’t want their children to go to school with the children of black folks, and they have been creative about finding ways to avoid it. When Brown v. Board of education fo

DEC 05

My Toddlers Can't Read

Here at the Curmudgucation Institute, the Board of Directors has taken a great interest in the printed word. We have, for instance, entered the Me Do It phase for one of our most beloved tomes ( Little Excavator, by Anna Dewdney). I am no longer allowed to read that book to the Board, but must hold it open while a Board member recites the text. We can do then same thing for select portions of that

DEC 04

Buddy, Can You Spare A Ride (To The Charter School)?

Remember the days when charter school fans were bragging that they would do more with less? That chorus has been replaced by complaints of how unfair it is that they don't get as many tax dollars for their privately-owned businesses as the public school system gets, resulting in fun new ideas like Florida's notion that charters should be entitled to a cut of any special levies that taxpayers pass

DEC 02

PA: Voucher Bill Still A Threat

Pennsylvania House Speaker and Betsy DeVos fanboy Mike Turzai has suffered a momentary setback in his drive to use Harrisburg schools as a launching pad for a PA voucher program, but he reportedly has not given up. HB 1800 targets the ailing school district at a point where it has only recently been placed in financial receivership under the control of a state-appointed overseer. One might think t

DEC 01

Patriot Act: No More Batman

This is a genius clip from Hasan Minhaj's Patriot Act show. An interview with Anand Giridharadas about his book Winners Take All, and as Giridharadas tweeted, "he explained my book better than I can." It's all about Bruce Wayne. This is a 90 second clip, well worth your time. When it comes to billionaires, we need to tax that ass. #NowStreaming pic.twitter.com/4qUwVo6Nyp — Hasan Minhaj (@hasanminh
Noblesse Oblige And the End of Public Education

Maybe you don't usually get around to reading David Dawkins, the Forbes staff member whose beat is billionaires. But back in October he ran an interview that should send a familiar chill through those of us who follow the great education disruption debates. Dawkins talked to Josef Stadler, the head of Ultra High Net Worst at UBS (the big Swiss bank, about why folks don't trust billionaires these d
ICYMI: Deer Season Edition (12/1)

Yes, it may be Thanksgiving weekend where you are, but in my neck of the woods, schools are closed tomorrow for the first day of deer season. Don't knock it if you haven't eaten some excellent deer baloney. In the meantime, hre's some reading from the week School District's Computer Servers Hacked Sign of the times. This one was in New Jersey. One more reminder of the vulnerability of school data


TX: Bigotry In The Classroom

This is a troubling story, for several reasons. Georgia Clark was an English teacher in the Fort Worth Independent School District, a district with over 80% Hispanic student population. Clark sent a message to Donald Trump, asking 

Peter Greene: Eli Broad Buys Home For His Training School At Yale

Eli Broad Buys Home For His Training School At Yale

Eli Broad Buys Home For His Training School At Yale
Billionaire Eli Broad has long worked to impose business solutions on US education, believing that education has a management problem, not an education problem. As one Broad fan is quoted in the Washingtoin Post, “You think a superintendent is like the lead principal or lead teacher for a school district, but you have to think more like a CEO of a major corporation." It’s not unlike the belief that a private sector CEO doesn’t need to know about the industry in which he’s working—he just needs to be a good CEO.

Broad is a bit of a scrapper who has described himself as a “sore winner.” He has backed his version of education reform in many ways, from pushing a plan to put half of Los Angeles students in charters schools, to making big money pushes for his favored LAUSD board candidates. His foundation disperses money to many of the big ed reform groups, and in 2014 he approached former Arne Duncan aide Peter Cunningham about creating a sort of war room rapid response press outfit to get the reformer point of view out there (Education Post was the result). The Broad Foundation has been one of the “Big Three” funders of education reform, just behind the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Walton Family Foundation. The foundation aims to “advance entrepreneurship” for education, CONTINUE READING: Eli Broad Buys Home For His Training School At Yale