California must make community college more affordable by raising student fees. Seriously.
In the second round of federal stimulus money for higher education, California's community colleges received $5 million this month. That's nice, but not half as much as they would have gotten if they'd raised fees by a mere $1 a unit from the current $26. For the average full-time student, that would amount to a total increase of perhaps $30 a year; it would have boosted the colleges' budget by $12.5 million. A $10-a-unit increase would bring in $125 million more a year, and the state would still have the least expensive community colleges in the nation.
That $10 increase, or about $300 a year, would in fact save students money. Because of budget cuts, students are competing for seats in the classes they need for a vocational certificate or to move on to
When Wayne McAllister was starting his career in education, many kids would fill in the dots on standardized tests with a level of concentration typically reserved for Saturday morning cartoons.
“Before No Child Left Behind, test results were used as an evaluation tool to see how your students stacked up to a national norm,” said McAllister, now in his 29th year as principal of Garrettford Elementary School and 36th working in the Upper Darby School District. “They were important, but not half as important as they are now. Now, everything is publicized and the perception of you
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Listening to D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday, I noticed a familiar refrain. She readily accepts credit for success while always attributing failure to the shortcomings of others.
"People are uncomfortable when you change what is currently in place," Rhee told host David Gregory. He had noted that Mayor Adrian Fenty lost the Democratic primary two weeks ago in part because of "tremendous pushback" against Rhee's brand of school reform. "A lot of what you heard was 'we fired teachers,' " Rhee told him. "We just wanted
Critics of school and teacher accountability are finding a little too much validation in a recent study of merit pay.
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Critics of school and teacher accountability are finding a little too much validation in a recent study of merit pay.
The study, conducted by Vanderbilt University’s National Center on Performance Incentives and billed as the first scientifically rigorous test of merit pay, was the result of a three-year experiment in Nashville schools.
About 300 middle school math teachers volunteered for the trial. About half were paid a set stipend for participating. The other half had a crack at bonuses of up to $15,000 if their student’s test scores improved.
The result: On the whole, students in the control group’s classrooms didn’t learn more than the students taught by teachers eligible for the extra money.
On its face, that would seem an argument against what’s become a key tenet in the Obama administration’s and
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