COMMENTARY

(What) to Be, or What Not to Be

May 7, 2010

WATSON SCOTT SWAIL, President & CEO, Educational Policy Institute

This past week I was privileged to speak with the faculty and Board of Governors of Fanshawe College in London, Ontario. Fanshawe College is an example of a decades-old institution that has undergone massive growth in the new millennium. Today, Fanshawe serves 16,000 full-time students and approximately 30,000 part-time students. The campus is immaculate; state-of-the-art, with many buildings under five years of age. It is a pleasant site. It feels more like a university than a college.

Fanshawe, like many other institutions, wants to stay ahead of the curve. But that’s particularly challenging to do when you aren’t sure what the curve is. Think about it: the community college, more than university level for sure, is more vocationally aligned to the workforce than any other level. But that only helps if you understand how the vocational world is shifting. Sure, we know that manufacturing has offshored, but that leaves a whole lot of business and industry to consider. We are often told that, in this knowledge society, employees will be required to shift jobs multiple times, and even shift careers. Economists and policymakers boasted about people changing jobs every 3-5 years, and that they would have 7 “careers” in their lives. That was dramatic thinking on their behalf, and those types of statements play well in MacLean’s and Time magazine. This discussion is akin to the boasting of 70-80 hour work weeks—almost no one does it, but for some insane reason, it is an ego stroker to suggest you work harder than the next person. There is nothing wonderful about working that much harder because it has an ego charge to it—I think that means you aren’t doing your job well enough, for the most part. READ MORE...

Across the nation 15.9 percent of the public school graduating class of 2009 had access to an AP experience that resulted in a score of 3 or higher. This achievement represents a significant and consistent improvement since the class of 2004, when 12.7 percent of graduates had experienced success in AP. Eighteen states equaled or exceeded the national percentage of 15.9 percent. 18.9 percent of AP examinees from the graduating class of 2009 were low-income students, up from 17.0 percent in the class of 2008 and 13.7 percent in the class of 2004.

Source: 6th Annual AP Report to the Nation, The College Board

THE NEWS

ACADEMIC PREPARATION

States with ACT mandate see minority performance on the rise
By Peter Galuska, Diverse Education
Using six states as a base, academics are trying to assess how using the ACT test affects students and schools. Data is incomplete, but trends include improved performance by African-American or Hispanic students who generally score lower than Whites or Asian-Americans. Some believe that more students tend to go to college after taking the ACT, but the program’s critics claim that teachers end up teaching the ACT test and not real content.

Coaching of teachers found to boost student reading
By Debra Viadero, Education Week
An innovative study of 17 schools along the East Coast suggests that putting literacy coaches in schools can help boost students’ reading skills by as much as 32 percent over three years. The study, which was presented here on May 1 during the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, is as notable for its methods as for its results. The study finds that reading gains are greatest in schools where teachers receive a larger amount of coaching.

New Orleans charter schools will outnumber traditional schools 2 to 1 next year
By Sarah Carr, The New Orleans Times-Picayune
Charter schools will outnumber traditional schools two to one in the Recovery School District next school year, in an effort to rapidly shrink the roster of schools under the state-run district's direct control. Four new charter schools, including Lagniappe Academies and KIPP Renaissance High, will open. Six traditional schools, including Live Oak and Dibert elementaries, will convert to charters. Moreover, many existing charters will expand, adding additional grades next year, while several traditional schools will reduce the number of grades they serve.

Professors and Social Media
By Steve Kolowich, InsideHigherEd
Professors, particularly those in the senior ranks, might have a reputation for being leery of social media. But they are no Luddites when it comes to Web 2.0 tools such as Facebook and YouTube, according to a new survey. The data suggest that 80 percent of professors, with little variance by age, have at least one account with either Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Skype, LinkedIn, MySpace, Flickr, Slideshare, or Google Wave. Nearly 60 percent kept accounts with more than one, and a quarter used at least four. A majority, 52 percent, said they used at least one of them as a teaching tool.

Lingering seniors get a soft shove from Cal State
By Josh Keller, The Chronicle of Higher Education
The Cal State system has historically taken a lax attitude toward "super seniors," students with large numbers of credit hours who linger in college for more than four years. But no more. After budget cuts forced sharp enrollment reductions over the past few years, many of the system's 23 campuses have taken aggressive measures to thin their ranks and make room for new blood. Administrators see the programs as a low-cost way to reduce the enrollment pressures during a budget crisis. The tactics, which differ at each campus, often involve holding departments responsible for super seniors, expanding focused advising services, and setting new limits on financial aid.

Credit transfers from community colleges grow
By Eleanor Chute, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
A streamlined system for students to transfer credits from community colleges to State System of Higher Education universities has boosted the number of students transferring credits -- and saved them millions of dollars over having to repeat courses that weren't accepted by four-year schools. This summer, the transfer system is scheduled to expand to three state-related universities, Penn State, University of Pittsburgh and Temple, according to state Rep. Josh Shapiro, D-Montgomery.

Program for first-generation grads a success
By Nathan Crabbe, The Gainsville Sun
Brandon White is the third of four children in his family and the only one to graduate from high school. As part of the Florida Opportunity Scholars program for first-generation college students, he received a full scholarship to attend the University of Florida. White is among 189 students graduating this weekend who represent the first major batch of Florida Opportunity Scholars to earn degrees at UF. The program provides tuition and room and board to qualified students whose families earn $40,000 or less and who are the first in their families to attend college.

After fierce debate, Taiwan will enroll students from Mainland China
By The Chronicle of Higher Education
Students from mainland China will soon be able to study in Taiwanese universities after Taiwanese lawmakers agreed over the weekend on compromises to settle a bitter and longstanding dispute over the issue, The Taipei Times reported. The Democratic Progressive Party agreed to withdraw its opposition as long as the Ministry of Education accepted extensive amendments that would, among other things, prevent Chinese citizens from working in Taiwan after graduation. Opponents have argued that students from the mainland could flood Taiwan's small higher-education system and snatch up the best jobs if allowed to enter the work force.

A campus where unlearning is first
By Michael Slackman, The New York Times
When Rafik Gindy graduated from high school, he knew he wanted to become an engineer. So he enrolled at the American University in Cairo and prepared to immerse himself in math and science.  But the university had a different idea. Who am I? What does it mean to be human? These are the kinds of questions posed to undergraduate students entering this 90-year-old university during what the president, David D. Arnold, called a first year of “disorientation.” During disorientation, the students — 85 percent of them Egyptians — are taught to learn in ways quite at odds with the traditional method of teaching in this country, where instructors lecture, students memorize and tests are exercises in regurgitation.

In India, setting the terms of engagement for foreign universities
By Shailaja Neelakantan, The Chronicle of Higher Education
On Tuesday, India's prime minister sent Parliament the latest version of a long-discussed bill intended to let foreign universities set up shop here, but the requirements set out in the legislation seem likely to provoke controversy. The conditions are also likely to deter some institutions from considering moves into India, academics here and elsewhere agree. The draft bill stipulates, among other things, that the federal government has final say in approving any foreign university seeking to operate in India. It also states that foreign institutions should have been accredited in their home countries for at least 20 years.

Improving the Skills and Credentials of Migrant, Seasonal and American Indian/Alaska Native Head Start Teachers: Building From Within
A new report from AED describes the obstacles Head Start teachers working in migrant and Native American communities face in pursuing postsecondary and professional training. The report provides a brief history of the Head Start program before describing the challenges teachers in native and migrant communities face, including a lack of access to two and four-year colleges in remote communities, a lack of year-round employment in teaching, and, in some cases, a lack of proficiency in English. The report further recommends the design of social marketing, mentoring, and case management approaches that take the challenges faced in migrant and native communities into account with the goal of showing teachers and teaching assistants in those areas that postsecondary degrees and training are within their reach.

Theories of Change among Single-Sex School for Black and Latino Boys: An Intervention in Search of Theory
This brief by the Metropolitan Center for Urban Education at New York University presents the underlying theory of change surrounding the strategies implemented in seven single sex schools serving Black and Latino boys (grades 4-12). Attention to the theories surrounding these strategies rests on the presumption that school practice involves complex processes and theories that are often overlooked, especially in current educational reform efforts (e.g., whole school reform, "turnaround" schools strategies). The brief’s analytical approach to understanding single-sex schools for boys of color is to ask the question: what do you do and why do you do it.

RETENTION 2010, International Conference on Student Success, June 9-11, 2010, Chicago, IL

The Swail Letter (May 2010).
In this issue: Trends in International Education Enrollment.