ObamaED - San Diego Focus on Change in Education

Old Democrats Must Go or Trump NEVER Will

noreply@blogger.com (Philosopher3000) — Wed, 16 Jul 2025 15:33:00 +0000

Cenk Tells Obama To 'Go Away'

noreply@blogger.com (Philosopher3000) — Wed, 16 Jul 2025 10:34:00 +0000

Nature is random, Nurture is not.

noreply@blogger.com (Philosopher3000) — Sat, 11 Apr 2015 08:03:00 +0000

http://news.sciencemag.org/brain-behavior/2015/03/poverty-may-affect-growth-children-s-brains

LATEST NEWS

CEORGHIOU/SHUTTERSTOCK

The brain’s cerebral cortex is often larger in children from richer families and from families whose parents have more education.

Poverty may affect the growth of children’s brains

Email Michael

Michael Balter

30 March 2015 11:00 am

67 Comments

Stark and rising inequality plagues many countries, including the United States, and politicians, economists, and—fortunately—scientists, aredebating its causes and solutions. But inequality’s effects may go beyond simple access to opportunity: a new study finds that family differences in income and education are directly correlated with brain size in developing children and adolescents. The findings could have important policy implications and provide new arguments for early antipoverty interventions, researchers say.

Researchers have long known that children from families with higher socioeconomic status do better on a number of cognitive measures, including IQ scores, reading and language batteries, and tests of so-called executive function—the ability to focus attention on a task. More recently, some studies have found that key brain areas in children of higher socioeconomic status—such as those involved in memory or language—tend to be either larger in volume, more developed, or both. However, these studies have suffered from some important limitations: For one thing, they don’t adequately distinguish socioeconomic status from racial background, which in the United States are difficult to tease apart because nonwhite groups tend to have higher poverty levels. And few studies treat family income and education levels as independent factors, even though they can act differently on the child’s developing brain. For example, income may be a better indicator of the material resources (such as healthy food and medical care) available to a child, whereas more highly educated parents may be better able to stimulate their child’s intellectual development.

To get around some of these limitations, a research team scanned the brains of 1099 children and young adults, ranging from 3 to 20 years old, using MRI. The researchers, led by Kimberly Noble of Columbia University and Elizabeth Sowell of Children’s Hospital Los Angeles in California, both cognitive neuroscientists specializing in child development, recruited subjects in collaboration with researchers at nine U.S. universities and hospitals, using Internet and community advertising as well as word of mouth.

The MRI scans allowed the team to measure the surface area of the subjects’ cerebral cortices, the outer layer of the brain where most advanced cognitive processing takes place, including language, reading, and executive functions. The researchers chose to measure cortical surface area because previous research had shown that it increases throughout childhood and adolescence as the brain develops, thus making it a potentially sensitive indicator of intellectual abilities. Studies in both animals and humans have suggested that the cortex can grow larger as a result of life experiences, although genetic factors may partly influence its overall size. The team also administered a battery of standard cognitive tests to the subjects and took DNA samples to control for the factors of race and genetic ancestry.

The results, published online this week in Nature Neuroscience, showed that cortical surface area was indeed correlated with different measures of socioeconomic status. Parental education—the number of years that parents had gone to school—showed a linear correlation with overall cortical surface area, especially for regions of the brain involved in language, reading, and executive functions. As a rough approximation, the children of parents with only a high school education (12 years of education or less) had 3% less cortical surface area than children whose parents had attended universities (15 years or more), Noble and Sowell toldScience.

The team also found a significant correlation between cortical surface area and family income levels, which ranged from less than $5000 per year to more than $300,000. This was not a linear correlation, however. Instead, at the very lowest income levels, each incremental increase in income led to relatively greater increases in cortical surface area, whereas the influence of income tended to level off at higher levels. Nevertheless, Noble and Sowell say, the difference between lower and higher incomes is dramatic: Children from families making $25,000 per year or less have cortical surface areas roughly 6% smaller than those making more than $150,000.

The team also found that cortical surface area was related to performance on at least some cognitive tests, especially those measuring executive functions and memory. Finally, race and ethnicity had no effect on any of these correlations. “The links between socioeconomic status and brain structure were the same across individuals, regardless of racial background,” Noble says.

In their paper, the team cautions that despite these clear correlations between socioeconomic status and the size of the cerebral cortex, the reasons for the correlations are not yet clear. Low socioeconomic status could inhibit brain growth due to family stress, greater exposure to environmental toxins, or insufficient nutrition, while higher status families might be able to provide more “cognitive stimulation” to their children.

Nevertheless, the researchers point to the particularly low cortical surface areas of low-income children—and the differences that even small, incremental increases in income can make—as evidence that antipoverty measures could make a big difference in both brain size and intellectual achievement. “The implications for public policy are substantial,” Sowell says. “The brain develops over a very long period, throughout childhood and adolescence,” she adds, suggesting that enriching the environment of a child “at any point in development” can make a big difference in his or her abilities.

But unknown genetic factors that influence brain size and also correlate with income could play a role in the results, says Ian Deary, a psychologist at the University of Edinburgh in the United Kingdom who is well known for his work on intelligence. He cites recent studies concluding that both genetic and environmental factors influence socioeconomic status.

Still, Martha Farah, a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of Pennsylvania, says that the study is “a real advance in characterizing how brain development differs” between children of lower and higher socioeconomic status, calling it a “crucial first step” in understanding how income and education levels “shape human development.” She agrees that the study provides compelling support for the idea of alleviating childhood poverty. “Even without neuroscience, the case for investment in society’s poor children is very strong,” she says. “But if brain imaging helps to focus people’s attention on the problem of childhood poverty, that’s great.”

Posted in

Is Yoga better than Gym Class?

noreply@blogger.com (Philosopher3000) — Wed, 08 Apr 2015 04:52:00 +0000

Photo by Promise Yee

Encinitas students demonstrate yoga poses, April 2014.

A state appeals court has upheld a decision that allowed yoga to be taught at Encinitas Unified School District schools.

The 4th District Court of Appeal ruled Friday that the district's yoga program was not unconstitutional, as some had argued.

A lawsuit was filed in hopes of stopping the yoga instruction, as the plaintiffs in the suit felt that yoga was religious in nature.

The district's program was funded by a $500,000 grant from the K.P. Jois Foundation, which promotes Ashtanga yoga, a fast-paced form of yoga of progressively more demanding poses with synchronized breathing. The district is believed to be the first in the country to have full-time yoga teachers at every one of its schools.

Book: "The End Of College", by Kevin Carey

noreply@blogger.com (Philosopher3000) — Sat, 14 Mar 2015 22:22:00 +0000

We are now headed into a time of abundance when it comes to educational resources. All the books in the world are now available on your iPad or your phone or your computer, or will be soon. The same is true for all of the lectures of all of the smartest people in the world, and the course notes and the problem sets. ... Once they're built, the cost of providing them to the 10,000th student or the millionth student is almost nothing.

SIGN THE PLEDGE.

Post by The White House.

The problem with college admissions is that colleges don't really know that much about students. All they kind of have to go on is an SAT [or ACT] score, which is kind of a blunt instrument ... a high school transcript, which is sort of hard to figure out, [and] maybe a personal essay, who knows who wrote the personal essay. So they tend to fall back on, "Is this person a legacy? Did they go to a 'good high school?'" Well, everyone figures out where "good high schools" are and people pay a lot of money in tuition if it's a private high school, or in the real estate market to buy a house near the good high school. And so again the opportunities for students to go to particularly elite colleges that are often the stepping stone toward the best jobs in government or business are in many ways constricted to a narrow band of people.

You just have to look at the numbers and you see that people who attend America's most elite universities are disproportionately wealthy, disproportionately well-off, in many cases disproportionately white; their parents both have college degrees, which is unusual. And because college is getting more and more expensive, it's less of a meritocracy, I would argue. If only the rich can afford to go to the "good colleges," then we don't have a system of opportunity; we have a system of replicating privilege that already exists. I think that — given the wider trend of growing inequality in the United States of America — is a huge, huge problem.

The End of College: Creating the Future of Learning and the University of Everywhere

The genius of Mendeleev's periodic table - Lou Serico

noreply@blogger.com (Philosopher3000) — Fri, 27 Feb 2015 09:02:00 +0000

Mendeleevium 101

RSA Animate - Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us

noreply@blogger.com (Philosopher3000) — Fri, 27 Feb 2015 06:51:00 +0000

Learn Different with Larry Rosenstock, CEO of High-Tech High

noreply@blogger.com (Philosopher3000) — Thu, 19 Feb 2015 19:41:00 +0000

A call for more experimentation in education. Be different!

Visit High Tech High School and you will find project learning taken to the extreme. It's a different kind of school. The 6 "High Tech" schools from, elementary to media-arts, are unique learning environments in our Public/Charter School mind-space. They select students via an application lottery designed to maximize diversity using simple zip-code representation. Their Graduation Rates are 98%, and their objective metric is set by their student's 6-year college graduation rate (86%). They have been around 14-years, supported by Irwin Jacobs of Qualcomm and Bill Gates Educational Foundation, CEO - Larry Rosenstock says all the right things and the results speak for themselves, plus the kids seem happy to learn.

Born cross-eyed, Larry will tell you he sees the world differently. He says we don't need more High-Tech High type schools, what we need is educational experiments, to break up the factory model of schools so common in the USA. Each child learns differently, so we need a vast array of schools each with community designed focuses, to give them choices to be successful.

When schools are like prisons, we train prisoners. What if we could capture the power of 'peer-pressure' to push teachers & students to become better? The charter schools in California get the same $7500/year, per student, that regular schools do, yet High-Tech High School has a low 20:1 student-teacher ratio, and FIVE (count them) College Councilors (*one for every 100 students). With their 'great room' and transparent class-rooms, the project-based learning makes students extremely comfortable with presentation and social-skills. They learn math and english DEcontextualized, embedded within other subjects like history and science, for their projects.

Apocoliptico Project

Look for "How to Teach Us" on Coursera

Massive Open On-line Coourse = MOOC

Most Likely to Succeed - the Documentary about High Tech High Schools at Sundance Films

Thanks for the invite from Thanasi Galvis of San Diego Experience Design Meetup

http://www.meetup.com/s-d-x-d/

Wednesday, February 18, 2015
6:30 PM

High Tech High School
2861 Womble Road, San Diego , CA (map)

Remember high school? For many of us, it was regimented, rote, and devoid of real-world context and meaning. In the San Diego region, High Tech High is leading a wave of innovation in education rooted in design thinking. Students gather in engaged, small sessions in open-walled spaces that resemble brainstorm discussions more than traditional classrooms. Prototypes and finished work are everywhere. You can even play video games for hours; that is, of course, if you code them yourself. Welcome to High Tech High, the public charter school with the energy, spirit, and sense of exploration of a tech startup.

This month, we have the fortunate opportunity to hear about High Tech High from its founder, Larry Rosenstock, a noted innovator in education. Come learn about the design behind the school, teachers as designers, and teaching students a design thinking approach to projects.

Larry Rosenstock is the founder and CEO of High Tech High, a network of public charter schools focused on project-based learning.

Larry taught carpentry in urban high schools for eleven years before working as staff attorney at the Harvard Center for Law and Education. Returning to public schools, he served as Director of the Rindge School of Technical Arts and then Principal of Cambridge Rindge and Latin School.

Mr. Rosenstock directed the New Urban High School Project of the U.S. Department of Education. He has served as a lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and a Visiting Associate Professor at UC Berkeley School of Education.

Larry is the recipient of the Ashoka Fellowship and the McGraw Prize in Education, and serves as an advisor to numerous commissions and boards nationally and internationally. He holds a JD from Boston University Law School, an M.Ed from Cambridge College, a BA from Brandeis University and a Doctor of Letters, Honoris Causa from Cambridge College.

High Tech High Learning now comprises twelve K-12 schools, a teacher-credentialing program, and a graduate school of education.

About High Tech High

History

High Tech High was originally conceived by a group of about 40 civic and high tech industry leaders in San Diego, assembled by the Economic Development Corporation and the Business Roundtable, who met regularly from 1996 - 1998 to discuss the challenge of finding qualified individuals for the high-tech work force. In particular, members were concerned about the “digital divide” that resulted in low numbers of women and ethnic minority groups entering the fields of math, science, and engineering. Gary Jacobs, Director of Education Programs at Qualcomm, and Kay Davis, Director of the Business Roundtable, were key participants in these discussions.

In late 1998 the group voted to start a charter school and engaged Larry Rosenstock, then President of Price Charities in San Diego, as the founding principal. The founding group was clear about its intent: to create a school where students would be passionate about learning and would acquire the basic skills of work and citizenship. Rosenstock, a former carpentry teacher, lawyer, and high school principal who had recently directed the U.S. Department of Education’s New Urban High School (NUHS) project, brought a vision and a sense of the design principles by which this mission might be accomplished.

Design Principles

High Tech High has distilled the six NUHS design principles to four: personalization, adult world connection, common intellectual mission, and teacher as designer. Responding directly to the needs of students, all four principles connect to the broad mission of preparation for the adult world. Moreover, all four call for structures and practices that schools do not now routinely employ. The design principles permeate every aspect of life at High Tech High: the small size of the school, the openness of the facilities, the personalization through advisory, the emphasis on integrated, project-based learning and student exhibitions, the requirement that all students complete internships in the community, and the provision of ample planning time for teacher teams during the work day.

For more information about High Tech High, please visit: http://www.hightechhigh.org/about/index.php

Special Thanks to Student Ambassadors: Max Richter, 12th HTH-Media Arts
Carly mitchell, 12th HTHI
Elena Hoffman, 11th HTH
Kai Anderson, 12th HTH-Media Arts

What is Judo Math?

noreply@blogger.com (Philosopher3000) — Sat, 03 Jan 2015 14:01:00 +0000

University of California Administration is Incompetent

noreply@blogger.com (Philosopher3000) — Thu, 27 Nov 2014 02:27:00 +0000

LA Times Report: by George Skelton

Professors should teach more and do less research, he has said. Administrators shouldn't be paid so generously — into the $300,000 and $400,000 range, plus big perks.
UC contends it has to compete against Ivy League schools for talent.
Nonsense, the governor implied. "Money doesn't buy everything in this world," he told Regent Richard Blum, a wealthy investor and husband of U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein. "If it did, I wouldn't have anybody working for me."
UC "doesn't have to follow the Ivy League" to recruit, Brown argued. "People will get very excited about an institution that has a moral depth that transcends the vagaries of the marketplace.... This is not Wall Street. This is the University of California, and we want to be different."

There is no need for tuition hikes. The UC Administrators are incompetent. Look at how they work with CA K-12 Public Schools, and the results.

All UC Regents are over paid. Napalitano's base pay is $570,000/year (not including pension, health, housing, and transportation benefits). At Each UC Campus there are 9 Chancellors who get >$450,000/yr.+benefits. Governor Brown earns only $173,000/year.

http://articles.latimes.com/2013/sep/16/local/la-me-ln-uc-rental-20130916

Who Needs Algebra? Geometry? Trigonometry? Calculus? Differential Equations? Statistics? Linear Algebra? Topology? Number Theory?

noreply@blogger.com (Philosopher3000) — Sat, 11 Oct 2014 07:52:00 +0000

Who Needs Algebra? New Approach To College Math Helps More Pass

by ELISSA NADWORNY and ANYA KAMENETZ

October 09, 2014 4:03 PM ET

Ashjame Pendarvis, a first-year community college student, works on her math homework at the University of District of Columbia.

Elissa Nadworny/NPR

Let's start with a little word problem. Sixty percent of the nation's 12.8 million community college students are required to take at least one course in subject X. Eighty percent of that 60 percent never move on past that requirement.

Let Y = the total percentage of community college students prevented from graduating simply by failing that one subject, X. What is Y?

The answer: Y = 48.
And if you haven't guessed it by now, What is X?

The answer: Subject X equals the course sequence known as developmental or remedial math, and especially its final course, algebra.

"Here at LaGuardia, and at every community college in the country, it is the single most-failed course, and the gateway" that determines who graduates, says Gail Mellow, the president of LaGuardia Community College in Queens, N.Y.

Mellow is one of a growing number of educators out there who believe it may be time to rethink the algebra requirement.

"More than half of the students who come to LaGuardia are not ready for college-level math," she says. "We're pretty typical that way. Should we take them back through high school just because math is important? Or should we take seriously the fact that these are adults, they're overwhelmingly poor, and we want to give them the type of skills that will be useful in their lives?"

'What Is The Purpose?'

Ashjame Pendarvis, 20, is studying in the lounge at the University of the District of Columbia Community College with her laptop, calculator and papers spread around her. She's taking the most basic level of math at UDC.

She plans on majoring in infant and early childhood education, but she has to get two semesters of remedial math out of the way before she can start on courses relevant to her major, and two more of college-level math before she can graduate — a typical required math sequence.

"I feel like, if math isn't important in your career, then there is no need for it in college," she says. "What's the purpose of wasting your time and your money?"

Anyone who's had to deal with math homework probably has heard, or uttered, a version of that complaint. What's surprising is that educators like Mellow agree with Pendarvis.

They're trying a new way of teaching math that gets rid of most algebra altogether. It's being tested on almost 5,000 students across the country. So far, many more students are succeeding in the courses, which abandon traditional math sequences in favor of new content, new teaching techniques and even a little psychology.

You Can Get It If You Really Want

"Adult learning theory tells us that adults learn better when the intellectual work is applicable to their lives," says Mellow, who is on the steering committee of an initiative called Community College Pathways. The new approach seeks to largely skip over abstract algebraic formulas and go directly to math concepts that students will use and find engaging.

Pathways consists of a yearlong course, Statway (for "Statistics") and a pair of semester-long courses, Quantway (for "Quantitative Reasoning").

In their traditional forms, both subjects typically come after remedial algebra in the college math sequence, and are offered for college credit — but these topics have far more immediate applications than algebraic equations do.

"Algebra is useful if you're going to be compounding chemical substances for a manufacturing firm or if you're an engineer," Mellow explains. "But understanding statistics, probability, levels of risk — whether for retirement planning or the risk of your kid getting a concussion in football — those are real-life issues people will face."

Similarly, the Quantway course is organized around concepts important for immediately useful topics: personal finance, health and civics.

This may sound like the old debate over replacing "pure math" with "applied math" or "business math." But Karon Klipple, who directs the Pathways project, says what's even more important to this new approach is changing how teachers teach, and how students think about math — and even how they feel about it.

Pathways tells instructors to emphasize "productive persistence" — using good study strategies, and trying hard. They talk explicitly with students about calming math anxiety. They try things like putting students into study groups whose members are responsible for following up if one of them skips class.

And, amazingly, they've found that simply by teaching students that the brain is like a muscle that gets stronger with use (known as "growth mindset"), the students go on to try harder and perform better.

The Carnegie Foundation started offering Pathways in fall 2011. Currently 49 institutions use the courses, including the California State University system and community colleges in 14 states. The foundation is tracking their success closely, and the institutions are collaborating to see how they can make the courses better. (The Gates Foundation, which also supports NPR, is a supporter of this collaboration.)

So far, about half of the Quantway and Statway students at LaGuardia and elsewhere finish developmental math and earn their college-level math credit within a single year. In the traditional sequence, just 15 percent do the same — and that's in two years.

"We've tripled our success rate in half the time," says Mellow.

Is This Cheating?

But is skipping algebra cheating somehow? After all, the traditional college math sequence has been in place since at least the 19th century. Karen Klipple, who directs the Pathways Project, says they can prove they're not dumbing down Statway and Quantway.

First of all, the material covered in the courses, which do include some algebraic topics, was vetted independently by the Mathematical Association of America, the American Statistical Association and other groups. Second, a report released in July showed that Pathways students, when given the same final exam as other college-level math and statistics students, scored as well or better.

A related question is whether creating alternate pathways means tracking students away from math-heavy, lucrative STEM careers.

"That's what a lot of people say," says Mellow. "I think that the way we do it now allows students to fail multiple times."

She points out that some students who succeed in Pathways gain confidence, and even a love of math, as opposed to the majority of remedial students, who retake courses again and again or drift away from college altogether.

"[Pathways] doesn't feel like closing off anything to me. I want students to have more choices and appropriate challenges."

Teens need to sleep in, High-School start times too early.

noreply@blogger.com (Philosopher3000) — Fri, 10 Oct 2014 20:54:00 +0000

Lofgren Wants Congress to Consider Later School Start Times for Teens

Download audio (MP3)

Research on the importance of sleep for high school students is prompting one California congresswoman to take act action. Zoe Lofgren is introducing legislation in Congress that would require the U.S. Department of Education to research the relationship between school start times and academic performance. Lofgren's action comes on the heels of an American Academy of Pediatrics study which found teenagers' school days should start around 8:30 am to improve learning. Reporter: Ana Tintocalis

- See more at: http://www.californiareport.org/archive/R201410060850/a#sthash.bUkTcwnN.dpuf

Partisan Politics and Public Education

noreply@blogger.com (Philosopher3000) — Wed, 01 Oct 2014 10:08:00 +0000

Partisan Politics and Public Education 35 MIN, 19 SEC

More than 1,000 kids from a dozen high schools joined teachers and parents last week on the streets of Jefferson County, a large and politically important suburban area outside Denver. As a result, the County’s elected school board may be re-thinking plans for Advance Placement in American history.

Guests:
Eric Gorski, Denver Post (@egorski)
Jim Earley, resident of Westminster, Colorado (@SupportJeffKids)
Jane Robbins, American Principles Project (@approject)
Fritz Fischer, University of Northern Colorado (@UNCo_edu)
Stephanie Simon, Politico (@StephanieSimon_)

Listen to "TO THE POINT"

Read the book: The Memory Hole

Michael Towns - Fishman Prize

noreply@blogger.com (Philosopher3000) — Wed, 13 Aug 2014 08:39:00 +0000

Getting Ahead with Physics

August 08, 2014 5:11 PM ET

Listen to the Story

Latino USA

Playlist

In 2012, over a quarter of the Latino students that passed a California AP physics exam came from one classroom. We hear from the class'

Mr. Michael Towns - winner of the Fishman Prize for outstanding education in low income schools. Citrus Hill High School has created an education machine in Physics and Engineering. Advanced Placement (AP) Courses are not always available to the low income schools. "There's more than one way to define genius." - Michael Towns on Tenacity. http://www.npr.org/2014/08/08/338939605/getting-ahead-with-physics

University of Pheonix Web College Doesn't Work for Students

noreply@blogger.com (Philosopher3000) — Mon, 30 Jun 2014 18:56:00 +0000

Review - Center for Investigative Reporting

The post-World War II GI Bill of 1944 was a hugely successful government program that helped millions of returning veterans get a college education. Under the expanded GI Bill passed in 2008, veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have their college tuition paid for, up to $19,000 a year. But instead of giving veterans a launching pad to a civilian career, for-profit schools are making billions in GI Bill money and leaving veterans with worthless degrees and few job prospects, according to an investigation by Aaron Glantz of The Center for Investigative Reporting.

Key findings:

CIR found that over the last five years, more than $600 million in college assistance for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans has been spent on California schools so substandard that they have failed to qualify for state financial aid.
Money from the new GI Bill went to nearly 300 California schools that failed to meet state standards, including 121 with no academic accreditation at all: beauty schools, auto repair programs and dog training academies.
CIR found that a single campus of the University of Phoenix has received $95 million from the new GI Bill since 2009. That’s more than the entire 10-campus University of California system.
The University of Phoenix won’t say how many veterans graduate or find jobs, but the overall graduation rate at its San Diego campus is less than 15 percent. More than a quarter of students there default on their loans within three years of leaving school.
In California, nearly 2 of every 3 GI Bill dollars go to for-profit schools.

Listen to our segment and read the full story from CIR here.

http://revealradio.org/gi-bill/

GI Bill funds flow to for-profit colleges that fail state aid standards - Center for Investigative Reporting

http://cironline.org/reports/gi-bill-funds-flow-profit-colleges-fail-state-aid-standards-6477

Nationally, the University of Phoenix received nearly $1 billion from the new GI Bill over the last five years.

Credit: Adithya Sambamurthy/CIR

Over the last five years, more than $600 million in college assistance for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans has been spent on California schools so substandard that they have failed to qualify for state financial aid.

As a result, the GI Bill – designed to help veterans live the American dream – is supporting for-profit companies that spend lavishly on marketing but can leave veterans with worthless degrees and few job prospects, The Center for Investigative Reporting found.

“It’s not education; I think it’s just greed,” said David Pace, a 20-year Navy veteran who used the GI Bill to obtain a business degree from the University of Phoenix’s San Diego campus.

David Pace works as a maintenance electrician at Naval Base San Diego, despite having a University of Phoenix degree paid for with GI Bill funds.

Credit: Adithya Sambamurthy/CIR

Although taxpayers spent an estimated $50,000 on Pace’s education, he has the same blue-collar job he landed right after he left the service: running electrical cable for a defense contractor.

Financial records analyzed by CIR show that California is the national epicenter of this problem, with nearly 2 out of every 3 GI Bill dollars going to for-profit colleges.

The University of Phoenix in San Diego outdistances its peers. Since 2009, the campus has received $95 million in GI Bill funds. That’s more than any brick-and-mortar campus in America, more than the entire 10-campus University of California system and all UC extension programs combined.

For the University of Phoenix, this is a sign of success.

“Veterans choose the University of Phoenix,” said Garland Williams, its vice president for military affairs. “The programs we offer are the ones that they desire and lead to careers that they want to aspire to.”

The school’s large share of GI Bill funding reflects more than just the number of veterans enrolling. The programs are expensive. An associate degree costs $395 a credit, for instance – nearly 10 times the cost at a public community college.

The University of Phoenix won’t say how many of its veterans graduate or find jobs, but the overall graduation rate at its San Diego campus is less than 15 percent, according to the U.S. Department of Education, and more than a quarter of students default on their loans within three years of leaving school.

Those figures fall short of the minimum standards set by the California Student Aid Commission, which dispenses state financial aid. The commission considers either a graduation rate lower than 30 percent or a loan default rate of more than 15.5 percent clear indicators of a substandard education.

No such restrictions govern GI Bill funds. And nearly 300 California schools that received GI Bill money either were barred from receiving state financial aid at least once in the past four years or operated without accreditation, CIR has found.

Of the $1.5 billion in GI Bill funds spent on tuition and fees in California since 2009, CIR found that more than 40 percent – $638 million – went to schools that have failed the state financial aid standard at least once in the past four years.

Four of those schools were University of Phoenix campuses, which together took in $225 million.

Among the others are massage schools, paralegal programs and auto repair academies. More than a third – 121 schools – have no academic accreditation, like the Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality in San Francisco and the Pacific Coast Horseshoeing School in Amador County.

This is not what advocates hoped for when they pushed a new GI Bill through Congress in 2008. With its approval, the government for the first time since World War II committed to funding the full cost of a college education for veterans – pegged to the price tag for in-state tuition at the most costly public universities, up to $19,000 a year.

The advocacy group Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America pushed hard for the bill’s passage. The results have been disappointing, said Political Director Kate O’Gorman.

“Enormous amounts of GI Bill dollars” are going to schools that don’t see veterans as the future of the country, she said. Instead, companies are “seeing the benefit dollars they can line their pockets with.”

Education at the University of Phoenix

Iraq and Afghanistan veterans: What's your experience using the GI Bill for education?

Help inform our reporting bysharing your story.

Nationally, the University of Phoenix received nearly $1 billion from the new GI Bill over the last five years. In all, 80,000 veterans of America’s recent wars spent their GI Bill money at 89 of its campuses and its online college, Department of Veterans Affairs data shows.

But it’s impossible to tell whether those veterans are receiving a quality education. In fact, no one from any state or federal government knows whether veterans who go to school on the GI Bill graduate or find jobs.

The University of Phoenix’s San Diego campus doesn’t look like a college. It’s a few mid-rise office buildings in a suburban office park, indistinguishable from the life insurance company that occupies the glass-and-steel structure across the street.

Like all of the other campuses in this for-profit college chain, the buildings here are leased, not owned, so the company can quickly respond to changing market conditions. Faculty members are just as temporary. No instructor has tenure. The vast majority of them are part time.

On a Friday morning in early May, a team of inspectors from the California VA pulled into the parking lot and headed to a conference room, where the college’s staff had laid out piles of student veterans’ transcripts and financial records.

The audit’s purpose is to ensure that GI Bill money is properly spent, but auditors don’t sit in on classes or review the qualifications of instructors. “That’s not a part of the visit at all,” said Latanaya Johnson, one of the agency’s senior inspectors.

Auditors look exclusively at paperwork, she said, to make sure schools aren’t billing the government for students who don’t exist. No one from the state or federal government is checking to see if the education taxpayers are paying for is helping veterans find jobs.

The day before the auditors arrived, Kelly Price Noble taught a graduate course to 17 students, 15 of them veterans. Although the course was on human resources management, Noble spent much of the three-hour session providing tips on how to get a job, rather than how to manage employees.

Don’t talk about your children during a job interview, she advised. “To me as an employer, that means that you don’t want to work overtime or on the weekend. Talk about that after you get hired.”

One of Noble’s students, Joe Ellis, spent 24 years in the Army, serving in Desert Storm, Iraq and Afghanistan. He finished his bachelor’s degree at the University of Phoenix and returned for his master’s while programming fighter jets for a military contractor. He enjoys the camaraderie of learning alongside other veterans.

“You’d be surprised how many guys work for me now that are afraid of computers or dealing with people, and I won’t see that with the guys I … go to school with, because they’re all open,” said Ellis, 49. “The new exposures, the new programs, new people and we realize we’re all the same.”

However, the University of Phoenix is under fire from its accrediting agency. In a public disclosure in October, the Higher Learning Commission said the school failed to show that its “learning resources support student learning and effective teaching.” The commission also found that it didn’t demonstrate “that acquisition of a breadth of knowledge and skills and the exercise of intellectual inquiry are integral to its educational programs.”

“The programs we offer are the ones that (veterans) desire,” says Garland Williams, the University of Phoenix’s vice president for military affairs.

Credit: Carlos A. Moreno for CIR

Williams, the University of Phoenix vice president, downplayed the severity of the sanction, noting that the school was given a year to present a correction plan. But he wouldn’t detail specific failures that led to the sanction, and, as a private company, the University of Phoenix is exempt from public records laws.

“As a university, we have chosen, for various reasons, things that we’re going to disclose,” Williams said.

Officials from the California VA twice have written to the University of Phoenix asking for a complete copy of the accrediting body’s findings, to no avail.

“It concerns us that some schools don’t feel any obligation to provide us with details that are essential for us to establish whether they are effectively serving veterans or not,” said Keith Boylan, the state’s deputy secretary for veterans services.

GI Bill reform efforts blocked

Lawmakers in Washington are well aware that GI Bill money is being wasted. In 2012, Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin, a Democrat and chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, issued a scathing 5,000-page report detailing the practices of 30 large for-profit education firms.

But when Harkin and his colleagues try to solve the problem, they run into a wall of opposition from the for-profit industry.

Among the failed legislation: a bill that would have blocked schools with no academic accreditation from receiving GI Bill money. Another bill, which would have barred for-profit schools from spending GI Bill funds on advertising, marketing or recruiting, never got out of committee.

“We see for-profit school lobbyists consistently on the Hill,” said O’Gorman, of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. “Almost every time the veterans community goes into an office and says, ‘We need these strong reforms and regulations,’ we see a for-profit school lobbyist walking out.”

Since the new GI Bill became law, the University of Phoenix’s corporate parent has spent $4.8 million on lobbying Congress, the White House and the federal VA, according to official lobbying records.

Bridgepoint Education, owner of the almost exclusively online Ashford University, has put $4.6 million toward lobbying; Corinthian Colleges Inc. spent $4.4 million. Education Management Corp. – which controls the for-profit schools South University, Brown Mackie College, Argosy University and the Art Institutes chain – spent $2.8 million.

Now, the legislative fight is moving to the state level, where the for-profit education industry also wields considerable clout.

In California, legislation to prevent schools with low graduation rates and high student loan default rates from receiving GI Bill money was gutted of those measures before its first legislative hearing earlier this year.

At a hearing before the Assembly Higher Education Committee in April, the bill’s author, Democrat Jim Frazier of Fairfield, called the weakened legislation “a reasonable approach to provide the necessary oversight of educational institutions in order to protect the taxpayer investment in our student veterans.”

For-profit colleges continued to oppose the bill, however, because it would have forced schools to tell regulators how many veterans graduate and how many find jobs.

“This is a direct attack on our sector,” Matt Back, a lobbyist for the California Association of Private Postsecondary Schools, told the Assembly Higher Education Committee at the hearing.

A week later, the University of Phoenix’s lobbyist, Scott Govenar, sent a letter to Mike Gatto, D-Burbank, chairman of the Assembly Appropriations Committee. It argued that telling state regulators how many veterans graduate and find jobs would be cumbersome and “of little practical value.”

The bill passed the Assembly at the end of May on a 62-4 vote and headed to the state Senate. But by then, the reporting requirement also had been removed, though unaccredited schools would become ineligible for GI Bill funds in 2017.

Frazier characterized the weakened bill as a first step in a yearslong battle.

“If you try to take too big a bite of the apple in some instances, it’s counterproductive because they fail,” he said. “So you try to go in increments.”

Big spending on marketing, lobbying

Over the last three years, 40 percent of the revenue at the University of Phoenix’s parent company – $5.1 billion – has gone to academic instruction, according to U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filings from the school’s corporate parent, the Apollo Education Group.

During the same period, the for-profit education firm spent $3 billion on marketing and recruiting, while $1.2 billion in student fees turned into profit.

Those numbers are typical of the for-profit education industry.

For example, SEC filings show Ashford University’s parent company, San Diego-based Bridgepoint Education, spent $871 million on marketing and recruiting over the last three years and took in $336 million in profit. Combined, that was more than the firm spent on instruction.

Nationally, Ashford University has received $110 million to educate Iraq and Afghanistan veterans in the last five years. In May, it agreed to pay $7 million to consumers in Iowa after that state’s attorney general, Tom Miller, accused the company of making false statements to prospective students to persuade them to enroll.

“As far as I’m concerned, Ashford committed fraud,” said Patrick Keane, a 20-year Navy veteran from Iowa who spent his GI Bill funds on a teaching program at the online college only to find no schools would recognize the degree.

Representatives of Bridgepoint Education declined to be interviewed, but in a statement, the company said it never promised Keane that he would be able to teach with a degree from Ashford.

Bridgepoint also is being investigated by California Attorney General Kamala Harris.

Last July, she asked a superior court judge in Sacramento to compel the company to provide recordings of telephone calls made by recruiters. The goal, Harris told the court, “is to evaluate whether Bridgepoint has violated California law by making false and misleading statements.”

The investigation has not jeopardized Bridgepoint’s GI Bill money, which continues to flow.

Taxpayer dollars also continued to pay for veterans to attend the for-profit college chains Heald College, Everest College and WyoTech – even after their corporate parent, Corinthian Colleges, was sued by Harrisin October for false and predatory advertising, intentional misrepresentations to students, securities fraud and unlawful use of military seals.

The company has received $184 million to educate 12,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans at 98 campuses across the country over the last five years, according to VA records.

The attorney general’s lawsuit cites internal company documents, obtained by the state, in which Corinthian describes its target demographic as “isolated,” “impatient” individuals with “low self-esteem” who have “few people in their lives who care about them” and who are “stuck” and “unable to see and plan for the future.”

On June 24, the California Department of Veterans Affairs issued a ruling forbidding Corinthian's colleges from enrolling any new students on the GI Bill after the company was sanctioned by the U.S. Department of Education. But the company is allowed to continue accepting taxpayer money for veterans who already are enrolled, and the firm continues to recruit veterans to attend its colleges in other states.

In an interview, former Marine Cpl. Moses Maddox said the University of Phoenix also targets veterans’ vulnerabilities.

Maddox served in Iraq as a mortuary affairs specialist during the 2004 siege of Fallujah. When he returned home, he went to work for the University of Phoenix’s parent company as a recruiter, calling up to 100 veterans a day.

“My job was to assess their fear and then harp on that fear, capitalize on that fear and get them to buy,” said Maddox, 33. He said he was so disgusted by the company’s recruiting practices that he quit and rejoined the military for 16 months.

The University of Phoenix says high-pressure tactics are not tolerated. Williams bristles at the word “recruiters.” The company calls them “enrollment advisers,” many of whom are veterans themselves.

“They take this as a calling,” he said. “They have fought with these people. They have led them into battle, and they want to lead them to the next place in their transition, to their civilian education.”

After business degree, no office job

At 4:30 in the morning, David Pace is up, getting ready for work running electrical cable on ships at Naval Base San Diego. He takes a 2-gallon jug of water out of his freezer and puts it in his insulated lunch bag.

“It’s hot on that boat. It’s hot as hell outside,” says Pace, 43, as he walks, keys jangling, toward the door of the three-bedroom apartment he shares with his wife, two college-age daughters and 2-year-old grandson.

During his 20 years with the Navy, Pace spent time on nearly every continent, delivering humanitarian aid to civilians in Somalia and India. During the Gulf War in 1991 and the Iraq War, he maintained video systems in the Persian Gulf that monitored airplanes as they came and went on their bombing runs.

Navy veteran David Pace holds his University of Phoenix business degree. When he looked for a job, he said no employer seemed to respect his degree.

Credit: Courtesy of David Pace

Before he retired in 2009, Pace met a University of Phoenix recruiter, who he says told him he could turn his military experience into academic credit and graduate in 18 months. That would have left Pace with enough GI Bill money to pursue a master’s degree.

But that’s not what happened.

A year into his 18-month plan, Pace was told he would have to take 10 additional classes to graduate – adding another year and a half to his schooling.

The University of Phoenix declined to comment on Pace’s case but denied any pattern of deception in its recruiting practices.

By the time Pace graduated, his GI Bill was used up. When he looked for a job in the business world, he said no employer seemed to respect his degree.

So instead of working in an office, every day, Pace gets up early and spends his day carrying 50-pound spools of cable for his job as a maintenance electrician.

“It’s hot, cramped and dirty,” he said of the work. “The most frustrating part about it is that I could have come right out of the Navy and got this job without the time and the headache.”

This story was edited by Amy Pyle and copy edited by Nikki Frick and Christine Lee.

Dr. David Suzuki on Education for a Changing Biosphere

noreply@blogger.com (Philosopher3000) — Tue, 29 Apr 2014 22:57:00 +0000

Changing the future of Higher Education during the coming global crisis.

BBC Education Revolution Documentary (listen online)

noreply@blogger.com (Philosopher3000) — Tue, 22 Apr 2014 10:31:00 +0000

Learning with Videos and Video Games

The Education Revolution Episode 1 of 2

Sarah Montague asks what the classroom of the future will look like.

In the first programme, she travels to Silicon Valley, home of the Khan Academy.

The Khan Academy is an online teaching service whose mission is to provide a free world-class education to anyone, anywhere. In Bill Gates' view, it's "a radical rethinking of what it means to go to school". With 10 million users every month logging onto their online videos, Salman Khan - the Academy's founder - is arguably the most important teacher in the world.

Sarah visits schools that are using technology in revolutionary new ways. And she talks to Nolan Bushnell, the "father of modern video gaming". His latest venture is a company called BrainRush. Bushnell believes children can learn almost anything through video games.

We meet Rupert Murdoch's head of education, Joel Klein. His company has developed a tablet that they're rolling out to schools across America.

We ask is this the future of education? Have traditional teaching methods outlived their usefulness? And how do children learn best?

Pay for performance at Rocket Ship Academy in San Jose, CA.

Duration:: 25 minutes

First broadcast:: Tuesday 22 April 2014

Being a TEACHER means learning how each individual child learns.

noreply@blogger.com (Philosopher3000) — Wed, 16 Apr 2014 05:19:00 +0000

The trick is knowing your subject and learning how people learn. The human mind is a complex biological machine with all the flaws and abilities that entails. Each person is unique, each day is unique, and that is why the ART of teaching requires a personal interaction, and can't be done by my computer.

This is how Charter Schools Undermine Public Education

noreply@blogger.com (Philosopher3000) — Tue, 08 Apr 2014 18:09:00 +0000

Charter Schools, like High Tech High and High Tech High International in San Diego, are often lauded as giving 'choice' to parents of public school children, but they use public tax money and then discriminate against kids. They get to pick and choose the best students and leave the tough students, those with learning disabilities or social problems to the regular public school system.

This is unacceptable. Any school that uses PUBLIC MONEY should not be allowed to discriminate. When TEACHERS fail to teach students, those teachers should be held accountable. The students should not be thrown out of the school when the school fails to teach.

The story below details one charter school network that uses "high standards" as an excuse to expel 'problem students'.

From Here and Now:
We’ve been hearing about the push by civil rights groups and the Obama Administration to end so-called “zero tolerance” discipline policies in schools, which suspend and expel students for often minor infractions.

The critics say it cuts kids out of the education process and puts them in a “school-to-prison pipeline.” The schools say it raises standards.

One group of schools in particular is relying on discipline quite a bit. The Illinois state board of education found that in the publicly-funded Noble Network of Charter Schools, which has 14 campuses in Chicago, 23 percent of students were suspended in 2013. That’s compared to 9 percent suspended at area public schools.

Noble students received infractions for everything from being less than a minute late, to not sitting up straight. Noreen S. Ahmed-Ullah has been writing about this in the Chicago Tribune and joins Here & Now’s Robin Young with details.

Why Are Americans So Inclined to Disrespect Children?

noreply@blogger.com (Philosopher3000) — Sat, 05 Apr 2014 07:17:00 +0000

April 4, 2014 | Reproduced from Alternet

Although being an adult necessarily means we have all been children, as e. e. cummings suggests [3], growing up is often forgetting. My own experiences as a teacher and a parent have helped me remember what it means to be a child—but they have also caused me a great deal of anxiety about how we view and treat both children and childhood in the U.S.
In one of my early years of teaching [4], I found myself in the exact room at the rural upstate South Carolina high school where I had once been a student. It was the first day of school and I was calling that first roll—a sort of silly but important ritual of schooling for both teachers and students. Just about everyone knows everyone in my hometown, and we are very familiar with the common names of the town. When I came to one young man’s name I recognized, I took the opportunity to make a joke. Rather than pronouncing his name, Billy Laughter (it rhymes with slaughter), correctly, I chose instead to call out "Billy Laff-ter" (rhyming the name with after).
Smiling at my own humor, I scanned the room and then turned my eyes back to Billy; he was red-faced and on the edge of having a very bad first day, one that was likely going to result in his being punished for my having done a very stupid thing. I quickly raised my hand, palm facing him, and apologized. “Billy, my mistake,” I said. “I’m sorry. I was trying to be funny but it wasn’t.” And then I said his name correctly.

Billy had suffered a lifetime of people mangling his name, and he wasn’t in any mood for my being clever on the first day of school.

Several years later, I was teaching a U.S. history class as part of my usual load as a member of the English department. While I was having students form small groups, two young white males bumped into each other, back to back, while moving their desks. I caught the moment out of the corner of my eye and rushed over to defuse the fight that was clearly about to occur.
I wasn’t surprised—this was typical of my small community, along with fights starting because “he/she looked at me wrong.” But some time after this, I read a research study that explained how people in the South and North handle personal space differently. In the South, bumping into someone or looking at someone wrong is often interpreted as challenging someone’s honor, requiring a response. People in the North, conditioned by mass transit and crowded cities are not as apt to find acts of close proximity anything other than that.

Like Billy Laughter above, these young men were on the precipice of being treated as we would treat adults—as if fighting is simple to punish, an obvious and clear wrong. In school, our rules are often shaped in ways that suggest we view children as little adults—and that often means that with children there are no excuses, no explanations.

I want to add just one more event from those middle years of my teaching. While running a drill at soccer practice one day, I heard a comment from a player in a group behind me. I thought I recognized the offender's voice: he was difficult in class and on the team, and worst of all, he was very disruptive at practice. I turned and, without hesitating, announced, “You are out of here."
Throwing him out of practice? No, I kicked him off the team.

As the young man was walking up the hill, a timid player on the team said, “Coach, that was me.”
I had just kicked a young man off the team who had not, in fact, said a thing.
***

A day or so ago, I received an email from Alfie Kohn [5] about his new book, The Myth of the Spoiled Child [6]. I noticed it was similar to a book I am co-editing, Pedagogies of Kindness and Respect: On the Lives and Education of Children. [7] I also noted that our perspectives on children—on how parents, teachers, and society treat children—appears to be a minority view.
I have been mulling, or more likely stewing, about this for some time: What makes adults—even the ones who choose to spend their lives with children—so damned negative and hateful about those children?

That is the source of my palpable anger at the “grit,” [8]“no excuses,” [9] and “zero tolerance” [10] narratives and policies.

I grew up and live in the South, where the default attitude toward children remains that they are to be seen and not heard, that a child’s role is to do as she/he is told. If a child crosses those lines, then we must teach her/him a lesson, show her/him who is boss—rightfully, we are told, by hitting that child: spare the rod spoil the child. I find that same deficit view of children is not some backwoods remnant of the ignorant South; it is the dominant perspective on children throughout the U.S.

As Barbara Kingsolver explains in “Everybody’s Somebody’s Baby” [11]:

For several months I’ve been living in Spain, and while I have struggled with the customs office, jet lag, dinner at midnight and the subjunctive tense, my only genuine culture shock has reverberated from this earthquake of a fact: People here like kids. They don’t just say so, they do. Widows in black, buttoned-down c.e.o.’s, purple-sneakered teen-agers, the butcher, the baker, all have stopped on various sidewalks to have little chats with my daughter. Yesterday, a taxi driver leaned out his window to shout “ Hola, guapa !” My daughter, who must have felt my conditioned flinch, looked up at me wide-eyed and explained patiently, “I like it that people think I’m pretty.”
With a mother’s keen myopia, I would tell you, absolutely, my daughter is beautiful enough to stop traffic. But in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, I have to confess, so is every other person under the height of one meter. Not just those who agree to be seen and not heard. When my daughter gets cranky in a restaurant (and really, what do you expect at midnight?), the waiters flirt and bring her little presents and nearby diners look on with that sweet, wistful gleam of eye that before now I have only seen aimed at the dessert tray. Children are the meringues and eclairs of this culture. Americans, it seems to me now, sometimes regard children as a sort of toxic-waste product: a necessary evil, maybe, but if it’s not their own they don’t want to see it or hear it or, God help us, smell it.

I just don’t get it.

A child is not a small adult, not a blank slate to be filled with our “adult weariness,” [12] or a broken human that must be repaired. It is also true that children are not angels; they are not pure creatures suited to be set free to find the world on their own. Seeing children through deficit or ideal lenses does not serve them—or anyone—well.

Within the U.S. culture there is a schizophrenia around kids—we worship young adulthood in popular media, but seem to hate children—that is multiplied exponentially by a lingering racism and classism that compounds the deficit view of childhood. Nowhere is this more evident than in the research showing how people view children of color [13]:

Asked to identify the age of a young boy that committed a felony, participants in a study routinely overestimated the age of black children far more than they did white kids. Worse: Cops did it, too...
The correlation between dehumanization and use of force becomes more significant when you consider that black boys are routinely estimated to be older than they are...
The less the black kids were seen as human, the less they were granted “the assumption that children are essentially innocent.” And those officers who were more likely to dehumanize black suspects overlapped with those who used more force against them.

In the enduring finger-pointing dominant in the U.S.—blaming the poor for their poverty, blaming racial minorities for the burdens of racism, blaming women for the weight of sexism—we maintain a gaze that blinds us to ourselves, and allows us to ignore that in that gaze are reflections of the worst among us.

Why do the police sweep poor African American neighborhoods and not college campuses in search of illegal drugs? Why do we place police in the hallways of urban high schools serving mostly poor African American and Latino students, demanding “zero tolerance”? Why are “grit” narratives and “no excuses” policies almost exclusively targeting high-poverty, majority-minority schools (often charter schools with less public oversight)?

When I raise these questions, I can rest assured I will inspire the same sort of nasty response I often encounter when cycling. A few motorists make their anger known when we are riding our bicycles, and I am convinced that while some are genuinely frustrated with our temporarily blocking the road, the real reason they are angry is that we are enjoying ourselves as children do.
And nothing angers a bitter adult as much as the pleasures of a child.

Children are not empty vessels to be filled, blank hard drives upon which we save the data we decide they should have. Nor are children flawed or wild; they do not need us to repair or break them.

Neither are they to be coddled or worshipped. They are children, and they are all our children [14].

Yes, there are lessons to be taught, lessons to be learned. But those driven by deficit or idealized views are corrupted and corrupting lessons. Each and every child—as all adults—deserves to have her/his basic dignity respected, first, and as adults charged with the care of any child, our initial question before we do anything with or to a child must be about ourselves.

In 31 years of teaching, I can still see and name the handful of students I mis-served in my career, like Billy above. Those faces and names today serve as my starting point: with any child, first do no harm.

What happens when you 'Track' students by ability VS mixing them?

noreply@blogger.com (Philosopher3000) — Wed, 26 Mar 2014 16:08:00 +0000

For some reason, American Educators have failed to either pay attention, study, or investigate this fundamental question about the nature of education that almost any student can quickly answer with common sense.

What happens when you divide students into groups based upon ability and have them compete?

Here is a report about what the US Air Force found: http://www.npr.org/2014/03/26/294639911/air-force-academy-squadrons-test-peer-effect-assumptions

When American Public Schools started teaching in small, one-room school houses in rural towns, they would mix not only ability, but age groups from K-12 in the same class. The older kids would help the younger kids learn, and smart kids would help teach. In this way they learned to cooperate, to see the value in each other, and respect their peers. The older and smarter kids benefited by mastering and retaining the knowledge they learned, and gained status in their communities. The less talented children were supported and learned far more than they would have alone. The entire town benefited from the social cohesion, and teamwork.

Tracking students into competitive groups before college is a socially dangerous and unnecessary practice. Elementary students should never be put under pressure to compete, Middle-School students should only compete in groups or classes, and High-School students should only compete in specifically defined competitive events such as science fairs, sports competitions, or poetry slams. In school, the teachers should be trained to use the fastest students to help tutor and encourage the slower students in each subject, with special attention given to the middle students as both the social glue and the ultimate gage of the mass class success.

When we work together in education, we achieve more. This is a particularly important lesson for teachers, who need to cooperate and coach each other to deal with problem students, and maximize performance. Leaving failing teachers to struggle on their own only hurts the students.

California Education Master Plan Fails, so the powers that be change it to redefine success.

noreply@blogger.com (Phil) — Sun, 26 Jan 2014 14:33:00 +0000

From the California Report

A lot of us who came up through public schools in particular have a great deal of affection for the Master Plan. It's a pledge to California school kids that -- whatever your economic situation -- the state will offer you some form of higher education, based on your academic qualifications. Is that pledge now up for debate? - See more at: http://www.californiareport.org/archive/R201401241630/a#sthash.OGGeVoLN.dpuf

I grew up in CA, I went to Community Colleges and UC. We must spend ANY AMOUNT necessary to make sure that future students have every opportunity to fulfill their potential. Every student needs the opportunity to succeed, regardless of economic status. Stop paying anyone in CA Higher Education more than 5 times the average household income of the people we serve (currently $300,000/yr).

Kahn Academy - College Prep, how to fix public schools (if you can't wait)

noreply@blogger.com (Philosopher3000) — Fri, 24 Jan 2014 15:22:00 +0000

Republished without permission from: http://www.khanacademy.org/about/blog/post/73523611998/khan-academy-launches-new-college-prep-initiative

Khan Academy launches new college prep initiative

Thu, 16 Jan 2014 12:23:00

There is a big issue in the education system today. Two out of every three students are not prepared for college level math courses and over half of all 4-year college students do not graduate within 6 years. These students often take on a lot of debt and can’t finish their degrees. Worst of all, they then miss out on today’s most exciting careers because they lack the skills.

“2 out every 3 students are not prepared for college level math courses”

Given our mission to provide a free world-class education for anyone, anywhere, we’ve been hard at work to increase our college prep content. So, when the White House called (wait, did you say the White House?!) to invite Khan Academy to help students in Higher Ed reach their potential, how could we say no? We had already been creating new math and college prep materials, and saw the opportunity to make an even bigger impact.

Today, Sal was honored to discuss our higher education efforts at the White House and Khan Academy launched a new college prep initiative. We plan to expand this resource over the next few months, and especially look forward to providing college study aids to help students prepare for math placement tests and courses.

“Already, Khan Academy’s free math resources are helping college hopefuls…today, Khan Academy launched a new college prep initiative.”

Already, Khan Academy’s free resources are helping college hopefuls. Our team was particularly inspired by this young man, whose story was captured on the Humans of New York blog.

"I was born in Egypt…The first time I went to an actual school was middle school, but the whole school was in one classroom, and I was working as a delivery boy to help the family. It was illegal for me to be working that young, but I did. When I finally got into high school, my house burned down. We moved into a Red Cross Shelter, and the only way we could live there is if we all worked as volunteers. I got through high school by watching every single video on Khan Academy, and teaching myself everything that I had missed during the last nine years. Eventually I got into Queens College. I went there for two years and I just now transferred to Columbia on a scholarship."

We would find our efforts well worth it just to impact one student’s life. But what’s incredibly motivating for our team is that we hear of stories like his every single day.

We are humbled to be partnering with the White House on such an important initiative, and are excited about the potential these free resources will unleash.

Get started with our college prep resources today and learn more about our new college admissions resources here.

To check out more information on the White House’s Expanding College Opportunity, click here.

College on the internet - For the price of your time and effort.

noreply@blogger.com (Philosopher3000) — Thu, 02 Jan 2014 16:01:00 +0000

The wealth of knowledge once reserved for the Ivy League Elite is now being released for free on the internet, power to the people! In the beginning information traveled slow, knowledge was confined to a few buildings around the globe that are guarded by high entry fees and standardized test scores. The number of individuals who could gain access to information was kept to a short acceptance list while many were given an Access Denied.

But then like a swift kick in the face, the internet came along and changed everything! From media to commerce, the education system is no exception to the tornado that is the world wide web. Where once higher education was reserved for those who could pay the toll, the internet, in all its divinity has endowed us with a free higher education experience for all those who have a connection to the great and powerful Wi-Fi. Here are just a few amazing online institutes that offer free college courses for the good people of planet earth, enjoy and never stop learning!

Khan Academy
Khan Academy wants to help you learn almost anything for free! Their mission is to provide a free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere. All of their resources are completely free forever, regardless of whether you’re a student, teacher, home-schooler, principal, adult returning to the classroom after 20 years, or a friendly alien just trying to get a leg up in earthly biology.

EdX
EdX is a non-profit created by founding partners Harvard and MIT. Bringing the best of higher education to students around the world, EdX offers MOOCs (Massive Open Online Course) and interactive online classes in subjects including law, history, science, engineering, business, social sciences, computer science, public health, and artificial intelligence (AI).

Coursera
Coursera is an education company that partners with the top universities and organizations in the world to offer courses online for anyone to take, for free. Their technology enables their partners to teach millions of students around the world rather than just hundreds. “We envision a future where everyone has access to a world-class education that has so far been available to a select few. We aim to empower people with education that will improve their lives, the lives of their families, and the communities they live in.”

MIT OpenCourseWare “The idea is simple: to publish all of our course materials online and make them widely available to everyone.” -Dick K.P. Yue, Professor, MIT School of Engineering MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW) is a web-based publication of virtually all MIT course content. OCW is open and available to the world and is a permanent MIT activity. Now the wealth of knowledge from one of the most prestigious technology schools in the world, is now available at your finger tips, without the massive tuition prices and near perfect SAT scores.

ALISON
ALISON is a two million-strong, global online learning community, filled with free, high-quality resources to help you develop essential, certified workplace skills. “Our mission at ALISON is simple: to enable you, wherever you are in the world, to learn and get certified new skills – at your own pace – using our free, interactive, multimedia.” There are over 500 free courses for you to choose from at ALISON. Every course is standards-based and certified, which means bragging rights with family and friends, an edge in your first job or new job, and inspiration to be all you can be.

Bookboon.com
Bookboon.com originates from Denmark, out of Ventus Publishing, established in 1988. Ever since it was founded, the company has focused on publishing education related books for business professionals and students. In 2005 the company made a strategic leap and became the first book publishing company in the world to focus 100% on free eBooks. Ever since, the company has been aiming to set new standards in the world of modern publishing based on the readers’ needs.

Open Yale Courses
Open Yale Courses (OYC) provides lectures and other materials from selected Yale College courses to the public free of charge via the Internet. The courses span the full range of liberal arts disciplines, including humanities, social sciences, and physical and biological sciences.

It is important to note that for now, the majority of these places like do not offer college credit nor a degree, but it brings up a very interesting question. In the pursuit of knowledge is a degree really the only thing that matters? If you learn a skill or trade is proof by action not enough, or does the piece of paper need to be acquired. There are many people in possession of high degrees because they are good at going to school but are still quite incompetent.

Too much emphasis is put on the degree and not enough on actual skills,talents and knowledge. I don’t know about you, but if i learned how to build a Zero-Point Energy Fuel System from MIT, I’m gonna build that Zero-point Energy Fuel System. It is the experience and knowledge you learn along the way, not the piece of paper at the end of the gift shop that says “you where here” that matters. Let your actions speak louder than a degree.

Read More: http://www.whydontyoutrythis.com/2013/10/a-college-education-can-now-be-found-on-the-internet-for-free.html | Follow us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/whydontyoutrythis

Poverty, Potential, Genius.

noreply@blogger.com (Philosopher3000) — Mon, 30 Dec 2013 23:49:00 +0000

The new teachers. From Wired

“THE BOTTOM LINE IS, IF YOU’RE NOT THE ONE CONTROLLING YOUR LEARNING, YOU’RE NOT GOING TO LEARN AS WELL.”

Juárez Correa didn’t know it yet, but he had happened on an emerging educational philosophy, one that applies the logic of the digital age to the classroom. That logic is inexorable: Access to a world of infinite information has changed how we communicate, process information, and think. Decentralized systems have proven to be more productive and agile than rigid, top-down ones. Innovation, creativity, and independent thinking are increasingly crucial to the global economy.

And yet the dominant model of public education is still fundamentally rooted in the industrial revolution that spawned it, when workplaces valued punctuality, regularity, attention, and silence above all else. (In 1899, William T. Harris, the US commissioner of education, celebrated the fact that US schools had developed the “appearance of a machine,” one that teaches the student “to behave in an orderly manner, to stay in his own place, and not get in the way of others.”) We don’t openly profess those values nowadays, but our educational system—which routinely tests kids on their ability to recall information and demonstrate mastery of a narrow set of skills—doubles down on the view that students are material to be processed, programmed, and quality-tested. School administrators prepare curriculum standards and “pacing guides” that tell teachers what to teach each day. Legions of managers supervise everything that happens in the classroom; in 2010 only 50 percent of public school staff members in the US were teachers.

The results speak for themselves: Hundreds of thousands of kids drop out of public high school every year. Of those who do graduate from high school, almost a third are “not prepared academically for first-year college courses,” according to a 2013 report from the testing service ACT. The World Economic Forum ranks the US just 49th out of 148 developed and developing nations in quality of math and science instruction. “The fundamental basis of the system is fatally flawed,” says Linda Darling-Hammond, a professor of education at Stanford and founding director of the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future. “In 1970 the top three skills required by the Fortune 500 were the three Rs: reading, writing, and arithmetic. In 1999 the top three skills in demand were teamwork, problem-solving, and interpersonal skills. We need schools that are developing these skills.”

That’s why a new breed of educators, inspired by everything from the Internet to evolutionary psychology, neuroscience, and AI, are inventing radical new ways for children to learn, grow, and thrive. To them, knowledge isn’t a commodity that’s delivered from teacher to student but something that emerges from the students’ own curiosity-fueled exploration. Teachers provide prompts, not answers, and then they step aside so students can teach themselves and one another. They are creating ways for children to discover their passion—and uncovering a generation of geniuses in the process.

Gopnik’s research is informed in part by advances in artificial intelligence. If you program a robot’s every movement, she says, it can’t adapt to anything unexpected. But when scientists build machines that are programmed to try a variety of motions and learn from mistakes, the robots become far more adaptable and skilled. The same principle applies to children, she says.