Seeking a New Skills Revolution

Original Article - Check the comments
Executive Summary for Tough Choices or Tough Times
- First empression: Accountability is all over the places. The proposed changes are enomarous and may not be practicle. What good it is if no one is going to adopt it. I don't know if it's realistic. It propose a mass production of high quality worker while detail less on how those works will be created. Is it realistic to assum that US will house all the high quality job while others will not? It does not consider if US are too late in the game. We have to realize that if we are too late in the game, the only choice we will have is to hope to achieve a sustainable society other than a elite society.

Summary goes here!

US should 'focus its economy on high end products and services'. Which is the right approach. The question is how. Everyone will say: through education. The problem is, this is no small job.



Without making students take up responsibilities, any system will fail. Public funding schools does not mean everyone entitle to go to school - just like not everyone got to be governnor. Yes, not all students are for college, but we still need provide them appropriate future.

State Spending Continues to Climb

Original Article

Summary goes here!

Let's see if any of these exceed the inflation rate? The state pending cap?

Tuition Tax Break Extended

Original Article

Summary goes here! - still working on...

This way of please voter have been carried out for quite a while.
I, however, wonder if this solve the real problem and if this is the right policy. Or if this should be part of a bigger picture.

A demoncartic system requires people take their own responsibilities and using public resources to help those un-fortunate. Governments can't afford to let people slip away from their responsibilities. One way to prompt people to take their responsibility is through compansation. In this view, this seem to be a reasonable approach. The Tax Break won't cover all cost, so people have to value the education enough to spend their own money.

Like some of the comments said, how about those can't afford to go to colleges? Do we consider them the un-fortunate? Or if it's fare for parent that making more money be 'required' to pay their kids' college cost? Should we simply send qualified kids at no cost?

Feeling the Winds From Washington

Original Article - Again, the comments there are of no construction.

Summary goes here!

As acknowleged by some academics, there are problems. A question should also asked is how we build a system that will reduce the chances for these problems to happen. As we all know, self monitoring is problematic in human history.

As one also point out that the Spellings give them more chances in examing their systems.

Endless debates on fair admission

Original Article

Drafts to be re-written

Idea:
Everone have equal chances
--Library
--Internet Chat
Test is not coachable
--Study more and hard should not be considered coachable.
--Test need be written so that it test the 'real knowledge'.
Admission is based purly on score


Q:

1. Will diversity still a questions if the above goal is obtained?
2. Message: The door is open to any race, as long as you can excel the test. This is open to all.

Suppose, no race info is given at admission, there will then be no question about race(name is another clue). Institution will then be race blind. The question is then on how to achieve the equal chances for all kids. K12 does not cost a dime that is a ground. Library is free, that is race blind. Teacher speak to all kids that is race blind. The GPA may be race biased. So use standard test - which is race blind. Parent help - teacher should do better so that parent help doesn't help.
Assuming all parent do is watching but not teaching or at least wouldn't help in grade.

Diversity operation is against fairness! They simply can't be co-exist in principle. Even in a pure race blind environment, there are other factors that will randered the un-diversity. The insist on diversity is simply another non-blind, biased factor.

Do we favor the diversity or the fairness?
Fairness brings in diversity in nature process while the diversity brings in fairness in artifacture.

The Need for Another Sputnik

Original Article - Problem in science education - lake motivation

Summary goes here!

‘To get a good job after graduation: 64 percent’ — Well. Do our college courses designed for this? — It doesn’t mean it’s a good thing, but we do need understand students’ need in order to communicate with them.

‘They think it is too difficult: 44 percent’ — Well. Indeed it is and which is not going to change. It seems this is a social problem. Our kids just don’t like hard work. How to solve this?

I used to hear a saying that “China’s leader are engineers while US’ leader are politicians” — No. I don’t think it’s always true. But this give us something to think about. Were scientists in US given more respects or spotlights than politicians or pop star?

I read a story about a high-achieving engineer who decided to go back to school and earn a MBA degree because his counterparts made more money than he did’.

Well. If science is going to be hard and low rewarding, I don’t think many people are motivated to learn it. We can make it mandatory but that will only achieve the facial value?

I wonder if in our society, there is a mind set that scientists are ONLY good at science and that they make no good management decisions. The thing is that if scientists were able to comprehend the hard stuff, why we think they will have trouble understand management? Sometimes, chances is all it take to give people motivated. On the ohter hand, without good tech. background, how a general manager can make good tech. decisions?

By the way, Intel used to be led by CEOs with tech. background.

Consensus (or Not) About Comparability

Original Article - On Spellings' accreditation meeting

Summary goes here!

This is a big task and I still feel that establishing a new accreditation type for for-profit institutions is a good start. For one, for-profit institutions is the one that is likely to run out of control and if there isn't any mechanism to objectively rectify these institutions there will be a lot of diploma mill. On the other hand, these new accreditation type can drive the cost down due to the competetion. Given time, these institution will grow and will push some traditional institutions to adjust their operation. Some of them may choose to run like for-profit and some of them may opt to offer qualities that can't be offered by low cost for-profit institutions - like research oriented trainings.

First on the Docket: Accreditation

Original Article - Accreditaion may be the first step taken by US DOE on hihger ed.

Let's give public alternatives by accrediting for-profit with objective measurements.

In light of the recent public call for accountability and the hardship for traditional institution to adopt changes. An alternative is to give public choices and let the public decide.

The alternative accreditation can based on measurable outcomes and since the outcome is what employer care about, students came out of these accreditaion can have direct employ perspectives. And this could potentially be the expectation of a lot of students and parents. The two pieces of information required from these institutions will be the % of graduates that pass the professional test and the percent of students that graduates.

The idea behind these two measurements are:

1. It gives students and parents an expectable value - % of graduates that can pass the professional test and, therefore, an expected job offering.
2. It hold the students responsible to be able to fall inside the % of students who do graduate.

It is important to realized that what we really should be interested in is the quality of the graduates and is not the quantity of the graduates. The % of students graduate serves the purpose of infoming students and parents the possiblity they will graduate. As point out by Dr. Abdul-Rahim Ahmad, commenting the article 'RateMyProfessors: Hidden Camera Edition', the majority of the reponsibility of graduating is in the hand of the students. The quality of institution is warranted by the % that passing the certificates, it is student's responsibility to advanced into the group that will graduate.

The certificate exam may have different levels, for BS and BA certificates, it can includes items that measuring the general education.

With this approach, traditional institutions have no reason to object. For one, it does not affect their status and practice. For two, it is also them that call for strick regulation on for-profit instituttions. For for-profit institutions, they got alternatives to the traditional accreditation approaches. They can decide on which way is a best fit to their mission. For policy makers, they answered to public's call for quality and effectiveness by leveling the playground and let the most effective and the most effecient institutions win.

Making Sense of ‘Bologna Degrees’

Original Article

Summary goes here!

I thought there were a lot of opposition against assess US higher ed. But it seems, after all, people here agree that content is much more important then the formality of year. Or maybe we should extend this a bit to the formality of our bachelor title - I do agree with Claude Pressnell's concern that their 3 year may not be uniform either.

But the key here is the competency of the students. How can we best measure it? Or, just let them in and see how long it take them to graduate - which can be a waste of resources but it can still be fair.

About the general education - America need really think about this! I would say things that deem necessary to become a responsible citizen should be mandate in K12. We also should realize that even if you have committed to a major, you can still enrol in other class for the sake of broaden your content. Graduate school can still require it if it is essntial to meet their quality of graduation.

Does ‘Value Added’ Add Value?

Original Article

Measuring student learning does not necessarily answers the questions people want to know about the value of higher education. Tailored assessment serve less to help American to distiguish claims from a diploma mill to that of a genuine institution. Using Professional Service Provider like ETS to proivde assessment services is plausable.

This is a very nice article. The question asked:"whether measuring student learning necessarily answers the questions people want to know about the value of higher education” is a very good one. Young’s statement “We cannot substitute value added for basic competencies” is particularly thoughtful.

Some of the comments on the articles angered about the notion that US Higher Ed haven’t done anything about the accountability. But, this is really not necessary. This is the America, everyone got chances to present their cases.

The question here isn’t about how greate US higher ed is but about how to best serve the American — not just those brightest but the American in general. To most American, they probably not concerned about MIT and Cal Tech at all. But they could well be interested in anything went below those elite institutions.

Tailored assessment is good in fitting the goal of a institution but serve less to help American to distiguish claims from a diploma mill to that of a genuine institution — the example is extreme, but you got the idea. If you have not so bright a kid and you are facing the choices. You will think about the good old consumer market that you know what you are paying for. This is what facing most of the American these days.

The variation in assessments will always be there. But making the result available to public is a big step toward answering people’s question about the value of higher education. Think about those product reviews you find on BestBuy or CircuitCity’s website. They are diverse and probably have no statistical value. But, I found them quite useful.

For institutions that care so much about the accuracy, it may not be a bad idea to provide official info to deter people from judging institutions based on anonymous reviews.

I certainly understand that there are millions of factors to address and there probably no single solution to fit all. But how about the professional certificates, aren’t they some kind of multi-institutional assessments? Wouldn’t those results be good information to answer public’s call for accountability?

Ben J's comments provide a good reason in using Professional Service Provider like ETS to proivde assessment services.

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It's good to see there are a lot of assessement going on. I like what Fayetteville State's Young “We cannot substitute value added for basic competencies.”

The question: "Whether measuring student learning necessarily answers the questions people want to know about the value of higher education ?" is very well asked.

For one, institutions could have more publicly announce these results - but there may be some institution would not publish their result. What public concern is how do we make good investment with their money? What they need is information! It seems to me public is ready to assume their responsiblity in searching for what their money's worth but could not find enough information. When you searching for a DVD player, you do the research and make the decision. Once you made the decision, in general, there is not much you can complain about since you made that decision on what price and feature you are willing to pay for it.

Of cause students learn things at their work place, but if what they learn at work place contribute in any significant amout to the said measure, I can only say the measurement isn't a good one in measuring values provided by that institution.

Rate My Professors: Hidden Camera Edition

Original Article

The success of rate-my-professor sites are the result of institutions' ignoring of their customer.

A lot of institutions conduct student evaluations on their instructors. But very few of them make it public information. The success of these kind of rate-my-professor sites are count on the failures of institution's responses to their customer.

Part of my view of the future learning includes pre-made lecture material, a group of tutors/advisors that provides assistant. Students study by themselves and contact assistants when needed. In this settings, the feedback of students is very important. The feedbacks don't have to be black and white. The feedback can actually reflect an assistant's personal styles and can be particular helpful to certain kinds of students. Institutions and instructors shouldn't see the feedback as a negative things.

With diverse learning behaviors, we need diverse teaching styles.

More reading at the repository!

Continue to graduate school

A Description of 1992-93 Bachelor's Degree Recipients 10 Years Later

Summary goes here!

40% of Bacheler enroll at Graduate School.
25% complete in 10 year
9.4% left without degree

• Higher percentage of hispanic and black enrolled in Graduate School - these are those best in their race and are more motivated.
• Asian still completed with higher rate (culture, family support??)
• Counting completed and still enroll, Hispanic and Black still come up in top
• Women enroll more but also left-without-degree more
• The younger the likely they will enroll and complete and sustain. All age have similar left-without-degree rate
• Natural Science, Education and social science have least of 49% going rate and completion rate. Natural science have low sustaining rate and education have highest left-without-degree rate.
• The sooner they enroll, the more success they will.
• Private graduates are more likely to enroll and success (more resource in supporting them?)
• Full time jobber are less likely to enroll but with higher successful rate ( less study time or more job restiction, stable, more resources? )
• 
  

‘In Pursuit of Knowledge’

Original Article

Summary goes here!

The interview confirms my view of the prestige status of traditional institution and the need of objective measurement of student outcome and toward the commericial practice!

UC talks of wider entrance policy NON-ACADEMIC SUCCESS WEIGHED

Original Article
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Summary goes here!

Providing education to greater population is never a bad thing. However, we need be practicle in that resources are limited, the goal is to advance the human race with reasonable resources. The term Advance the human race should include working ethic and not just the knowledge. We can invest all the resources we have in education without any restriction, but will that advance the human race? We may end up with everyone are equally poor - the practice of communist.

New Salvos on Affirmative Action

Original Article

Summary goes here!

- Here we go again. No one ever think about what given equal chances mean. A policy of equal is so important in a society to establish a responsible society. Without properly defined equal, people are confused and easily extend the definition to where their heart went. Human are made of soft heart, the spirit of sharing and, therefore, constantly, extended the definition without asking logical questions. This happens to the US immigration policy too. People welcome the immigrants when they are touched by the moving stories of how immigrants fight for their life without thinking carefully what that law changes mean. We only to discover our mistakes when things are getting out of hand.

Check Tommy's comment - Genetic race data isn't what should be used in study discrimination! The look and culture is!!

Check Jonathan Cohen, Raymond, Michael Class' comment

Higher Education Policy - Assessment

Original Article

Working on ...

Options:
1) UT system self evaluation
- No subject specific evaluation!
2) UI wage match
- May limited/restricked by local econome. Cause institution to focus on current need and not forward thinking/looking!

For traditional institution, since they claim that for-profit are not in the peer, they should not against assessment of their students against for-profit. For for-profit, to show that they are not diploma mill, they should accept the challange!

This is a very difficult task. The only chance this can happen is that the result are used and are cared by some one. The question is how to achieve that. In computer fields, there are tests that are arround for a while and there are companies that require those test from applicants. However, these test doesn't seem to be very successful. Let along other fields.

Personally, I have seen and experiences application demonstrations. To me it seems very popular. But most of those are in-house exam. I suppose,
1) Employer don't think there are good services that fit their need out there.
2) Employer think it's an over-kill to use these services.
3) They don't suffer enough with the wrong hire.

3rd party test!!

How to do a grass-root assessment efforts:
1) Set up a web site advocate consumer protection.
2) Solicit student to take anonymous test.
3) Need collect information on course taken history
4) Compare scores accross institutions.
5) Without authentication, we can't provide certificate - how to authenticate??
6) If we can gather enough data, we can use the data to rate institution and solicit school to participate.
7) How can government support these efforts? - Grand, RFP ... Authentication - testing center - library - internet photo







Testing service for industry - study how ACT and SAT are strated.

What are available: Computer Certificates - how about others?

How do we promote this? - How ACT and SAT do that?

How about those hard to measured skill? Should government help it? How about the lawyer and other professional test?

Cost issues
Government job test?

Christensen tells Rotarians about need to transform high school

Original Article - How to teach the lower half of the class?

Working on...

Attitude!!

Justice O’Connor’s Deadline

Original Article - Deadline on affirmative action

Working on ...

Economic along is not going to do it. The measure is wrong. We need better measure. They keep missing the point - giving the equal chances the rest is history. The question is what is the appropriate 'equal chances'. I think we tend to extended that definition indefinitly.

Cultural aspect of respecting the value of education does matter

Original Article

Summary goes here!

Quite some references to other culture related information.

Higher Education Policy - First thought

Original Article

The high higher ed cost is the main concern of general public. It is, therefore, the place to start for the policy.

A policy is not a vision statement. It not only need to have a good goal, it need to be practical, workable and efficient. And this is why 'a good government need to listen and feel what people feel and guide them with incentives toward a forward looking future. Missing any of the elements is a failure in the government.' The vision is the forward looking future while the rest are the guideline for practical, workable and efficient plan.

The high higher ed cost is the main concern of general public. It is, therefore, the place to start for the policy. A policy have to address public's concern to get support and move forward. To address this issue, we need to think about how the price is set in the first place.

As we all aware, to produce a product, it cost money. The price, in general, covers the cost, but don't have to reflect the cost. In free enterprise, due to competetion, the price are, in general, reflect the bare cost to produce the product with specified qualtiy except in the monoply or elite industries where competetion are limited. The elite industries, in general, do not have objective standards for measuring qualities of products and, because of this, a products' percetions are build on named brands that are established via costly advertising that establishes the financial barrier for entering these industry and limits the competetion in these industry. Because of the lack of objective quality checks, the cost and price are not tied to the quality but to the profit and cost of advertising. The idea is that once you produce the named brand, the quality is not relevent in the price scheme and consumer are paying for things with no qality checks. With limited competetion in the field, companies can provide costly packages with features that customer will never need while still enjoy good business.

The traditional higher ed industries resemble the elite industry in that the quality of products is not well specified. In efforts to support the quality claim, accredidation agencies use aternative measures that make sure institutions have enough resources to produce quality products. The problem is obvious, a well financed company does not necessary produce quality products. And more frequent than not, the errosion begin with well established companies since the survival is not seem to be in the scene. Because the accredidation is based on resources rather than the quality of the product, the establish of the resource become the necessary barrier in entering this industry even if quality product can be produced with less resources.

The fundamental to bring down the higher ed price is, therefore, establish objective qualities of the higher ed products. After this is done, the market will be driven by free enterprise spirits and the system will be supported by free enterprise. For example, if companies were using the result of testing services in hiring employee, potential applicants will pay for the testing fee. The testing statistics can be used to evaluates each institutions and helping students in making education choices. With the competetion, institutions are forced to customize their products of quality to fit students need at the lowest possible price. - There may be needs to regulate the testing industry??

The next step need to do is guide the society to bright future. From time to time, public can be blind or short-sighted. There could be important trainings or courses that will be over sighted by public aiming in pursuing their financial well-being. Some of these trainings may eventually get emphasied by employers if they find their values eventually. Others may only proof to be essential for the sacks of the society or human race. It is governments' duty to look into these area in behalf of the society. Since there isn't any interestes from free enterprise on these issues, this is where governments really need put their efforts in. Governments need provide real incentive here to guide the society to bright future.


Based on arguments in The environment!

• The world of free enterprise
• Clear labeling through standard test. Focus on result to bring the cost down
  
• Provide alternatives for customers.
• Promote the idea of flexible worker - with enterprises
  
• K12 focus on attitude modling
• Emphasise the importance of design/thinking instead of routine/procedure - research!
  
• Promote the globle view of the world - promote forward thinking
• Promote the idea of bright future
• Research will still be done with support of government and private enterprice. The result should made available. More people can follow these researches and produces teaching material.
• 
  

Higher Education Policy - The environment

Original Article

In the US, federal government do not have direct authority over institutions. ...There are, however, oppotunities that governments can exploit to build accountability checks.

In the US, federal government do not have direct authority over institutions. Federal government do recognize accreditation agencies. But, again, do not have direct authority on them. State governments have various degree of control on institutions operated inside it's boundaries. - check to see if there are more detailed info on how much control each state government have on private institutions. Adding the free atomsphere of US higher education institutions to the limited control of governments, there are, practically no effective way of regulating US higher education institutions.

An environment like this is approaching that of self-governing and is the source of irresponsibility. The lack of responsbilities had cost higher education system their reputation and result in calls for higher education reform. The environment also responsible for the high college cost of today.

As of today, the free enterprise spirits are still exist and are likely to continue. It is not likely, governments will resort to brute force to force changes. There are, however, oppotunities that governments can exploit to build accountability checks. These oppotunities include public's cry for lower college cost and public's call for accountability. The other oppotunity is raising of the for-profit institutions. The raising of the for-profit institution put pressure on traditional institions in terms of effeciency and force traditional institution to change how they operate.

Higher Education Policy - What's our future?

Our citizen have to be able to look over the skin-deeped paper of certificate or diploma and valued more the deep-inside wisdom.

The narrow definition of this question is how do we keep us ahead of other countries so that our people can enjoy a high standard of life. Of cause, the more broad goal should include the whole human race.

History provides valuable lessons, failure is your future if you do not progress like rawing against current and you can't count on other people's failure but your own success.

As we all know by now, the knowledge is the power. A lot of us also know that learning is a life long things. A successful life requires constant learning, analyzing and adopting.

So. To sustant our lead in the world, we need to create generation of citizens that prosess these characters. That are capable of constantly learning and are self-motivated to learn and are looking into the life with positive attitute. Our citizen have to be able to look over the skin-deeped paper of certificates or diploma and valued more the deep-inside wisdom.

This is a grand goal and it call for un-preceedent efforts in refreshing our government, our society and, most importantly, our mind.

Higher Education Policy - What do people want?

Are they really interested in the knowledge or they simply want the tickets to the job market?

As pointed out in Higher Education perspectives, citizen these days are well aware of the benifits of higher education and are asking for afordable higher education and their demand have not been met.

We, however, need to exam these demands carefully. Are they interested in lower price but same service or are they interested in lower price with watered down services? Are they interested in the full scaled baccalaureate training or are they simply instered in the tech training needed to land a job? Are they really interested in the knowledge or they simply want the tickets to the job market?

Answers to these questions will help us better understand people's mind and help us setting strategys to lead our people to brighter future.

Higher Education Policy - Government

Original Article

... a good government need to listen and feel what people feel and guide them with incentives toward a forward looking future.

It's hard to be a good government, especially a good government in a democratic environments. There are times good ideas and intents could not be executed and there are times only a small part of a good idea get pass through the divided legislature bodies.

A democratic government is to serve the people and look out for people. There are times general public do not perceive the value of a given idea. The leader will need to carryo the extra burden of educating the general public. A democratic government usually are also limited by law on what it can do. A successful government in democratic environments need to observe all these limitations when carry out it's act. It is, therefore, important to examine all these limitations when setting up policies.

In general, a good government need to listen and feel what people feel and guide them with incentives toward a forward looking future. Missing any of the elements is a failure in the government.

To reform the US higher education, we need to feel and listen to the people. We also need to exam the situation and figuring out the real future for the country. We then need device the incentive and lead our people to that future.