The ‘Other’ Transfer of Credit Problem

Original Article

Summary goes here!

==== My comments on InsideHigherEd.com ===
==#1
In addition to "colleges should not have policies that reject a student’s academic credits based solely on the accreditation status of the institution from which he or she earned them" I will add one more "Transfered-in students should be reported as part of the graduation rate." - I understand this will create some technical problem, but it can be worked out.

The idea is to give receiving institution freedom, yet, holding them responsible. By requiring institutions to report the success of transfer students, receiving institutions need look hard to see the impact of accepting a given transfer student. If the student is well prepared, accepting it will simply benefit the school. On the other hand, accepting an ill-prepared students, the receiving college is better prepared to put in extra efforts.

This is an important issue. Opinion welcome.

=== #2
I agree with Math Prof in couple of points.

I taught at community college for a while and I can say that the level required of my students is not as high as I would expected for 4 year college students which, as I said before, could very well caused by students' quality - I can't flunk all my students can I? I do have few students that is independent and is capable of handling high level demands. But quite few of them don't have the adequate reading skill to handle a higher level text book. So. I would say it is important for community colleges to promote students' basic skill and their independence if their students are going to 4 year colleges.

On the other hand, I also agree with points raised by Erika and Jim. My thought on that is that we need more options for students which include new kind of institutions that have different missions.

At this point in time, traditional 4 year colleges are the favorites. People and business seems to give weights on their graduates. However, I believe the trend can change. For IT, with the number of certificates tests available, some business are using them to measure the skill. The difficulty, of cause, is to find measures for other hiring criteria.

=== #3
Anon,

Well. It is just an idea for solving the problem. Personally, I do think all entities are responsible for the society and, therefore, should be regulated by government. However, I don't think it's government's job to get deep control of entities. So the proposal is to address the question raised without heavy regulations.

The question at hand is the protection of students' right - regardless where students obtained their credits. There could be other ways to resolve this problem including heavy hand regulations from government, which I really don't like.

As to the credit transfer within regionally accredited institutions, as far as I know, it seems to be less of a problem than other kind of credit transfer. But even then, there are questions raised by Math Prof.

Like I said before, not all students from the same class of the same community college are equal. The only way I can see fair is to evaluate each of them separately.

As you can see, it will take truck loads of regulations to ensure each student is evaluated separately and fairly.

By the way, I am open to ideas and I am not married to to this accountability thing. It just seems to me that it's a good idea for the problem.

Call to Arms for Private Colleges

Original Article

Summary goes here!

=== My post at InsideHigherEd.com ====
I believe it is wrong for government to go to this depth of interference.

There is no doubt that society had changed. There are jobs that need better education. However, the solution do not need to be higher education per se. A better trained high school graduates could be of help.

Even with higher education, 4 year of traditional college may not be the must - just look at highly motivated Bill Gates, Michael Dell or Jerry Yang.

For a society as a whole, we need to understand that not everyone need to attend traditional colleges. A organization that can provide needed knowledge and skill is what is counted.

The price will come down if we can level the playing field and allow more ways for students to gain knowledge, certificates and jobs. We shall give institutions freedom in operating the organization but insist on objective measure of their graduates. If an institution can produce good graduates that meet employers' need why do you care how they achieving it.

The problem these days is that people insist that the only way to produce good graduates is to go through institutions that operated in the traditional way. This way of thinking killed all possibility of running higher Ed in other possible cost saving ways.

The 5% Non-Solution

Original Article

Summary goes here!

Well. I don't like this. I hope people can come up with better reason and justification in doing this. Otherwise, find a better way to address the problem. I will take time think about this.

Mixed Grades for Grads and Assessment

Original Article
Original AACU report

I read the original article and

Well. I read the original article and, in general, it's not biased.

The 'facts' are:
1. There are room for improvement in college education.
2. There are room for improvement in evaluating graduates.
3. Employer don't FEEL standardized test can measure ALL they wanted from a graduates - but so do other way of evaluation.

So. Where should we go from here?
1. Need accountability for school.
2. Develop better evaluation methods.

Faculty evaluation is OK assuming faculty does not yield to pressure from the top. Senior project is good too. But can you trust those from the for-profit institutions? - this may apply to traditional school too. Now. How can you be sure the info you received is not biased? It seems to me we need some independent vendors.

Now. The accountability. This can be done independent from the way of evaluation. As long as the result are published and broke down by school, parents and students can choose school of desired quality (employability) with reasonable price.

My post at InsideHigherEd.com: =============
First of all, I like to thank Scott to bring this report forward.

I suspected that this report is a response to Spellings' committee. In a way, it did - employers don't trust standardized test. But it does not respond to the accountability question.

The report showed that employers do want to evaluate the graduates and this is what is important. In what form is really a secondary question.

Of cause, employers can careless about school rankings if they can evaluate graduates. But the measuring of school is actually a call for accountability. This goal can be achieved regardless of the type of evaluation is used. As long as the result is published, students and parents will have the information to pick a school with desired quality(employability) with reasonable price.

There are opportunities for vendors to work with employers to create good evaluation tools. But I do hope US employers aren't like those described by Scrawed.

International Call for Open Resources

Original Article

The next thing to do is to allow them (students) to test out and charge them (students) just for that service. In doing so, we are not only fair and we promote the importance of 'critical thinking' or, like what I like to put it, the ability to adapt and learn by yourself - isn't that supposed to be the goal of education?

Like what I said before, this is all very well. But the claim: 'we have an opportunity to dramatically improve the lives of hundreds of millions of people' is a bit remote at this point.

For a normal person, the first thing he can improve is get a job by attending school and PAY the (high) tuition. Even though resource is out there, studying it does not give you the job you want since you do not have the degree or certificate. Degree or certificate requires you to sit in the class and pay for the sitting time. I know I am exaggerate a bit. But there are people that can study by themselves whether because he already had other education or he simply smart and possess the critical thinking skill.

The fair thing to do is to allow them to test out and charge them just for that service. In doing so, we are not only fair and we promote the importance of 'critical thinking' or, like what I like to put it, the ability to adapt and learn by yourself - isn't that supposed to be the goal of education?

Staff Salary By Race - University of Nebraksa

Original Article

Disparities are very likely to appear at low-skill jobs where abilities can easily be overridden by personal preferences. In the study, we see that for low-end jobs, where the salary scale begins at bellow 20 thousands a year, there are higher percentages of Whites in the high salary scale. Disparities exist in all minorities. In the Service/Maintenance category, Asian receives the worst salary offering with 85% of them receive the lowest salaries comparing to 53% for Black, 44% for Native American, 46% for Hispanics and 36% for Whites.

Literature Overview

For years, salary differences in the higher education had been a much-studied topic. Most of the studies focused on faculty and gender disparities. These studies provided useful information in recognizing possible gender discrimination inside higher education communities. However, almost all of these studies are focused on faculties and did not examine the possible disparities among staffs. In addition to that, most of the studies are interested in gender disparity rather than race disparities.

Fresh ideas in this analysis

Instead of studying disparities in faculty and gender, this analysis focused on staff and race. Implications of this study are many. For one, we hope this report will encourage a broader discussion on staff disparity since the working staff is a better representation of the working class of American than faculty. Second to that, we hope this study will illustrate that disparities do not appear only in the high paying jobs.

One of the suspicions we had in conducting this analysis was that disparities are very likely to appear at low-skill jobs where abilities can easily be overridden by personal preferences.

Limitation of data and this report

The source data used in this report is the 2005 Staff survey collected via the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System by US Department of Education. The data is available for download from their Peer Analysis Site.

This report is a preliminary analysis. Our focus is on the University of Nebraska campuses. Since there weren't many minorities working in the University of Nebraska when broken down by job categories, some of the analysis in this report may not be statistically sound. We, however, view this as a pilot study that could inspire researchers to work on this kind of data.

Among job categories, the administrator and skilled crafts contain too few minorities to be considered statistically sound.

We also like to point out that we have no intention in singling out the University of Nebraska. We believe the problem could well exist in all parts of our society.

Notes in handling of data

Since Hispanic is considered an ethnicity and can, therefore, have the appearance of any race, this report aggregates minorities in two ways in hope to identify if discrimination is an act based on the perceived appearance of minorities. One aggregation is labeled Minority_1 and does not include Hispanics. The other one, labeled Minority_2, does include Hispanics.

High lights in the analysis

In general, we see that for low-end jobs, where the salary scale begins at bellow 20 thousands a year, there are higher percentages of Whites in the high salary scale. For high paying jobs, except at the very top salary scale, there are usually higher percentages of Whites at higher salary scales. In the Service/Maintenance category, Asian receives the worst salary offering with 85% of them receive the lowest salaries comparing to 53% for Black, 44% for Native American, 46% for Hispanics and 36% for Whites.

Charts

Tennessee Reconsiders Tilt to Merit Aid

Original Article

Summary goes here!

My thoughts on this is that, in general, educators and policy makers did not carefully went through the brain storm session of what kind of citizen they need and what kind of resources they have.

The goal of a society is to bring the prosper to the society with best efficiency. With this in mind, policy makers need decided that, with limited resources and the economic goal they try to achieve, do they need higher education for every possible citizen? Or maybe it is more efficient to educate a group of experts that will establish new businesses to bring prosper to all citizen.

Beside the analysis on physical entities, policy maker also need to factor in if the policy encourage the general idea of promoting responsibility - i.e. asking yourself first instead of asking what the society should do for you.

Open Courses Open Wider

Original Article

Summary goes here!

===Revision of my post at InsideHigherEd.com
I know some of you may not up to this and I know there are issues that need to be worked out. But I like to, again, toss the idea that we should find a way to give certificates/degrees to people that is capable of learning by themselves. These people can be charged minimum fees for the certificate/degree evaluation. With this being available, we prompt the idea that the goal of education is to build the ability to learn.

It shifts the obligation of learning to students. As long as students can learn, they will be charged much less than those who need extra services that cost institutions to setup.

This will give society the right mindset for education.

U.S. Students Fall Short in Math and Science

Original Article
PISA 2006 - At OECD, At US ED

Summary goes here!

I don't know about how Finland and Canada structure their education system. But I do see quite few far east countries made the list. As far as I know, testing is a common theme in these countries. Especially that test scores are given high regards. Grades are usually second to the most important. By the way, I believe the data show that they are spending less than United States.

A point: If you can set a clear goal, you can steer education to that goal. The goal can be improved and so will education. A bunch of non-compatible goals is next to no goals and give people excuses of no clear goal. I will not argue that NCLB is doing everything right, but I will give it the credit of setting a clear goal.

Postsecondary Education and Nebraska's Future forum

Original Article
Related material on the internet:
Nebraska Innovation Forum
University of Nebraska 2000 - 2004(strategy plan?)

This is a news report not my comments on the event.

On Dec. 5, 2007, Nebraska Coordinating Commission for Postsecondary Education (CCPE) and Senator Ron Raikes, Chair, Nebraska Legislature's Education Committee, co-host the forum: Postsecondary Education and Nebraska's Future.

The forum features presentations by Dennis Jones, president, National Center for Higher Education Management Systems and Q&A sessions with Nebraska leaders - Dennis Baack, Stan Carpenter, Doug Christensen, Tip O'Neil, Linda Ray Pratt (above, represent education sector), Wendy Boyer and Jim Linderholm (business sector). Nebraska Governor Dave Heineman is also invited. Dennis Jones' presentation can be found here.

Dennis Jones, a native Nebraskan who had been invited to give similar talks to Nebraska's policy makers in the past(e.g. 2003), made his points even clear this time that the most important thing for Nebraska is to strive on economic development. In general, his talk concluded that Nebraska is doing a fair job in educating our kids but is short on building a sustainable economics and, as a result, Nebraska was not able to retain these well educated kids and was not able to achieve economic gain.

At the Q&A session, several good points are raised. Stan Carpenter, with daughter in school, talk about customizing system to fit students learning style. Doug Christensen talked about what K12 system have done in recruiting minority students. Dennis Baack talked about community colleges' efforts in working with Universities, State colleges and private institutions in making the system more economic. Tip O'Neill talk about the culture changes in savings and about legislature's efforts in encouraging saving for education. Linda Ray Pratt talked about University's willingness in engaging the society in economic development and University's efforts in creating the innovation park. She also talked about UNO's efforts in attracting Iowa students. Wendy Boyer, when asked about businesses' view about the training need from higher education institutions, talked about the mixed need from business world and talked about the short term specific training needs of businesses.

Governor Dave Heineman use his opportunity to talk about the difficult budget decision he have to make between other issues and education. Even though he has passions on education and economic development, the tight state budget is limiting the funding state can appropriate to education. The lower tax and budget discipline is his signature.

Lincoln Public School Grading Policy Change?

Original Article - Sorry, can't find relative material at LPS.org

Summary goes here!

I heard this from my daughter and confirmed by school principle.

LPS is discussing the possible change in the way middle school students are graded. The basic idea is that grades will be based on tests only, the homework and assignment are considered a separate item that evaluates a student's behavior.

An argument I learned from the principle is that people are wondered why should we keep ponding on these students for assignments if they can performed well in tests.

In general, this is a sound argument. But, I have to be causals. At this point in time, in general, grade is all people care and I can see the 'behavior' item been ignored totally. The question: Will this produce a right mind set for our youth?

As we all understand that no all kids are born equal and we also understand that not all people with highest grade accomplished the most. If there come a time that society and these young kids understand these, I will say the approach is OK. But! Are our society understand all these implications? Will colleges look into the value of assignments?

Once thing troubles me is that bright kids will begin to ignore assignments and could be ignorant to the fact that smart isn't every thing. The worst is that they will ignore the importance of working hard and better use of their gifts.

The implementation of this policy could also undermined the importance of work ethic especially for those young mind.

Grading the AP Curriculum

Original Article

we need better accountability for colleges and maybe, just maybe, in the way of cross college tests. However, this will happen only if employers are interested in knowing it.

Personally, I don't have much experience with AP. But based on the comments and description, I believe College Board did the right thing in taking the auditing action even though the claim of college level is truly un-necessary.

If conduct properly, the AP test is all it need to insure the quality and accountability. By publishing the statistics of AP test at high school level is enough to hold high school accountable. The decision in whether or how to use the score for admission purposes is up to the colleges. The suggestion of widening the score range by Hoosier Ed is a good one.

If you read Frizbane Manley's comment, you will agree with me that we need better accountability for colleges and maybe, just maybe, in the way of cross college tests. However, this will happen only if employers are interested in knowing it.

==== My comment at InsideHigherEd.com
Personally, I think what College Board should do is concentrate on making the test the best it can be and publish the test statistics of high school - this will hold the high school accountable. It's not that the audit is bad, but this is the final line.

As to professor Manley's joke about customers, I am sure part of the problem is because professor give out the grade. Just suppose for a moment that if grades are evaluated by third parties, students will see professors as allies and wouldn't blame the pressure from the professor.

Closing the College Achievement Gap

Original Article - Initiatives taken by couple of institutions.

Summary goes here!

It is a good thing that college leaders are thinking about these things. But, as I repeatedly advocated on my articles, I echo the view of the comments of CJProf.

The success of most Asian, not all but most, should really be studied and understand. It should shed lights on certain claims.

In general, I don't like the idea of quotas that based on population proportion.

As I discussed in my articles, the society as whole have to take closer look at what is the real goal and what is the real fair way of doing things.

== My comments at InsideHigherEd.com
As I mentioned a lot in my postings, I agree with CJProf that the root of the problem is the society.

The success of most Asian, most but not all, should shed lights on some of the claims. My father used to say it take generations to prosper. I understand that this is a passive action, but it shows the patience and willingness in invest everything in their children - they have taken all of these as their responsibilities. With kids of my own, I understand how difficult it is to implant the right attitudes in them.

Well, if They’re Already Using It

Original Article - How institutions should treat FaceBook, GMail brought in by students.

Summary goes here!

Main body here

Patent Reform and University Research

Original Article - Patent derived from Federal Fund should return royalties to federal.

Summary goes here!

Main body here

Science and the University

Original Article

Summary goes here!

Main body here

DREAM Act Vote on Tap

Original Article - need read more carefully.
'Dream Act' Fails - The Chronicle of Higher Education

Summary goes here!

Main body here

Race-Based Aid, After a Statewide Ban

Original Article

Summary goes here!

I think this is move in the right direction. Public institution does have it duties.

As to the comment of Dave Stone, the argument of the relatively privileged students know how the system work and, hence, benefit from the association is not a good one. In general, as long as organizations made information public, it is up to the individual to seek those information. We can't afford to lift personal duties this way. I understand that there are organizations that take steps to go to that level of help. But we have to understand that those are exceptions. People have to take up their responsibilities, you can't always count on people to bring information to you.

Female Faculty and the Sciences

Original Article

Summary goes here!

Well. We need think carefully here. Just like in the case of race, a simple request for population proportion is not the answer. The main point is stress the open mind and based things on objective measures.

We all understand that it take time for these things to happen. And it is always hard for minority to shine.

Some of the proposal in the comments aren't quite equal. It is definitely true that traditionally women spend more time in taking care of kids. But that no longer have to be the case. A powerful women should take care of their home by asking the share of duties. They should not request a policy to setup for them.

India's Call-Center Jobs Go Begging

Original Article - Well. We just need to be prepared.

Summary goes here!

I said this before. But I will say it again. India will not stay in the low salary league, they will demand more with their skills. The globalization is on their favor. We have to gear up otherwise we will fall.

Check my article about this issue here.

Sweetening the Deal

Original Article - OK. The comments went wild.

Summary goes here!

Anyway. I think computer evaluation is good and the idea of giving all students the same treat from school is also good for now. But the basic problem is, of cause, that the society is no longer value the sincereness. Adults not value the thing sincerely and students were not be taught to be sincere. But even with all these, students talks about professors can be used as administrative tools. Just give students place to talk and monitor them. Of cause, administrators should dis-count those talks about cookie receiving.

By the way, I definitely support evaluate students learning.

The Benefits of Dual Enrollment

Original Article
nacep.org - Non-Official body for accredited Concurrent Enrollment implementation - I still need to check this out.

Summary goes here!

One thought: Should we raise the bar for high school diploma? For one, since some scholars are so interested in general education. Why don't we just add these to high school? Especially, if they are deemed so important for today's society - just make it mandatory! Or extend the K12 to K13. I am sure professors' will be more than happy to teach higher level courses than those introductory courses.

On YouTube, No Enrollment Caps

Original Article - UC Berkeley put lectures on YouTube

Summary goes here!

My 2003 view of role change of instructors

==== My comments on InsideHigherEd.com
I admire all these open course movements. The implication of these are many.

For instructors, this could mean the role change. If lectures are online, is there any reason for students to show up in class? Of cause, there is. For example, to ask questions. But what if instructors are reachable online? Or what if an institution adopts UC Berkeley's lecture?

We have to realized that, there are a lot of kids that are self-motivated and will learn a lot of material by themselves and there really no good reason to keep them in class all the time. Then, of cause, that they will have questions and would like to have a chat with knowledgeable professionals and this is where instructors can find their new roles.

For employers, since all these material are online and there will be individuals that is capable and is learning those materials. Degree will no longer the sole judgment of a person's capability. Employers should find better ways in gauging their applicants. This is where the hiring consulting companies will play a role. Of cause, hiring consulting companies better know how to measure a person's capability.

Cut half of college courses: Daley

Original Article - Concerning High Cost of Higher Ed.
InsideHigherEd.com

Summary goes here!

==== My comments on InsideHigherEd.com
Higher Ed had been promoted as the way to make more income. People believe in it and that is their goal.

But, the current higher ed system is not built to meet that goal (Community college are close, but traditional 4 year are not) and this is why there are costs that are not directly associated with that goal and there are probably courses that are not definitely needed to achieve that goal.

Personally, I believe competition is the way to bring the price close to the costs. It is true that technology could cost money. But on the other hand, it also save money in reducing labor need. There is really no sense in trying to pin point a source of the rising cost. All we can ask for is the effective costs that will help students reach their goal.

The free market model is a good one to learn from. By setting objective standard on the product and set corporation free to compete.

=========
Well. The right thing to do is to level the playing field by setting the right accreditation structure based on student achievement.