Unions Criticize Obama's School Proposals as 'Bush III'

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I can see this is going to put a lot of pressure on educators and which maybe unfair. But responsibility is for all - including educators. The moves that had been taken are responded to the lack of progress in our education system. I understand that educators aren't responsible for all issues. But the lack of movement to address the problem is what caused all these requirements.

If educators had been cohesively move the education forward, public and, therefore, politics will listen to them more.

At this point in time, public and politics want to see results and do not trust educators can effectively move the nation forward. All these moves are try to force educators into action. In a way, it should help those good educators to voice and forward their idea. One thing I always believe it that things are relative. If you believe you are on good standing compare to others, you have nothing to worry about. We can't fire all educators, can we?

Trust yourself and do your best. Those rule have to be set to warn the incompetent. Remember! We can't fail all. The rule will change for the true educators.

Higher Education Institutions Are Pricing Themselves Into America’s Decline

Original Article

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Yes. I believe the higher education landscape will change. But the change has been slow with a lot of resistance from vested interest groups. It is a shame that these highly endowed groups aren't thinking of the interest of the whole society. With high level of intelligence but lack of introspection.

Research tells schools to empower parents

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Veterans Start Over As Colleges Ignore Experience

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Personally, I am fully aware that for-profits could credit low quality students, however, it is the un-willingness of the accredited school to evaluate students that bothered me most.

Do you surprised? You probably should not!

With current accreditation system and the practice of schools, especially the regional accredited schools, you really should not be surprised. If you follow these issues and read the responses from regional accredited schools, you know they will not evaluate students on an individual cases. As long as your credits are not from a 'reputable' ( read regional accredited) schools, you are out of luck. The national accredited or the for-profit schools have argued this in vain.

I suppose military can setup agreements with these accreditation agency and get it to work. But this is missing the point! We all knew that not all students from the same school possess the same quality. Even students taking same courses from different instructors possess different quality. It's very possible that an A students from a non-reputable school could out preform a C student an accredited school. Why should we punish students just because they attended a non-reputable schools but work hard to learn.

Personally, I fully aware that for-profits could credit low quality students, however, it is the un-willingness of the accredited school to evaluate students that bothered me most.

American higher education is sliding lower and lower

Original Article

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It is my believe that we need strengthen the K12 first for both moral and economic reason.

I have seen too many kids wasted their talent and time just to glide through the K12. Our system, then, expand the postsecondary education downward to give them a second chance. The message sent is that: play as you want, we will always try to save you!

I am sorry. The second chance should be for those unfortunates who are victims of uncontrollable events. It's not for everyone.

There was a saying in Chinese that God helps those who helped themselves. I think that is what is lacking in our K12 education. The first things in education is to teach the responsibility.

A word about t-test (statistics)

A real scholar is a one with solid understanding of the topic and can address the concept in various terms. Just like a good teacher can address concepts in students' terms.

The t-test by virtue of its definition is a measurement of the separation of means. By adding the statistical flavor, we then asked the question of under what situation should we consider the means are well separated or, in other word, that the means are really not equal. Or in the statistical sense that the separation are statistically significant.

Like a lot of tests in statistics, the probability of the separation is too complicate to provide intuitive understanding of the problem. As in most of these kind of cases, a tabulated approach is used. In this case, a t-value is used to map to the probability. The t-probability table, however, usually only listed for positive t values which correspond to cases when the mean is greater than the referenced mean. Depend on the hypothesis of interest, researcher may need to included the probability for the corresponding negative t-value.

A good understanding of the underlying question that the t-test trying to address enables people to communicate with various terminology. A real scholar is a one with solid understanding of the topic and can address the concept in various terms. People with shaky ground are those that hanging to the jargon. Accusing people of alien-tongue is just a sign of it.

IPEDS Higher Ed Residence and Migration - 2008 state level data released

CL Higher Education Center

Do you like to know where your high school graduates went to college? What percentage of your high school graduates went to out of state colleges? To what kind of colleges? Private or public? The recent data release from CL Higher Education Center can answer your questions.

The CL Higher Education Center just put out the early release of the state level summaries for the 2008 NCES IPEDS¹ residence and migration survey. Institutions reported the state of residence of their fall-term first time degree seeking students to the Residence and Migration section of the IPEDS fall enrollment survey. The CL Higher Education Center release aggregates the institutional level data into the state level summaries. Sector information is maintained through the aggregation process. What this mean is that, for a given state, user can tell how many of their students went to public(or private non-for profit) 4 year institutions outside of their state. Separate files are also published for people interested only in degree-granting institutions.

The data show that, on average, 16% of high school graduates who went to public 4 year institutions went to out of state institutions. On the other hand, only 3 percent of high school students who went to 2 year public institutions went to out of state institutions. Looking at private 4 year non-for profit institutions, it shows that 47% of high school graduates who attended private 4 year non-for profit institutions went to out of state institutions.

¹The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System managed by the National Center for Education Statistics of US Education Department.

IPEDS Higher Ed Migration - 2006 state level released

Release note at CL Higher Education Center

Do you like to know where your high school graduates went to college? What percentage of your high school graduates went to out of state colleges? To what kind of colleges? Private or public? The recent data release from CL Higher Education Center can answer your questions.

The CL Higher Education Center just released the state level data for 2006 NCES IPEDS¹ migration data. The release aggregates the institutional level data collected by the IPEDS survey into the state level data. Sector information is maintained through the aggregation process. What this mean is that, for a given state, user can tell how many of their students went to public(or private non-for profit) 4 year institutions outside of their state. Separate files are also published for people interested only in degree-granting institutions.

The data show that, on average, 16% of high school graduates who went to public 4 year institutions went to out of state institutions. On the other hand, only 3 percent of high school students who went to 2 year public institutions went to out of state institutions. Looking at private 4 year non-for profit institutions, it shows that 47% of high school graduates who attended private 4 year non-for profit institutions went to out of state institutions.

¹ The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System managed by the National Center for Education Statistics of US Education Department.

IPEDS higher ed retention rate - 2007 state level released

Release note at CL Higher Education Center

The CL Higher Education Center just released the 2007 state level retention rate data.

The CL Higher Education Center is releasing the 2007 state level retention rate data.

The data is compiled from the National Center for Education Statistics'(NCES) IPEDS(Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System) survey. The release detailed each State's student retention rate for each sector (e.g. Public 4 Year, Public 2 Year, Private non-for profit 4 year ...). The release also separated out rates just for degree-granting institutions.

The retention rate, in essence, measures the percent of students that still enrolled in the same institution after one year of their initial enrollment. For official definition, please check out the IPEDS survey site.

The dreaded “P” word

The Report
Measuring the Dreaded 'P' Word - article #2
What Does a Degree Cost? - article #1
Read comments !
Tom Abeles - my points a while ago: fee for the test!!
Ed Lyell - Coming from an acting prof. it carries extra weight!

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By Partick Kelly - I will read
Cost/Award - no quality check!

No Size Fits All

Original Article

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Just look how much the article fits my article back in the 2003 about the learning style and distance learning arguments. Also my post here about the sitting time in the classroom.

To me one thing that higher education lacks, to some degree, is an open mind to accept criticism. I can't remember how many times my idea been hammered on when I post my comments on higher education forums. Lots of times these are predictable lash out from professors and insiders.

U.S. Push for Free Online Courses

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Working on ...

I envy those people at a position that can carry out ideas and I am glad that they carry out those ideas.

I wonder if higher education people notice that tests are associated with these courses which more or less call for a 'comparable' score for all institutions - just like what Spellings' committee like to do. The difference is that it hides under the funding. One thing is clear is that the feeling of the necessity of accountability in the higher ed is universal. As the higher ed community continue to resist to changes.

A lot of these are moving toward my opinions expressed in the past:
The role of the instructor will change. Institutions will end up charging for just the services they provided. Evaluation will be measured consistently. Transfer of credit will based on evaluations instead of the reputation/creditation of the transferring institution.

I have to admit the wisdom of the Ombama administration in tackling this from the community college level - courses at this level are better defined than the higher level courses where the contents can vary greatly.

The success of this proposal will level the playground, lower the price of a degree and given chances to everyone - which restore the true equality - the equal CHANCE of sucess but not the equal fruit for all. The restore of the true equality could eventually restore the sense of responsibility to our citizen. It is, however, worth to promote the sense of responsibility at the same time. Since for these kind of offer to work, students have to be self-responsible and motivated. They will have to want to pursue knowledge and initiate the request of help from faculities.




Quite some ideas that match mine.

Studying the 'why' of brain drain in Nebraska

Original Article
Google Cache

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The problem is the action.
Denis Jone's identify the problem a long time ago. The problem is that the higher education do not want to admit the reality and initiate a major reform. The prefer to hold their current position to keep state funding for every students enrolled. They do not want to be responsible for anything after the student is graduated since that will inevitably point to the over producing of high level degrees. It is possible to build an industries that will absorb all these students, but it will be a lot of works.

U.S. May Need to Prune Number of Research Universities, Lobby Group Says

Original Article

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Finally they are come to their senses! The high cost of the higher education is just an indicator. The problem lay deep in the system - a system that refuse to look at the reality. A system that lack of accountability and a system that regarding and regulated only to and by itself!

Adding to it is a government that is so political that do not have guts to regulate the higher education. The only rule making is compromise.

DON'T GET THAT COLLEGE DEGREE!

Original Article

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An Experiment in Merit-Based Student Aid Is Likely to End

Original Article
Alternative Source(goucher.edu)

Working on ...!

What is the most important ingredient in success?
Do all our students are fired-up and do their best?
Do we have unlimited resources? What's the most efficient way of using public money?
Who deserved the public assistant/encouragement?

Now you see all the problem of incompatible grades. Go with ACT test then improved on it.

An entitlement is BAD! Just look at our system!

2009 Nebraska Community College Study - Funding Formula

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What funding formula have done in 2008-09:

In general, the formula did what it intended to do. Property rich institutions get most of their funding from property tax while property poor institutions receive more state aids.

The data also made senses in that the larger the institution, the less resources is needed per FTE.

* Note: FTEs are derived from IPEDS while the Revenue data is from the Rough worksheet of the 2008-09 calculation.

Random thoughts on community colleges

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At the state level, state policies should be focused on the benefits of the state as a whole. At local level, local policies should be focused on the benefits of local entities.

A community college is located at a community. But it can benefits both the state and the local community.

At the local level, community college can be viewed as a service provider to local residents and local employers.

For local employers, community colleges can provide economical education services for employers that is otherwise more expensive to achieve. For example, for basic academic training, it is more efficient for community college to provide a class that serves a group of students than for employer to train a couple of employees. Besides, employers may not have the adequate personnel to teach these courses.

For tech. or career trainings, community college can also provide efficient trainings. For example, employer may not want to stop or slow down the production line just for the training purposes. Besides, dedicated teachers at the community college can better follow up with new development in the industries.

For local residents, community college can provide courses for personal improvements. Even for non-students, the community colleges can serve as a consumer bargaining entity. For example, through the community college, residents can access subscription based online libraries or databases.

With these benefits, it is only reasonable, that the funding for community colleges to be derived from local residents and employers.

Of cause, not all residents is going to stay in the resident community. One of the reason of leaving the resident community is to pursue trainings that is not available to the local community. For the state as a whole, it is beneficial to promote students pursuing higher degree in the hope of upgrading the state's workforce profile and attracting high paying jobs to the state. With state's interest in the stake, it is of interest for state to invested in the community colleges, especially in academic transferring programs.

With all these being said, we need policies to provide incentives to facilitate these ideas.

2009 Nebraska Community College Study

Working on

Introduction
Prompted by the dispute over the state funding formula for Community Colleges, Nebraska State Legislature is asking Nebraska Coordinating Commission for Postsecondary Education to conduct a study (Law LB340) with the following 5 major objective:

1. The need for changes to the statutory role and mission of Nebraska community colleges;
2. Changes in the weighting of courses that may be necessary for reimbursable educational units to properly reflect the role and mission of Nebraska community colleges and the cost of providing such courses;
3. Powers, duties, and mission of the Nebraska Community College Association or its successor and whether membership in such an association should be required;
4. Consequences for failing to satisfy current community college association membership requirements contained in section 85-1502; and
5. State coordination of community colleges in the absence of a community college association or membership therein.

Basic information and tentative schedules are available on the CCPE Project Site. The first public event is the public hearing on June 18, 2009.

We understand that in order for public to provide sensible input, information about Nebraska Community Colleges are very important and we are here to provide assistant on this.

Background information
CCPE reports

• Factual Look - Enrollment, Completions and Faculty Salaries
• Progress Report - Retention Rates, Graduation Rates
  
• Budget Report - College Fundings
  

Nebraska Department of Labor

• Graduate Outcomes in Nebraska - Employment of College Graduates
  

Nebraska Community College Association Site

• History
• Funding Formula History

Weighting of courses (REU - Reimbursable educational units) for state reimbursement

• State Funding for Community Colleges - from Community College Policy web site
  
• Kansas Study - From Metro's web site
  

Mission of Community Colleges

• Hudson County (CA) Community College Mission Survey
  

Survey Form

National Center for Education Statistics - Higher Education

• Data Center
  

List of Higher Education Sites

• CCPE Research Links (Login as guest)
  

Every crises is an opportunity.

Do we have enough input from community? Do we serve the local need? Are we running things effectively? How should we build the dynamics into the system so the system will grow when the need changes. What is the role of the state and what is the role of the community?

In general, state should look at a state's fair and provides incentives. Local communities should look at their benefits and decides what is the best movement for them.

Similar Selectivity, Dissimilar Graduates

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I will have to look at the survey. I wonder if IPEDS data give enough info on school selectivity to begin with.

46 States, D.C. Plan to Draft Common Education Standards

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Well said Jack Jennings.

The changing nature of Higher Education

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The power-point presentation exams the believed role of University, the qualities desired by employer and the perceptions of students and questioning the direction of higher education.


A good reference. Where should our higher education head to?
There should have levels. The purpose of each level should
reasonably adapted to society/students' need. Are we doing that?
Did we study the need of our society?

Arne Duncan, Free Marketeer

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Still! A new accreditation system will help to level the play ground and ensure the free market spirit.

Transfer, Texas Style

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Ok. I am looking at this from a different angle. Doesn't this mean
that UTEP charges disproportionally for those prerequisite?
Isn't this what the problem of the high cost of higher education
these days? If institutions HAVE charged students based on
the true cost but not the price, we wouldn't have these drama
that UTEP did such a wonderful job after screw up in the first
place - how wonderful!

Just to make my point: The cause of high cost of higher ed is
there, we should address them directly. The solutions these
day is simply pushes the problem to community colleges.

Let me asked this, if community college can teach the prerequisite,
why should their instructors be paid less? With the growing
student body, shouldn't community colleges expand the student
services? Why should community college charge less while they
can provide the same services?