Last month I posted an item about two studies demonstrating that student evaluations may not be the best way to measure either student learning or instructor effectiveness. One of those studies was co-authored by Philip Stark, chair of the statistics department at the University of California, Berkeley. He has now co-authored with Anne Boring and…
Yesterday I posted a piece on California Governor Jerry Brown’s proposed budget, with specific reference to higher education. Today UCLA History professor Michael Meranze posted his response to the Brown proposal on the Remaking the University blog that he runs with UC Santa Barbara English professor Christopher Newfield. Michael’s take is similar to mine, but…
I have long contended that California’s Democratic Governor Jerry Brown is the only true fiscal conservative in American politics. In many ways Brown is a liberal, and an often admirable one, but for decades perhaps his most distinctive characteristic has been his hesitancy to spend money. It would not be out of line to call…
For the third year in a row, Young Invincibles, a national organization working to engage young adults on issues such as higher education, health care, and jobs, has released a state-by-state report card on state commitments to higher education, finding major disinvestment by states and a growing gap in degree attainment between the white population…
If you’ve been following my frequent posts on the controversies involved the Accrediting Commission for Junior and Community Colleges (ACCJC) and the City College of San Francisco (CCSF), you’ll recall that last month I reported at length on a meeting of the National Advisory Commission for Institutional Quality and Integrity (NACIQI) attended by California community…
AAUP President Rudy Fichtenbaum just called my attention to what he called “the best opinion piece I have read in the Chronicle [of Higher Education] in years.” Written by Douglas Anderson, professor of philosophy at Southern Illinois University, “Clear the Way for More Good Teachers” is indeed essential reading. But the modest but brilliant proposal…
Two quotes from self-proclaimed education “reformers”: Margaret Spellings (former Bush administration Secretary of Education, and president-elect of the University of North Carolina) explaining her work with for-profit colleges: “The reason I did it was because I learned a lot about how we can serve our students and think of them as customers in providing a…
Among the most controversial and widely publicized controversies during the recent autumn of student unrest was that surrounding the incident at Yale University, where a residence hall adviser’s email about Halloween costumes prompted a national debate over the allegedly competing values of free speech and racial justice. I previously commented at some length on the…
Since 1974 the Student Press Law Center (SPLC) has been the nation’s only legal assistance agency devoted exclusively to educating high school and college journalists about the rights and responsibilities embodied in the First Amendment and supporting the student news media in their struggle to cover important issues free from censorship. The SPLC provides free…
