In an “Other Views” column in the Chicago Sun Times a couple of weeks ago, Adam Heenan wrote: Most of my lessons prioritize what is relevant to the content and valuable to my students. But this is changing across the country, with pressure either to align current curricula to the standards, or to design different activities that…
On Monday, Starbucks announced that it had agreed to partner with Arizona State University to help its employees earn an online college degree. Working with ASU, Starbucks will make the new college degree program available to 135,000 employees who work at least 20 hours a week. Remarkably, employees will have a wide choice in…
The Plaintiffs’ Teachers Were Not Actually “Grossly Ineffective” This is excerpted from David B. Cohen’s post on Diane Ravitch’s Blog, and the bulk of the excerpt is a passage from a post-trial brief: “I was curious to learn whether the plaintiffs in the Vergara trial actually had ‘grossly ineffective teachers.’ The answer is ‘no, they…
The major ethnic groups in Iraq are the Arabs, which constitute 75% to 80% of the population, and the Kurds, which constitute 15% to 20% of the population. Islam is, of course, the dominant religion, with 97% of Iraqis identifying themselves as Muslims. Among the Muslims, 60%-65% are Shiites and 32% to 37% are Sunnis.…
The Census Department provides statistics on the largest employers in each state, and Business Insider put that material into an alphabetically arranged chart. I have rearranged the employers by category. The one caveat that I would offer is that I suspect that WalMart actually has the most employees in several states besides Arkansas. Here are…
Hood, William Joseph. Spy Wednesday. .New York: Norton, 1986. A former C.I.A. station chief, Hood first came to attention with his nonfiction book, Mole (1982). It chronicled Hood’s part in the decision by Soviet operative Pyotr Popov to become a double-agent, the details of the operation which went undetected for seven years, and then the…
Yesterday I published a post on this blog entitled “The Vergara Decision and the Threat to Tenure,” in which I discussed the potential direct and indirect impact on higher education of a recent California Superior Court decision voiding the state’s K-12 “teacher tenure” laws and summarizing and excerpting some of the critical response that has…
Recent news about a former provost who allegedly touched inappropriately, repeatedly inappropriately, colleagues, got me thinking about a serious and pervasive practice in higher education. This was after some initial sophomoric snickering and thoughts I am sure even the most “serious” academic would have after reading about this case. Letters of recommendation are written to assist…
A new study, The Innovative University: What College Presidents Think About Change in American Higher Education, sponsored by Blackboard and The Chronicle of Higher Education, has this to say about disruption: Well over half of all presidents believe that at least a moderate amount of disruption is needed in higher education. Years ago disruption to higher-education’s business model…
Last week’s appalling California Superior Court decision in Vergara v. California, which overturned California statutes guaranteeing due process protections for K-12 teachers with more than two years experience (so-called “teacher tenure”) and layoff by seniority, has engendered considerable concern among instructors in higher education. To what extent does this decision threaten the protections of the…