The Institutions on the Department of Education’s Financial Watch List: Part 5

        Previous Posts in This Series: The Institutions on the Department of Education’s Financial Watch List: Part 1: https://academeblog.org/2015/05/07/the-institutions-on-the-department-of-educations-financial-watch-list-part-1/ The Institutions on the Department of Education’s Financial Watch List: Part 2: https://academeblog.org/2015/05/08/the-institutions-on-the-department-of-educations-financial-watch-list-part-2/ The Institutions on the Department of Education’s Financial Watch List: Part 3: https://academeblog.org/2015/05/11/the-institutions-on-the-department-of-educations-financial-watch-list-part-3/ The Institutions on the Department of Education’s…

What’s the “Value Added” of a College Degree?

In a recent release titled “Beyond College Rankings,” Jonathan Rothwell, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, examined the “value added” of two- and four-year colleges in the United States. In doing so, Mr. Rothwell assessed the difference in the expected economic success of alumni and the actual outcomes of graduates. The conclusions are based on…

The Logical End of For-Profit, Online Education

The best way to ensure at least some value to education is through time-defined study under monitored face-to-face supervision. Education can certainly happen otherwise; it can even end up being not very good in this set-up. But every other model cries out for scam. In The New York Times today, Declan Walsh shows us that the ultimate result of the…

While We Have Been Focused on the Verdict in the Tsarnaev Trial

This past week, an Egyptian court sentenced to death former president Mohammed Morsi, along with 130 other defendants, for their participation in a mass jailbreak and their roles in subsequent attacks on the police and the military that led to the overthrow of the government of Hosni Mubarek. This sentence comes on the heels of…

Michelle Obama’s Commencement Address at Tuskegee University

Mrs. Obama’s commencement address has drawn criticism from the Far Right because she focused on the ways in which she, as First Lady, has been racially caricatured by not just her husband’s political opponents but by even the “mainstream” media. Once again, an attempt to focus much-needed attention on what should be fairly obvious and…

Another Attack on Teacher Unions and “Fair Share”

In a column last week Los Angeles Times op-ed writer Michael Hiltzik (whose work is almost always a must-read) exposed the fraud behind the latest assault on the political activity of teacher unions.  It involves a lawsuit, Bain v. California Teachers Association et. al, which purports to defend the “free speech” rights of its plaintiffs,…