House Hearings on the Impact of the ACA on Education: Part II: News Release from the Committee on the Hearings

Not surprisingly, the following news release reflecting the ideological position of the GOP majority on the committee completely ignores Maria Maisto’s testimony and frames the hearings in which she participated as providing just further evidence of the supposedly devastating impact of the ACA. Notice that Maria’s testimony is not quoted even once in the excerpts…

House Hearings on the Impact of the ACA on Education: Part III: Rep. Miller Announces eForum on Adjunct Faculty in Higher Education

Nov 19, 2013 Issues: Education, Higher Education, Labor, Jobs and Job Training, Worker Rights,Wages and Benefits WASHINGTON – Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), senior Democrat on the House Education and the Workforce Committee, today announced an eForum to investigate how an increased reliance on contingent faculty by colleges and universities nationwide has impacted the lives of…

The Retirement Crisis Reflects a Crisis in Declining Wages and an Eroding Standard of Living

On Black Friday–the day on which Walmart workers and other underpaid U.S. workers are engaged in actions to bring attention to their exploitation by some of America’s largest corporations–the following speech by Senator Elizabeth Warren seems very apropos. Senator Warren speaks most pointedly about the need to sustain and even to expand Social Security, but…

Guns, Politics, and Academic Studies

The following piece was written by my former student and friend Mike Lamm. Mike is a reporter for the Decatur Daily Democrat. _________________________ A new study of gun violence in the United States, recently published in the American Journal of Public Health and conducted by researchers at Boston University, has established a convincing statistical connection…

Kate Fawver’s Testimony at the U.S. Department of Education’s Hearing on President Obama’s Plan for Higher Education

Wednesday, November 6, 2013 California State University, Dominguez Hills Good Morning: Thank you for holding this public forum. We are honored to have you on our campus.  My name is Kate Fawver and I am Professor and Chair of the Department of History here at CSU Dominguez Hills.  I come before you today speaking as…

The Difficulty in Speaking Plainly about Truly Abysmal Statistics

One of my posts this past week was on John Kasich’s appointment of Gordon Gee to explore ways of increasing affordability at Ohio’s public universities. Given Gee’s continuing status as the highest paid administrator at any public university in the United States, I expressed my skepticism about the appointment, a skepticism based in part on…