Archive | 2012

Is a woman’s college the right college for you?

20 Aug

In Choosing the right college for you, moi said:

Now that many students are receiving letters of acceptance from colleges, they are deciding which college is the best fit for them. Given the tight economy, cost is a major consideration. Beckie Supiano and Elyse Ashburn have written With New Lists, Federal Government Moves to Help Consumers and Prod Colleges to Limit Price Increases in the Chronicle of HigherEducation about the Department of Education’s new site about college costs. The College Affordability and Transparency Center is useful for students who are applying to college. It allows parents and students to calculate the costs of various college options. Once the costs of various college options are considered, then other considerations come into the decision.

Danielle Moss Lee, president and chief executive officer of the Harlem Educational Activities Fund offers some great advice in the Washington Post article, Top 5 factors to weigh when picking a college (by May 1st deadline). http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/top-5-factors-to-weigh-when-picking-a-college-by-may-1st-deadline/2012/04/13/gIQAOAH4FT_blog.html

Many students apply to several colleges in order to improve their chances of being admitted to college. For some students, a woman’s college might be right for them. https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/04/15/choosing-the-right-college-for-you/

Lorraine Ash and Alesha Williams Boyd write in the USA Today article, Women’s colleges struggle to keep identity and enrollment:

 “Less than 2% of the women going to college nationwide want a single-sex institution,” said Sister Rosemary Jeffries, president of Georgian Court.

The decision highlights how women’s colleges are changing — to meet the needs of a new generation of women, and, in some cases, to make ends meet. The number of women’s colleges in the U.S. dropped from more than 200 in 1960 to 83 in 1993, according to a U.S. Department of Education report. Today, the Women’s College Coalition lists 47 member colleges.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, collective national enrollment at women’s colleges fell from about 113,000 in 1998 to 86,000 in 2010.

“Women’s colleges had to shift, but they haven’t shifted entirely. The mission is still to educate women and develop them for leadership, service and excellence,” said Jacquelyn Litt, dean at Douglass College, which in 2007 went from being its own women’s college to a college that enrolls female undergraduates from any of the academic schools at Rutgers University-New Brunswick in New Jersey.

Started in the mid-19th century, women’s colleges in the U.S. opened to level the educational playing field for women who couldn’t otherwise get a college education. Recent Census figures show that more women have undergraduate and advanced degrees than men. So, is the mission accomplished?

Not so, says Susan Lennon of the Connecticut-based Women’s College Coalition. Women’s colleges still serve a purpose, she says.

“Women continue to remain underrepresented in key leadership positions and the STEM fields: Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics,” Lennon said. “Even though women have been the majority on college campuses for more than two decades, they’re underrepresented on coed campuses in such leadership positions as the student government association, preferring to do other kinds of things.”

Still, women’s colleges’ numbers continue to drop, after closings and controversial shifts to coeducation.

Women’s colleges that have gone coed

Colleges and universities that have gone from all-women to coed in the past decade include:

• Hood College, Frederick, Md., 2002

• Seton Hill University, Greensburg, Pa., 2002

• Chestnut Hill College, Philadelphia, 2003

• Wells College, Aurora, N.Y., 2005

• Immaculata University, Immaculata, Pa., 2005

•Lesley College, Cambridge, Mass., 2005

•Regis College, Weston, Mass., 2007

•Randolph College, Ashland, Va., 2007

•William Peace University, Raleigh, N.C., 2012

•Georgian Court University, Lakewood, N.J., will go in 2013

Source: College and university information offices and web sites.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/story/2012-08-01/womens-colleges-enrollment/57103700/1

There are many myths about women who choose to go to a women’s college.

Krista Evans discusses the myths about women’s colleges in the USA Today article, The top 10 myths about all women’s colleges:

Here are the top 10 myths most women face:

1. We are all major feminists who are concerned with women’s issues

While some women at women’s colleges do fit this description, not everyone on campus is exactly like this. We all vary based on our backgrounds, experiences, etc.

2. Boys cannot come in our rooms or sleep over

False. We are not a seminary or school for women who want to become nuns. We can have guys over to study, watch movies, spend the night, or just to hangout. We are treated like adults and are allowed these privileges unless we abuse or take advantage of them.

3. For fun, we have late night pillow fights in our underwear

Again, false. Sorry men, but that is still just a fantasy dream or something you see in the movies.

4. We eat too much and do not dress up because there is no one to impress

While yes, we do have our bad days when we want to just pig out and eat Ben & Jerry’s, we do dress up for class and watch what we eat. We are just lucky to have the option of not having to dress up because we have no boys to impress in class and dressing a certain way does not have an influence on how we are graded. Teachers want us in class to learn, not for a fashion show.

5. We are all lesbians

No, of course we aren’t all lesbians. We like boys and some like girls, just like every other college campus in the United States.

6. We were not smart enough for coed schools

Super false. If anything all women’s colleges are more competitive because they only accept women.

7. We are all either boy deprived or never meet boys

Nope, many of us have boyfriends or go out on the weekends to meet boys. It is not like the college refuses to let us meet or ever see them. Back in the old days, the all women’s colleges used to set up mixers with the coed schools and host dances and invite boys only so the women could meet men.

8. We have a harder time getting jobs

Most people think we are socially deprived and will not be able to succeed in the “real” world because we have only been surrounded by women for our entire college experience. Actually, women who graduate from all women’s colleges are more successful and do very well in the “real” world.

9. We are all wealthy

The myth that we are all wealthy is completely false. Many students take out loans, have financial aid, scholarships, etc. to help them get through college. The exact same as if they were going to a co-ed college.

10. It is just a modern day finishing school, where we are getting our MRS degree

While some women do attend all women’s colleges to get the so called “MRS” degree, not everyone in attendance is there for that exact reason. Majority of women who graduate from women’s colleges go on to get law degrees, PhD’s, MBA’s, become doctors, etc. http://www.usatodayeducate.com/staging/index.php/campuslife/the-top-10-myths-about-all-womens-colleges

In Georgetown University study: Even in a depression, college grads enjoy advantage, moi said:

A college degree is no guarantee of either employment or continued employment. Still, because of the economic uncertainty there is an “arms race” in education. Laura Pappano is reporting in the New York Times article, The Master’s As the New Bachelor’s Whether a person chooses to attend a four year college after high school is a very personal decision and there is no one right answer. One thing the current economic climate has taught many is there are no guarantees in life, even with a college degree. https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/08/15/georgetown-university-study-even-in-a-depression-college-grads-enjoy-advantage/

Resources:

“You go to a Women’s College?!” What It’s Like to Go to a Single-Sex School                                                      http://www.hercampus.com/high-school/you-go-women%E2%80%99s-college-what-its-go-single-sex-school

College isn’t about the boys: Why women’s colleges still matter http://www.usatodayeducate.com/staging/index.php/toolbox/college-isnt-about-the-boys-why-womens-colleges-still-matter

Is a Women’s College Right for Your Daughter? http://www.education.com/magazine/article/Womens_Colleges/

Five Ways to Cut the Cost of College                                          http://www.cnbc.com/id/41626500/Five_Ways_to_Cut_the_Cost_of_College

Secrets to paying for college                                                                       http://money.cnn.com/2012/03/27/pf/college/tuition-costs.moneymag/index.htm

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

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3rd World America: Tropical diseases in poor neighborhoods

20 Aug

In Book: Inequality in America affects education outcome, moi said:

In Location, location, location: Brookings study of education disparity based upon neighborhood https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/04/18/location-location-location-brookings-study-of-education-disparity-based-upon-neighborhood/ moi said:

The increased rate of poverty has profound implications if this society believes that ALL children have the right to a good basic education. Moi blogs about education issues so the reader could be perplexed sometimes because moi often writes about other things like nutrition, families, and personal responsibility issues. Why? The reader might ask? Because children will have the most success in school if they are ready to learn. Ready to learn includes proper nutrition for a healthy body and the optimum situation for children is a healthy family. Many of societies’ problems would be lessened if the goal was a healthy child in a healthy family. There is a lot of economic stress in the country now because of unemployment and underemployment. Children feel the stress of their parents and they worry about how stable their family and living situation is. Sabrina Tavernise wrote an excellent New York Times article, Education Gap Grows Between Rich and Poor, Studies Say http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/10/education/education-gap-grows-between-rich-and-poor-studies-show.html?emc=eta1

The Brookings Institute study:

Housing Costs, Zoning, and Access to High-Scoring Schools Jonathan Rothwell, Associate Fellow and Senior Research Analyst, Metropolitan Policy Program The Brookings Institution

1.97 MB PDF

Download the appendix

151 KB PDF

See, Study Links Zoning to Education Disparities http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2012/04/19/29zoning.h31.html?tkn=WZZFADpJ4QDbHYgGkErxvyM40vV%2B6oC2KKaZ&cmp=clp-edweek

In 3rd world America: Money changes everything moi said:

The increased rate of poverty has profound implications if this society believes that ALL children have the right to a good basic education. Moi blogs about education issues so the reader could be perplexed sometimes because moi often writes about other things like nutrition, families, and personal responsibility issues. Why? The reader might ask? Because children will have the most success in school if they are ready to learn. Ready to learn includes proper nutrition for a healthy body and the optimum situation for children is a healthy family. Many of societies’ problems would be lessened if the goal was a healthy child in a healthy family. There is a lot of economic stress in the country now because of unemployment and underemployment. Children feel the stress of their parents and they worry about how stable their family and living situation is. There is no magic bullet or “Holy Grail” in education. There is only what works to produce academic achievement in each population of children. That is why school choice is so important. https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/02/11/3rd-world-america-money-changes-everything/

Peter J. Hotez, the dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine and the president and director of the Sabin Vaccine Institute and Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development reports in the New York Times about the latest challenge to face the poor in the article, Tropical Diseases: The New Plague of Poverty:

IN the United States, 2.8 million children are living in households with incomes of less than $2 per person per day, a benchmark more often applied to developing countries. An additional 20 million Americans live in extreme poverty. In the Gulf Coast states of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, poverty rates are near 20 percent. In some of the poorer counties of Texas, where I live, rates often approach 30 percent. In these places, the Gini coefficient, a measure of inequality, ranks as high as in some sub-Saharan African countries.

Poverty takes many tolls, but in the United States, one of the most tragic has been its tight link with a group of infections known as the neglected tropical diseases, which we ordinarily think of as confined to developing countries.

Outbreaks of dengue fever, a mosquito-transmitted viral infection that is endemic to Mexico and Central America, have been reported in South Texas. Then there is cysticercosis, a parasitic infection caused by a larval pork tapeworm that leads to seizures and epilepsy; toxocariasis, another parasitic infection that causes asthma and neurological problems; cutaneous leishmaniasis, a disfiguring skin infection transmitted by sand flies; and murine typhus, a bacterial infection transmitted by fleas and often linked to rodent infestations.

Among the more frightening is Chagas disease. Transmitted by a “kissing bug” that resembles a cockroach but with the ability to feed on human blood, it is a leading cause of heart failure and sudden death throughout Latin America. It is an especially virulent scourge among pregnant women, who can pass the disease on to their babies. Just last month, the first case of congenital Chagas disease in the United States was reported.

These are, most likely, the most important diseases you’ve never heard of.

They disproportionately affect Americans living in poverty, and especially minorities, including up to 2.8 million African-Americans with toxocariasis and 300,000 or more people, mostly Hispanic Americans, with Chagas disease. The neglected tropical diseases thrive in the poorer South’s warm climate, especially in areas where people live in dilapidated housing or can’t afford air-conditioning and sleep with the windows open to disease-transmitting insects. They thrive wherever there is poor street drainage, plumbing, sanitation and garbage collection, and in areas with neglected swimming pools.

Most troubling of all, they can even increase the levels of poverty in these areas by slowing the growth and intellectual development of children and impeding productivity in the work force. They are the forgotten diseases of forgotten people, and Texas is emerging as an epicenter.

A key impediment to eliminating neglected tropical diseases in the United States is that they frequently go unrecognized because the disenfranchised people they afflict do not or cannot seek out health care. Even when there is a clinic or community health center in an impoverished area, it often lacks the necessary diagnostic tests, and the staff is rarely trained to recognize and manage neglected tropical diseases. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/19/opinion/sunday/tropical-diseases-the-new-plague-of-poverty.html?emc=eta1

Teachers and schools have been made TOTALLY responsible for the education outcome of the children, many of whom come to school not ready to learn and who reside in families that for a variety of reasons cannot support their education. All children are capable of learning, but a one-size-fits-all approach does not serve all children well. Different populations of children will require different strategies and some children will require remedial help, early intervention, and family support to achieve their education goals.

Richard D. Kahlenberg, , a senior fellow at The Century Foundation wrote the informative Washington Post article, How to attack the growing educational gap between rich and poor.  http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/how-to-attack-the-growing-educational-gap-between-rich-and-poor/2012/02/10/gIQArDOg4Q_blog.html

Our goal as a society should be:

A Healthy Child In A Healthy Family Who Attends A Healthy School In A Healthy neighborhood ©

Related:

People MUST talk: AIDS epidemic in Black community https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/08/02/people-must-talk-aids-epidemic-in-black-community/

Study: When teachers overcompensate for prejudice https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/05/10/study-when-teachers-overcompensate-for-prejudice/

Location, location, location: Brookings study of education disparity based upon neighborhood https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/04/18/location-location-location-brookings-study-of-education-disparity-based-upon-neighborhood/

Jonathan Cohn’s ‘The Two Year Window’ https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2011/12/18/jonathan-cohns-the-two-year-window/

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

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STEM majors profit college students of color

19 Aug

As a society, we want all college students to be successful. For many students of color, college is often a daunting experience. According to the National Center on Education Statistics:

The percentage of college students who are Hispanic, Asian/Pacific Islander, and Black has been increasing. From 1976 to 2009, the percentage of Hispanic students rose from 3 percent to 12 percent, the percentage of Asian/Pacific Islander students rose from 2 percent to 7 percent, and the percentage of Black students rose from 9 percent to 14 percent. During the same period, the percentage of White students fell from 83 percent to 62 percent. Nonresident aliens, for whom race/ethnicity is not reported, made up 3 percent of the total enrollment in 2009. http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=98

See, Minorities and the Recession-Era College Enrollment Boom http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2010/06/16/minorities-and-the-recession-era-college-enrollment-boom/

Patrice Peck is reporting in the Huffington Post article, STEM Majors Prove Especially Profitable For Minority Students: Study:

And with studies showing that college degrees still hold their value, despite the economic downturn, choosing a major that yields the right post-graduate rewards is more important than ever.

According to a study published in the June issue of Research in Higher Education, majoring in science, technology, engineering, or math (STEM) proves to be the most profitable for minority students, whether they actually pursue the STEM field professionally or not.

The study, which was conducted by researchers at the University of Southern California Rossier School of Education, followed more than 1,000 Asian and Pacific Islander, Latino and black students over a period of nine years in an effort to determine the profitability of STEM degrees and help bridge the gap of minorities in those fields.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/15/stem-majors-profitable-minority-students_n_1785021.html?utm_hp_ref=education&ir=Education

The Teaching Institute for Excellence in STEM defines STEM:

 What is STEM Education?

Science Technology Engineering & Mathematics

In 2001, Judith A. Ramaley, a former director of the National Science Foundation’s education and human-resources division was credited by many educators with being the first person to brand science, technology, engineering and mathematics curriculum as STEM. It was swiftly adopted by numerous institutions of higher education as well as the scientific communities as an important focus for education policy focus and development.

TIES always views STEM instruction and the STEM resources that support the instruction with a trans-disciplinary lens. Issues in our world arise and are demanding of solutions. Since before Da Vinci, we have taken up this call to action through the design process. It asks for a multiplicity of pathways to offer a series of plausible solutions. From that process has come the power of prototyping, and beta testing. Rarely have our classrooms offered children the chance to engage in such questioning and processes. Now, through STEM education we have the chance to invite our children to look at their school work as important to the world.

For information on how TIES STEM Consulting can work with your organization to launch a comprehensive STEM curriculum program contact us at 443-955-9168 or via email . http://www.tiesteach.org/stem-education.aspx

The study, The Earnings Benefits of Majoring in STEM Fields among High Achieving Minority Students examines the benefits of STEM education for college students of color.

Here is the press release:

 For Minority College Students, STEM Degrees Pay Big
June 22, 2012

 Study finds degrees in science, technology, engineering and math associated with 25 to 50 percent higher earnings; Latino college grads are highest earners

Minority college students who major in the STEM fields – science, technology, engineering and math – earn at least 25 percent more than their peers who study humanities or education, according to the results of a new study.

And those who took jobs related to their STEM degrees earned at least 50 percent more than their classmates who majored in humanities or education fields.

Published in the June issue of Research in Higher Education, the study followed more than 1,000 Asian and Pacific Islander, Latino and black students over nine years. The students were scholarship applicants for the Gates Millennium Scholars Program funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which awards grants to highly motivated, low-income minority students.

While minority groups continue to be underrepresented in the STEM fields, the study’s researchers believe this will change if students understand how much more money can be earned in those fields.

“The premiums for majoring in STEM fields are huge,” said lead author Tatiana Melguizo, associate professor of education with the USC Rossier School of Education. “We need to educate students that if they get a job in a STEM-related occupation, they have an even higher earning premium. Otherwise, students aren’t reaping the economic benefit of all the hard work they went through as undergrads.”

Overall, Latinos reported the highest average earnings after college – $42,180 annually – relative to the other minority groups. Black students reported earning $35,900 and Asian Pacific Islanders earned $40,261 (data in 2006 dollars).

Latinos majoring in STEM fields also reported the highest earnings among the groups studied: an average of $56,875 per year, higher than the reported average salaries of $39,365 for blacks and $47,530 for Asian Pacific Islanders.

The study’s authors said more research must be done to determine whether these discrepancies are attributable to different career preferences among racial/ethnic groups or employers’ hiring decisions, as well as the role colleges and universities play in the career and occupational development of minority students.

“Among the high achieving minority students we studied, Latinos not only reported the highest annual earnings overall, but also reported the highest annual earnings among STEM majors,” said study co-author Gregory Wolniak, a senior research scientist at the independent research organization NORC at the University of Chicago. “Preliminary findings suggest this may partially be due to Latino students’ ability to find jobs related to their major. These findings are encouraging signs that strengthening the pipeline of underrepresented students into STEM careers offers a viable solution to our nation’s growing competitiveness problem in engineering and science fields.”

Funding for the study was provided by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation through the Institute for Higher Education Policy.

About the USC Rossier School of Education

The USC Rossier School of Education (ross-EAR) is one of the world’s premier centers for the study of urban education. In addition to the school’s transformational research and partnerships, Rossier also prepares teachers and educational leaders who are committed to improving urban education locally, nationally and globally.

About NORC at the University of Chicago

NORC at the University of Chicago is an independent research organization headquartered in downtown Chicago with additional offices on the UChicago campus, the Washington D.C. metropolitan area, Atlanta and Boston. With clients throughout the world, NORC collaborates with government agencies, foundations, educational institutions, nonprofit organizations and businesses to provide data and analysis that support informed decision-making in key areas including health, education, economics, crime, justice, energy, security and the environment. NORC’s 70 years of leadership and experience in data collection, analysis and dissemination—coupled with deep subject matter expertise—provides information and analysis that form the foundation for effective solutions.

Contact: Merrill Balassone at (213) 740-6156, (213) 509-7805 or balasson@usc.edu

Citation:

Title: The Earnings Benefits of Majoring in STEM Fields among High Achieving Minority Students

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Title:

The Earnings Benefits of Majoring in STEM Fields among High Achieving Minority Students

Authors:

Melguizo, Tatiana; Wolniak, Gregory C.

Descriptors:

Minority Group Students; Academically Gifted; Undergraduate Study; STEM Education; Majors (Students); Education Work Relationship; Career Choice; Educational Benefits; Income; Economic Opportunities; Educational Experience; Decision Making

Source:

Research in Higher Education, v53 n4 p383-405 Jun 2012

Peer Reviewed:

Yes

Publisher:

Springer. 233 Spring Street, New York, NY 10013. Tel: 800-777-4643; Tel: 212-460-1500; Fax: 212-348-4505; e-mail: service-ny@springer.com; Web site: http://www.springerlink.com

Publication Date:

2012-06-00

Pages:

23

Pub Types:

Journal Articles; Reports – Research

Abstract:

The purpose of this study was to improve our understanding of the association between major field of study in college and early career earnings among a sample of academically accomplished minority students. Results demonstrate the economic benefits minority students experience from majoring in a Science, Technology, Engineering and Math field during college, and highlight the importance of gaining employment in a closely related field in order to secure those benefits. The results also illustrate the need to carefully account for self-selection when estimating the earnings premiums in relation to educational experiences during college. Implications for policy and research are discussed.

Abstractor:

As Provided

Reference Count:

79

In Borrowing from work: Schools teach career mapping Moi said:

One of the goals of education is to give the student sufficient basic skills to be able to leave school and be able to function at a job or correctly assess their training needs. One of the criticisms of the current education system is that it does not adequately prepare children for work or for a career.  A liberal arts education has been considered the gold standard. Moi wrote in Why Go to College? https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/03/24/borrowing-from-work-schools-teach-career-mapping/

The societal push the last few years has been to have more kids go to college. Quite often schools are ranked on the percentage of kids that go directly to college from high school. So, counselors are following cultural cues they have received from administrators, parents, and the media.

Chris Stout lists Top Five Reasons to Go to College Stout places the emphasis on the college experience and the fact that college is not just a place for possible career training. Forbes. Com published Five Reasons Not to Go to College Some people discover their passion earlier in life than others. Forbes.Com addresses its comments at those folks. The calculation is that if one already knows what they want to do, college could be an unnecessary detour. A US News and World Report article estimated the value of a college degree    https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2011/11/28/why-go-to-college/ Georgetown University has released a study that finds a college degree gives an advantage, even during times of recession.

Executive Summary

Full Report

See, In an Economic Storm, a College Degree Is Still the Best Umbrellahttp://chronicle.com/blogs/headcount/in-economic-storm-a-college-degree-is-still-the-best-umbrella/31187

https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/08/15/georgetown-university-study-even-in-a-depression-college-grads-enjoy-advantage/

Resources:

STEM Education Coalition                                       http://www.stemedcoalition.org/

What Is STEM Education?                                      http://www.sciencemag.org/content/329/5995/996.summary

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

 

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Social media may offer introverts a chance to expand their social networks

19 Aug

In Introverts, especially introverted children have strengths too, moi wrote:

Children who are introverted can face challenges in school and may even be labeled as less intelligent. The Myers & Briggs Foundation defines

Extraversion (E)
I like getting my energy from active involvement in events and having a lot of different activities. I’m excited when I’m around people and I like to energize other people. I like moving into action and making things happen. I generally feel at home in the world. I often understand a problem better when I can talk out loud about it and hear what others have to say.

The following statements generally apply to me:

  • I am seen as “outgoing” or as a “people person.”

  • I feel comfortable in groups and like working in them.

  • I have a wide range of friends and know lots of people.

  • I sometimes jump too quickly into an activity and don’t allow enough time to think it over.

  • Before I start a project, I sometimes forget to stop and get clear on what I want to do and why.

Introversion (I)
I like getting my energy from dealing with the ideas, pictures, memories, and reactions that are inside my head, in my inner world. I often prefer doing things alone or with one or two people I feel comfortable with. I take time to reflect so that I have a clear idea of what I’ll be doing when I decide to act. Ideas are almost solid things for me. Sometimes I like the idea of something better than the real thing.

The following statements generally apply to me:

  • I am seen as “reflective” or “reserved.”

  • I feel comfortable being alone and like things I can do on my own.

  • I prefer to know just a few people well.

  • I sometimes spend too much time reflecting and don’t move into action quickly enough.

  • I sometimes forget to check with the outside world to see if my ideas really fit the experience.

http://www.myersbriggs.org/my-mbti-personality-type/mbti-basics/extraversion-or-introversion.asp

Studies indicate that schools seek to bring students “out of their shells” and that this might not be the appropriate approach for many introverted students. https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/05/23/introverts-especially-introverted-children-have-strengths-too/

Susan Cain has written the great Time article, Why Gadgets Are Great for Introverts:

But our online gadgets have arguably enhanced the social lives of one large swath of the population: the introvert.

Introverts are often brimming with thoughts and care deeply for their friends, family and colleagues. But even the most socially skilled introverts (of whom there are many) sometimes long for a free pass from socializing en masse or talking on the phone. This is what the Internet offers: the chance to connect — but in measured doses and from behind a screen.

When I was researching my book, QUIET, I noticed that many of the introverted academics I corresponded with were much warmer via e-mail than when we finally met in real life. The keyboard and screen allowed them to express their caring and friendly natures.

Similarly, when you’re blogging or tweeting, you don’t have to wade through small talk before you get to main point. You have time to think before you speak. You can connect, one mind with another, freed from the distractions of social cues and pleasantries — just the way readers and writers have done for centuries.

And you can do all this from the quiet of your own home. “Sitting at home in the dark, on Google+, with my 1.6 million followers … is perfect for me,” Guy Kawasaki, the seemingly sociable entrepreneur, founder of alltop.com, and self-described introvert, told the crowd at a tech conference earlier this year. “Social media allows me to pick my times for social interaction.” (As of this writing, Kawasaki has over 2.6 million Google+ followers.)

Of course, not all introverts see the Internet as a godsend, and not all forms of social media are alike. Some introverts have told me they prefer Twitter to Facebook, for example, because it emphasizes the exchange of information over chatter and photo-sharing; a 2010 study published in Computers and Human Behavior suggests that users of some social media sites have become increasingly extroverted as online anonymity decreases.

Still, a distinct breed has emerged: call it the “offline introvert/online extrovert.” That’s how Mack Collier, a social media strategist, describes himself on his Facebook page, and there are many others just like him. Chris Guillebeau, the author of the popular blog The Art of Non-Conformity, calls himself an introvert, and so does Lisa Petrilli, a leadership strategist who co-hosted a “Leadership Chat” with fellow introvert Steven Woodruff on Twitter every Tuesday evening for almost two years. One of their topics? The power of the introvert in cyberspace. http://ideas.time.com/2012/08/16/gadgets-are-great-for-introverts/

Cain also describes some of the personality traits of introverted children in another Time article.

In Don’t Call Introverted Children “Shy” Cain writes:

But if they’re not antisocial, these kids are differently social. According to the psychologist Elaine Aron, author of the book Psychotherapy and the Highly Sensitive Person, 70% of children with a careful temperament grow up to be introverts, meaning they prefer minimally stimulating environments — a glass of wine with a close friend over a raucous party full of strangers. Some will grow up shy as well. Shyness and introversion are not the same thing. Shy people fear negative judgment, while introverts simply prefer less stimulation; shyness is inherently painful, and introversion is not. But in a society that prizes the bold and the outspoken, both are perceived as disadvantages.

Yet we wouldn’t want to live in a world composed exclusively of bold extroverts. We desperately need people who pay what Aron calls “alert attention” to things. It’s no accident that introverts get better grades than extroverts, know more about most academic subjects and win a disproportionate number of Phi Beta Kappa keys and National Merit Scholarship finalist positions — even though their IQ scores are no higher. “The glory of the disposition that stops to consider stimuli rather than rushing to engage with them is its long association with intellectual and artistic achievement,” observes science writer Winifred Gallagher. “Neither E=mc² nor Paradise Lost was dashed off by a party animal.”
http://ideas.time.com/2012/01/26/dont-call-introverted-children-shy/#ixzz23xz52Qie

Because technology access is useful for introverts to get their ideas across, the digital divide may be a barrier.

In The digital divide in classrooms, moi wrote:

One of the major contributors to poverty in third world nations is limited access to education opportunities. The Asian Development Bank has the best concise synopsis of the link between Education and Poverty For a good article about education and poverty which has agood bibliography, go to Poverty and Education, Overview As technology becomes more prevalent in society and increasingly is used in schools, there is talk of a “digital divide” between the haves and have-nots. Laurence Wolff and Soledad MacKinnon define the “digital divide” in their article, What is the Digital Divide?

The “digital divide,” inequalities in access to and utilization of information and communication technologies (ICT), is immense.

http://info.worldbank.org/etools/docs/library/57449/digitaldivide.pdf

Access to information technology varies within societies and it varies between countries. The focus of this article is the digital divide in education.

Jim Jansen reports in the Pew Internet report, Use of the internet in higher-income households:

Read Full Report

Explore Survey Questions

https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/01/25/the-digital-divide-in-classrooms/

One of the skills that students must learn and be comfortable with is the use of technology. Unfortunately, the poorer student’s access is often limited because their schools sit firmly on the “digital divide.

Related:

Why Introverts Can Make The Best Leaders                       http://www.forbes.com/2009/11/30/introverts-good-leaders-leadership-managing-personality.html

Shhhh! The Quiet Joys of the Introvert               http://healthland.time.com/2012/01/26/shhhh-the-quiet-joys-of-the-introvert/

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

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Ineffective charter schools must be closed

18 Aug

In Focus on charter schools: Charter school laws, moi said:

This blog wholeheartedly supports charters, but more important, this blog supports school choice.  One of the principles of this blog is that all children have a right to a good basic education. There are a variety of ways that each child will receive that good basic education and the choice should be left to the parents or guardians. The only caveat should be that if the education option is failing to educate that child, there should be other alternatives to choose from. Charters are governed by state law which authorizes them and sets the parameters for operation. One of the reasons many support charters is it is at least theoretically possible for failing schools to be closed. There are going to be good education options of all types and there will be failures of public school, private schools, and homeschools. Just as success is not attributed to all choices in a category, the fact that a public school or charter school is a failure does not mean that ALL public schools or ALL charter schools are failure. People, use a little discernment. Many are so caught up in their particular political agenda that they lose sight of the goal, which is that all children have a right to a good basic education.

The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools has issued the report, Measuring Up to the Model: A Ranking of State Charter School Laws, 2012 http://www.publiccharters.org/publication/?id=658       See, Report: Quality of Charter School Laws Improves Nationwide   http://www.educationnews.org/education-policy-and-politics/report-quality-of-charter-school-laws-improves-nationwide/

https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/01/23/focus-on-charter-schools-charter-school-laws/

One of the perceived advantages of the charter school concept is the ability to close underperforming schools.

In Focus on charter schools: There must be accountability, moi said:

Moi supports neighborhood schools which cater to the needs of the children and families in that neighborhood. A one-size-fits-all approach does not work in education. It is for this reason that moi supports charter schools which are regulated by strong charter school legislation with accountability. Accountability means different things to different people. In 2005 Sheila A. Arens wrote Examining the Meaning of Accountability: Reframing the Construct for Mid-Continent Research for Education and Learning which emphasizes the involvement of parents and community members. One of the goals of the charter movement is to involve parents and communities. http://www.mcrel.org/PDF/AssessmentAccountabilityDataUse/4002IR_Examining_Accountability.pdf

https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2011/12/24/focus-on-charter-schools-there-must-be-accountability/

Sean Cavanaugh’s Education Week article discusses charter school accountability.

In Debate Grows Around Charter School Closure, Cavanaugh writes:

One of the most vexing questions about charter schools—when low-performing ones should be shut down—is receiving new attention, amid concerns that lax and inconsistent standards for closing them will undermine the public’s confidence in the sector.

Over the past few years, a growing number of researchers, policymakers, and charter school backers have called for removing obstacles to closing academically struggling schools, though many barriers remain.

Numerous states have approved laws in recent years that have raised or clarified standards for charter school performance, while also establishing policies to make it easier for charters to open and secure facilities and public funding.

Even so, state and local policies vary greatly in their expectations for charter schools, and in the standards they set for authorizers—the state, local, or independent entities typically charged with approving charters and overseeing their performance.

According to a report released this year, the nationwide rate of closure of charters schools up for renewal has actually fallen over the past three years, which could be interpreted as a sign of improved quality, weaker oversight, or some combination of both. Another recent estimate shows that the percentage of charters in different states that have shut their doors varies widely—from zero to 5 percent in some states to well over 20 percent in others.e Also

Debates about the standards for closing struggling charters are nothing new, either in the context of broader policy discussions or in communities weighing the performance of individual schools. But the issue has received more intense focus lately from pro-charter groups that say they want to ensure that the sector, which has grown fairly steady for two decades, is held to high standards….

Others point out that many low-performing charters do, in fact, close, and warn against state and local officials setting overly rigid standards for judging performance without considering the challenges individual schools face.

“Trying to create one-size-fits-all formulas—that flies in the face of what charter schools should be,” said Jeanne Allen, the president of the Center for Education Reform, a Washington organization that supports such schools. Authorizers need to be held to high standards for judging charters, she said, but also “actively understand the context of each school.”

Debates about charter quality notwithstanding, research suggests that academically struggling charters do not get a free pass.

A larger percentage of low-performing charters close—19 percent—than do similarly struggling public schools—11 percent—according to a 2010 studyconducted by David A. Stuit, a partner at Basis Policy Research, an independent research organization in Raleigh, N.C., for the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a Washington think tank that supports charters. That study focused on 10 states, which have about 70 percent of the country’s charters.

Nationwide, 15 percent of the 6,700 charter schools that have opened over the past two decades have shut their doors for one reason or another, according to the Center for Education Reform. The largest proportion of those closures, nearly 42 percent, were the result of financial woes, usually related to low enrollment or lack of funding, the CER concluded. Twenty-four percent closed for reasons of mismanagement, and a smaller share, 19 percent, were shut down for academic reasons.

Who Authorizes Charter Schools?

The nation’s charter schools are overseen by a variety of authorizers. The vast majority of them—more than 90 percent—are individual school districts:

859 local education agencies
46 higher education institutions
20 nonprofit organizations
20 state education agencies
10 independent chartering boards
2 mayors/municipalities

957 total

SOURCE: National Association of Charter School Authorizers http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2012/08/17/01closure_ep.h32.html?tkn=PVLFy1z3RewY%2BLRHVgefsvkBJ3%2BmKA5iLdlO&intc=es

So, what does this all mean? No one method will educate all children. If the goal is to give all children a good basic education, then all options must be on the table. Otherwise, the supposed adults are protecting their jobs and their pensions.

Resources:

Why Charter Schools

Related:

National Education Policy Center study compares spending by charters and public schools                                                                                                                              https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/05/07/national-education-policy-center-study-study-compares-spending-by-charters-and-public-schools/

Good or bad? Charter schools and segregation                                                    https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/02/23/good-or-bad-charter-schools-and-segregation/

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

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Ohio report: Regional cooperation to align education services

17 Aug

A few years back, the New York Times did a series about social class in America. That series is still relevant. Janny Scott and David Leonhardt’s overview, Shadowy Lines That Still Divide describes the challenges faced by schools trying to overcome the disparity in education. The complete series can be found at Social Class in America

Teachers and administrators as well as many politicians if they are honest know that children arrive at school at various points on the ready to learn continuum. Teachers have to teach children at whatever point on the continuum the children are. The question for those who believe that ALL children should receive a good basic education is whether there is a difference between good and effective schools.

Joanne Yatvin, is a longtime public school educator, author and past president of the National Council of Teachers of English. She teaches part-time at Portland StateUniversity and is writing a book on good teaching in high poverty schools. Yatvin has written a thoughtful Washington Post piece, The difference between good schools and effective schools.

I just found a book review I wrote for The Elementary School Journal in 1986. The book I reviewed was McDonogh 15: Becoming a School by Lucianne Bond Carmichael.  (If you’ve never read it, you should get a copy, read it, and hold it close to your heart forever.  Better yet, buy several copies and send them to your federal and state legislators.)

Reading it reinforced and expanded my own idea of what a truly good school is and the specific things it does to empower its students and strengthen its teachers. I will quote one section of my review: a definition and description of a good school based partly on Carmichael’s experience as a principal and partly on my own.  Because I am taking the quoted section out of context and because educational terminology has changed over the years, I have altered some of it but the meaning remains the same:

To help you understand what I have learned from McDonogh 15, I will describe a good school as I know it and compare it to today’s popular ideal called an ”effective school.”  Let me start with a general definition of a good school and go on with more detailed descriptions of both types of schools:

A good school is a place where children learn enough worthwhile things to make a strong start in life, where a foundation is laid that supports later learning, and where children develop the desire to learn more.

 Specifically, a good school mirrors the realities of life in an ordered, adult society; it is rational and safe, a practice ground for the things people do in the outside world. The school creates a sense of community that permits personal expression within a framework of social responsibility. It focuses on learnings that grow through use–with or without more schooling–such as communication skills, decision making, craftsmanship, and group interaction.  It makes children think of themselves as people who find strength, nourishment, and joy in learning.

 In contrast, the effective school looks at learning in terms of test scores in a limited number of academic areas.  It does not take into consideration problem-solving abilities, social skills, or even complex academic skills.  It does not differentiate between dynamic and inert knowledge; it ignores motivation.  When we hear of a school where test scores are in the 90th percentile, should we not also ask what that school does to prepare students to live the next sixty years of their lives? http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/the-difference-between-good-schools-and-effective-schools/2012/01/31/gIQAlQIlsQ_blog.html

There are certain elements that successful schools share. The Wisconsin Department of Education has a good guide about successful schools. Chapter One, Characteristics of Successful Schools , lists key elements:

Many school districts are in a period of flat or declining revenue. The U.S. Department of Education has a page, Pay and Manage for Results, which discusses efforts by districts to manage resources:

To deliver non-educational services as efficiently as possible and to improve payment structures to deliver better results, policy makers should pursue strategies that will enable them to pay and manage for results. Pursuing performance-based funding, performance contracting, and shared services, can result in meaningful cost savings with minimal effort.

Disclaimer The links on this page are provided for users convenience and are not an endorsement. See full disclaimer.

Performance-based funding: Performance-based funding and other structures that allocate dollars based on the educational results achieved, are gaining traction in the education field. Growing in use in higher education and adult education as well, performance-based funding is being pursued in K-12 education for its emphasis on improved outcomes and cost efficiencies….

Performance-based contracting: Many school districts, cities, and counties have taken advantage of performance-based contracting, a strategy that enables them to purchase outcomes as opposed to inputs. A number of school districts across the country use performance-based contracting for non-instructional services, particularly energy. Energy performance contracts in particular have shown to result in substantial cost savings for districts….

Strategic sourcing or shared services: Pooling purchasing when procuring goods and services can help to reduce costs. Consolidating or expanding shared services and cooperative agreements among school districts or between school districts and municipal governments can result in cost savings and quality improvements.http://www.ed.gov/oii-news/pay-and-manage-results

KnowledgeWorks funded a study of shared resources in Ohio.

Here is the press release for the report, Towards a New Model of Educational Governance for Ohio: Regional Cooperation to Align Education Services:

Ohio school districts could save millions and improve student outcomes if state provided better regional support

Ohio Education Matters releases second report as part of Ohio Smart Schools

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Thursday, February 24, 2011 

Byron McCauley – (513) 929-1310

CINCINNATI — Ohio needs new regional structures to help school districts share services and to help communities better focus local resources on problems in the educational system that are holding some children back, according to a new independent report released today by Ohio Education Matters.

The report, the second in the Ohio Smart Schools initiative, recommended that the state collapse fractured existing regional entities into Regional Service Agencies that would lead the state’s effort to save hundreds of millions in education spending by sharing services across districts.

In addition, the report called on the state to expand existing P-16 councils into a statewide network of regional P-16 councils. These councils would help create an infrastructure of support for local schools and districts by connecting them more closely to their local and regional service providers for children.

“Most schools and districts in Ohio do not have the ability to easily share services and get the cost efficiencies of regional service delivery,” said Andrew Benson, Executive Director of Ohio Education Matters, a subsidiary of KnowledgeWorks. “Building a regional market for services would allow districts to reduce costs and focus more dollars and attention on the classroom.”

Likewise, P-16 councils help schools and districts better tap into community resources that can improve outcomes for children. The report highlighted the successes of two nationally known P-16 councils in Ohio: the Stark Education Partnership in the Canton area, and the Strive Partnership in Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky.

“Both of these councils serve as great examples of what the collective impact of communities can do to improve the academic and social well-being of children,” Benson said. “They have leveraged millions in private dollars for children and reduced waste and duplication in support services for students, like afterschool programs, tutoring and health initiatives.”

The report, titled Towards a New Model of Educational Governance for Ohio: Regional Cooperation to Align Education Services, is part of the Ohio Smart Schools initiative, which comes in response to a request from the State of Ohio last year to study K-12 education spending to find more efficiencies. The independent report, funded by KnowledgeWorks with additional private dollars, is offering ideas to state leaders as they consider how to close a budget shortfall of up to $8 billion in the next biennial budget.

The report urged the state to take action in the next fiscal year to create these new regional structures so that they would be operating in FY13. The report called for the reallocation of $5 million in existing state education funds to provide matching planning grants for the creation of up to 100 new P-16 councils. The authors, citing studies in other states, conclude that regional sharing of services is a better alternative to district consolidation.

Benson said hundreds of millions of dollars could be saved from sharing services through Regional Service Agencies. As an example, the report notes that a regional collaboration to transport students who attend charter and private schools could potentially save up to $238 million a year in the eight largest metropolitan areas of Ohio.

“These proposals will focus more dollars on student-needs by wrenching more savings out of the system and better coordinating the use of private and community resources,” he said.

This report is the second in a series from the Ohio Smart Schools effort. Earlier, Ohio Education Matters released a report on school employee health care benefits, which showed that Ohio public school districts can save up to $138 million a year in employee health care costs if the state were to require them to pool together in large groups that benefit from larger economies of scale. That report also called for the state to find ways to encourage Ohio school districts to pursue lower-cost health insurance plans that could cut health benefit costs by 37 percent.

The reports are available at www.ohioeducationmatters.org and www.ohiosmartschools.org.

Ohio Education Matters, a subsidiary of KnowledgeWorks Foundation, is a statewide, public policy research organization that focuses on connecting the dots between great innovations and those in the community who can make change. As a non-partisan entity, Ohio Education Matters acts as a catalyst of education transformation by conducting research, advocacy, engagement and policy development that inspires others to make the system changes needed today to prepare Ohio’s children for the future.

KnowledgeWorks is bringing the future of learning to America’s high schools and creating widespread, lasting change in the communities and states we serve. Our portfolio of high school approaches includes New Tech Network high schools, EdWorks high school redesign, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) and Early College High Schools. The Strive Partnership is a subsidiary of KnowledgeWorks.

See, KnowledgeWorks Touts ‘Resource Sharing’ to Ohio Schools http://www.educationnews.org/k-12-schools/knowledgeworks-touts-resource-sharing-to-ohio-schools/

It is important for schools to have the resources to carry out their mission.

Schools must be relentless about the basics for their population of kids. What does it Mean to Be Relentless About the Basics:      

  1. Students acquire strong subject matter skills in reading, writing, and math.
  2. Students are assessed often to gauge where they are in acquiring basic skills.
  3. If there are deficiencies in acquiring skills, schools intervene as soon as a deficiency assessment is made.
  4. Schools intervene early in life challenges faced by students which prevent them from attending school and performing in school.
  5. Appropriate corrective assistance is provided by the school to overcome both academic and life challenges.   

Related:

Center for American Progress report: Performance-based funding in higher education                                                               https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/08/12/center-for-american-progress-report-performance-based-funding-in-higher-education/

More school districts facing a financial crunch are considering school ads                                                                 https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/06/04/more-school-districts-facing-a-financial-crunch-are-considering-school-ads/

Brookings study: State grant aid goes increasingly to the wealthy                                                              https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/05/19/brookings-study-state-grant-aid-goes-increasingly-to-the-wealthy/

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

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‘Hybrid’ homeschooling is growing

16 Aug

Moi wrote about homeschools in Homeschooling is becoming more mainstream:

Parents and others often think of school choice in terms of public school or private school. There is another option and that is homeschooling. Homeschooling is one option in the school choice menu. There are fewer children being homeschooled than there are in private schools. There are fewer children in private education, which includes homeschools than in public education. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, the vast majority of students attend public schools. Complete statistics can be found at Fast Education Facts

The question, which will be discussed at the end of this comment, is: What is so scary about school choice? After all, the vast majority of children are enrolled in public school and school choice is not going to change that.

What is Homeschooling?

Family Education defines homeschooling. 

Homeschooling means learning outside of the public or private school environment. The word “home” is not really accurate, and neither is “school.” For most families, their “schooling” involves being out and about each day, learning from the rich resources available in their community, environment, and through interactions with other families who homeschool.

Essentially, homeschooling involves a commitment by a parent or guardian to oversees their child or teen’s educational development. There are almost two million homeschoolers in this country.

There is no one federal law, which governs homeschooling. Each state regulates homeschooling, so state law must be consulted. The Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) has a summary of each state’s laws. State Homeschool Laws The American Homeschool Association (AHA) has resources such as FAQ and the history of homeschooling at AHA                      https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/05/22/homeschooling-is-becoming-more-mainstream/

There are a variety of homeschool types. IQ Academy lists the most popular homeschool types in Homeschooling Approaches:

The following are the most popular homeschooling approaches:

School-at-Home

School-at-home is the style most often portrayed in the media because it is so easy to understand and can be accompanied by a photo of children studying around the kitchen table. This is also the most expensive method and the style with the highest burnout rate. Most families who follow the school-at-home approach purchase a boxed curriculum that comes with textbooks, study schedules, grades, and record keeping.

Unit Studies

Unit studies use your child’s interest and then ties that interest into subject areas like math, reading, spelling, science, art and history. For example, if you have a child who is interested in ancient Egypt, you would learn the history of Egypt, read books about Egypt, write stories about Egypt, do art projects about pyramids, and learn about Egyptian artifacts or mapping skills to map out a catacomb.

Unschooling

Unschooling is also known as natural, interest-led, and child-led learning. Unschoolers learn from everyday life experiences and do not use school schedules or formal lessons. Instead, unschooled children follow their interests and learn in much the same way as adults do—by pursuing an interest or curiosity. Unschooled children learn their math, science, reading and history in the same way that children learn to walk and talk.

“Relaxed” or “Eclectic” Homeschooling

“Relaxed” or “Eclectic” homeschooling is the method used most often by homeschoolers. Basically, eclectic homeschoolers use a little of this and a little of that such as workbooks for math, reading, and spelling, and taking an unschooling approach for the other subjects.

Classical Homeschooling

The “classical” method began in the Middle Ages and was the approach used by some of the greatest minds in history. The goal of the classical approach is to teach people how to learn for themselves. The five tools of learning, known as the Trivium, are reason, record, research, relate, and rhetoric. Younger children begin with the preparing stage, where they learn basic reading, writing, and arithmetic. The grammar stage is next, which emphasizes compositions and collections, and then the dialectic stage, where serious reading, study, and research take place. All the tools come together in the rhetoric stage, where communication is the primary focus.

The Charlotte Mason Method

The Charlotte Mason method has at its core the belief that children deserve respect and that they learn best from real-life situations. According to Charlotte Mason, children should be given time to play, create, and be involved in real-life situations from which they can learn. Students of the Charlotte Mason method take nature walks, visit art museums, and learn geography, history, and literature from “living books,” books that make these subjects come alive. Students also show what they know, not by taking tests, but via narration and discussion.

The Waldorf Method

The Waldorf method is also used by some homeschoolers. Waldorf education is based on the work of Rudolf Steiner and stresses the importance of educating the whole child—body, mind, and spirit. In the early grades, there is an emphasis on arts and crafts, music and movement, and nature. Older children are taught to develop self-awareness and how to reason things out for themselves. Children in a Waldorf homeschool do not use standard textbooks; instead, the children create their own books.

Montessori

Montessori materials are also popular in some households. The Montessori method emphasizes “errorless learning,” where the children learn at their own pace and in that way develop their full potential. The Montessori homeschool emphasizes beauty and avoids things that are confusing or cluttered. Wooden tools are preferred over plastic tools, and learning materials are kept well-organized and ready to use. Most homeschoolers use the Montessori method for younger children.

Multiple Intelligences

“Multiple intelligences” is an idea developed by Howard Gardner and Harvard University’s “project zero.” The belief is that everyone is intelligent in his or her own way and that learning is easiest and most effective when it uses a person’s strengths instead of their weakness. For example, most schools use a linguistic and logical-mathematical approach when teaching, but not everyone learns that way. Some students, the bodily kinesthetic learners for example, learn best by touching and not by listening or reading. Most successful homeschoolers naturally emphasize their children’s strengths and automatically tailor their teaching to match their child’s learning style. Successful homeschoolers also adjust their learning environment and schedule so that it brings out their child’s’ best. The goal for the homeschooling parents is to identify how, when, and what their child learns best and to adapt their teaching style to their child.

Hybrid Homeschooling (part-time)

Hybrid homeschoolers work in the middle ground between a traditional type of schooling, and homeschooling. Many hybrid homeschoolers work with their public school system or utilize co-op classes, tutors, and even private school programs. While hybrids work with a more traditional type of schooling, they only do this a few days per week. Homeschoolers find this method more appealing as children get older, because it provides a more structured environment for the child, and can take a lot of weight off of the parents shoulders as well as free up a good deal of your time. One program that offers a hybrid option is iQ Academy.

Internet Homeschooling

The Internet Homeschooling method has become a widespread phenomenon that allows homeschoolers to harness the power of the Internet by accessing virtual tutors, virtual schools, online curriculum, and quality websites. Parents are turning to this method because they can set their own schedule, learn online wherever there is internet access, talk to teachers one on one whenever their child needs help, and can study subjects that interest their child. Also, schools like iQ Academy, let you work at your own pace, and even provide students with a laptop*. http://www.homeschool.com/articles/iqacademy3/default.asp

The “hybrid “approach is growing in popularity.

Sarah D. Sparks is reporting in the Education Week article, ‘Hybrid’ Home Schools Gaining Traction:

Education policymakers and researchers have largely ignored the tremendous growth in home schooling, particularly among these sorts of “hybrid” home-schoolers willing to blur the pedagogical and legal lines of public and private education, said Joseph Murphy, an associate dean at Peabody College of Education at Vanderbilt University and the author of Home Schooling in America: Capturing and Assessing the Movement. The book, an analysis of research on the topic, is being published this month by Corwin of Thousand Oaks, Calif.

“Historically home school was home school, and school was school,” Mr. Murphy said. “Now … it’s this rich portfolio of options for kids.”

Menu of Choices

Baywood Learning Center in Oakland, Calif., a private school for gifted students, has offered hybrid home-schooling programs for the past three years. The school has a la carte classes on individual subjects once a week, as well as a multiage class that meets on Tuesdays and Thursdays to cover core academics. Director Grace Neufeld said demand for the latter has grown 50 percent in the last year, to about 40 students ages 4 to 17.

State Laws

States vary widely in monitoring home schooling. Some states require parents of home-schooled children to notify public school officials and then provide test scores or other professional evaluations of their children’s academic progress; others require no parent notification at all.

 “Parents usually design a patchwork quilt of different classes and activities for their children,” she said. “What I see is they sign up for various classes being held in various locations like science centers or museums or different places. They also add things like music lessons, art lessons, sports, or martial arts.”

Similarly, more home-schooling parents are developing formal co-ops, like the Inman Hybrid Home School program in Inman, Ga. Founder Holly Longino, a former health teacher at Carver Middle School in Inman, left public teaching to home-school her four children, but last year started the group classes a few times a week with five students and a handful of retired public school teachers. The teachers provide video lectures for students to use as well as in-class projects. Ms. Longino said some parents also take their children to courses at the local college and science museum, but would never consider forming a charter school….

Diversifying Population

With the modern schoolhouse only in place since the late 1800s, home schooling is hardly a new idea. But the number of home-schoolers has more than doubled since 1999, to more than 2 million as of 2010, representing nearly 4 percent of all K-12 students, according to Mr. Murphy’s book. More than 90 percent of the families are two-parent, one-salary homes, and the mother continues to be the most likely parent to stay home.

While conservative religious parents, predominately Protestants, still comprise the majority of home-schoolers, there has been an increase in the number of moderate and liberal families choosing to teach at home, and concerns about the social environment of schools, including bullying and teaching practices, have now edged out religious values (31.2 percent to 29.8 percent) as the top reason parents teach their children at home, according to Mr. Murphy.

“Pioneer home-schoolers a decade ago had to be rather strong in their personalities and commitments to do this, and had to really go against the culture,” said Brian D. Ray, the president of the National Home Education Research Institute in Salem, Ore. “Now, what I’ve seen is an increasing portion want to be more like conventional schooling—which is what the first 30 years of the modern home-schooling movement had not wanted to be.” http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2012/08/08/37homeschool_ep.h31.html?tkn=WLSFXmK3c1a1fCtOWld87kLRnVA80O4oF9%2Fs&cmp=clp-edweek

Many of our children are “unschooled” and a far greater number are “uneducated.” One can be “unschooled” or “uneducated” no matter the setting. As a society, we should be focused on making sure that each child receives a good basic education. There are many ways to reach that goal. There is nothing scary about the fact that some parents make the choice to homeschool. The focus should not be on the particular setting or institution type. The focus should be on proper assessment of each child to ensure that child is receiving a good basic education and the foundation for later success in life. See, Homeschooled kids make the grade for college      https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/07/02/homeschooled-kids-make-the-grade-for-college/  

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

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Georgetown University study: Even in a depression, college grads enjoy advantage

15 Aug

In Borrowing from work: Schools teach career mapping Moi said:

One of the goals of education is to give the student sufficient basic skills to be able to leave school and be able to function at a job or correctly assess their training needs. One of the criticisms of the current education system is that it does not adequately prepare children for work or for a career. https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/03/24/borrowing-from-work-schools-teach-career-mapping/ A liberal arts education has been considered the gold standard. Moi wrote in Why Go to College?

The societal push the last few years has been to have more kids go to college. Quite often schools are ranked on the percentage of kids that go directly to college from high school. So, counselors are following cultural cues they have received from administrators, parents, and the media.

Chris Stout lists Top Five Reasons to Go to College Stout places the emphasis on the college experience and the fact that college is not just a place for possible career training. Forbes. Com published Five Reasons Not to Go to College Some people discover their passion earlier in life than others. Forbes.Com addresses its comments at those folks. The calculation is that if one already knows what they want to do, college could be an unnecessary detour. A US News and World Report article estimated the value of a college degree    https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2011/11/28/why-go-to-college/Georgetown University has released a study that finds a college degree gives an advantage, even during times of recession.

Here is the press release for the Georgetown University study, The College Advantage: Weathering the Economic Storm:

COLLEGE GRADUATES LEAD NATIONAL JOB GROWTH RECOVERY, NEW GEORGETOWN STUDY FINDS

— Study Also Finds That the College-Wage-Advantage has Held up Well Over Time —

Washington, D.C., August 15, 2012 – A new study released today by the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce finds that almost half of the jobs lost in the recession that began in December, 2007 have been recovered and virtually all of those jobs required some form of postsecondary education. Experts say this data demonstrates the ongoing importance of education beyond high school for individual workers and our national economy.

The wage advantage for workers with a bachelor’s degree or better over high school has remained high and has held mostly stable at 97 percent. The wage premium for bachelor’s degrees or better relative to high school degrees skyrocketed from 44 percent in 1981 to a 100 percent in 2005 and has only fallen to 97 percent since the beginning of the recession.

“It is a tough job market for college graduates but far worse for those without a college education,” said Anthony P. Carnevale, the Georgetown Center’s director and co-author of the report. “At a time when more and more people are debating the value of postsecondary education, this data shows that your chances of being unemployed increase dramatically without a college degree.”

The Georgetown study shows that in 2012, seven percent of graduates with a bachelor degree or better are still unemployed and another 14 percent are underemployed in jobs beneath their skill levels. By comparison, the unemployment rate for new high school graduates is 24 percent and 42 percent for those individuals are underemployed.

Jobs that require bachelor’s degrees have been the big winner, increasing by 2.2 million jobs since the recession began. Those jobs that required some college or an associate’s degree declined by 1.8 million in the recession but have regained 1.6 million of those job losses since the recovery began in 2010. At the same time 5.8 million jobs for those with high school or less have been lost since the recession began.

“In the mid 1970s, less than 30 percent of jobs in America required any education beyond high school,” said Jamie P. Merisotis, president and chief executive officer of Lumina Foundation. “Today, the majority of U.S. jobs require a postsecondary degree or credential. This shift has happened quickly and it demonstrates how vital college attainment is to individual success and our nation as a whole.”

Industries that are postsecondary education intensive, held up best since the recession began. But, there were differences during recession and recovery.

• Professional and business services lost college jobs during the recession but that sector has already added over 730,000 college jobs during the recovery.

• Government jobs held up during the recession (adding nearly 80,000 college jobs), but collapsed during the recovery due to budget cuts (so far 14,000 college jobs have been lost since the recovery began in January 2010).

• Since the recession began, the healthcare industry has added over one million jobs for people with two-year and four-year college degrees.

• Even in low skill blue collar sectors, which took the brunt of the recession, college educated workers were favored. For example, in manufacturing, employment dropped 15 percent for people with high school diplomas and only one percent for those with bachelor’s degrees or better. In construction, employment dropped 25 percent for those with high school diplomas and only two percent for workers with a bachelor’s degree or better.

The recession and recovery have affected college men and women differently.

• Male college workers were hardest hit during the recession due to private sector job losses. But men led the recovery, including the recovery in the market for college graduates (adding 2.3 million college jobs).

• In both the recession and during the recovery, the female labor market shifted decisively toward jobs requiring a bachelor’s degree, having added 1.6 million jobs.

Findings also show that the rate of college enrollment jumped sharply, peaking in 2009 but has fallen off rapidly since then. The recession, however, was a college wake-up-call for men. After lagging behind for decades, since 2006 the rate of increase in male enrollment has caught up and slightly surpassed the rate of increase in female enrollment.

The College Advantage: Weathering the Economic Storm is comprised of a full report and an executive summary; both documents are available online at http://cew.georgetown.edu/collegeadvantage.

# # #

The Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce is an independent, nonprofit research and policy institute that studies the link between individual goals, education and training curricula and career pathways. The Center is affiliated with the Georgetown Public Policy Institute. For more information, visit: http://cew.georgetown.edu. Follow us on Twitter @CntrEdWrkfrce and on Facebook.

Lumina Foundation, an Indianapolis-based private foundation, is committed to enrolling and graduating more students from college—especially 21st century students: low-income students, students of color, first-generation students and adult learners. Lumina’s goal is to increase the percentage of Americans who hold high-quality degrees and credentials to 60 percent by 2025. Lumina pursues this goal in three ways: by identifying and supporting effective practice, through public policy advocacy, and by using our communications and convening power to build public will for change. For more information, log on to http://www.luminafoundation.org

Executive Summary

Full Report

See, In an Economic Storm, a College Degree Is Still the Best Umbrella http://chronicle.com/blogs/headcount/in-economic-storm-a-college-degree-is-still-the-best-umbrella/31187

A college degree is no guarantee of either employment or continued employment. Still, because of the economic uncertainty there is an “arms race” in education. Laura Pappano is reporting in the New York Times article, The Master’s As the New Bachelor’s Whether a person chooses to attend a four year college after high school is a very personal decision and there is no one right answer. One thing the current economic climate has taught many is there are no guarantees in life, even with a college degree.

Related:

Report: For-profit colleges more concerned with executive pay than student achievement                                                      https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/07/31/report-for-profit-colleges-more-concerned-with-executive-pay-than-student-achievement/

Surviving a ‘diploma mill’                                               https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/07/01/surviving-a-diploma-mill/

Will a three year B.A. help more students afford college? https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/06/24/will-a-three-year-b-a-help-more-students-afford-college/

New report takes community colleges to task         https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/04/26/new-report-takes-community-colleges-to-task/

Choosing the right college for you                                  https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/04/15/choosing-the-right-college-for-you/

Is a business major in college the right move? https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/04/05/is-a-business-major-in-college-the-right-move/

Producing employable liberal arts grads https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/04/01/producing-employable-liberal-arts-grads/

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

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KIPP charters try ‘blended learning’

15 Aug

n The ‘whole child’ approach to education moi said:

Moi writes this blog around a set of principles which are:

All children have a right to a good basic education.

  1. Education is a partnership between the student, parent(s) or guardian(s), the teacher(s), and the school. All parts of the partnership must be active and involved.

  2. Society should support and foster strong families.

  3. Society should promote the idea that parents are responsible for parenting their children and people who are not prepared to accept that responsibility should not be parenting children.

  4. The sexualization of the culture has had devastating effects on children, particularly young women. For many there has been the lure of the “booty call” rather than focusing on genuine achievement.

    Education is a life long pursuit

Many children do not have a positive education experience in the education system for a variety of reasons. Many educators are advocating for the “whole child” approach to increase the number of children who have a positive experience in the education process.

The National Education Association (NEA) describes the “whole child” approach to learning in the paper, Meeting the Needs of the Whole Child:

Meeting the needs of the whole child requires:

• Addressing multiple dimensions, including students’ physical, social and emotional health and well-being.

• Ensuring equity, adequacy and sustainability in resources and quality among public schools and districts.

• Ensuring that students are actively engaged in a wide variety of experiences and settings within—and outside—the classroom.

• Providing students with mentors and counselors as necessary to make them feel safe and secure.

• Ensuring that the condition of schools is modern and up-to-date, and that schools provide access to a broad array of resources.

• Reducing class size so that students receive the individualized attention they need to succeed.

• Encouraging parental and community involvement. http://www.educationvotes.nea.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/WholeChildBackgrounder.pdf

ASCD, (formerly the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development) along with the NEA is leading in the adoption of the “whole child” approach. https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/02/10/the-whole-child-approach-to-education/

Julia Lawrence reports in the Education Week article, KIPP’s Latest LA School Experiments With Blended Learning:

Although the idea that online education could be viable for children as young as elementary-school age could appear obscene to some parents, for children who are surrounded by computers and gadgets like smartphones and tablets, keeping a school a computer-free zone would seem crazy. You can’t expect a children to take school seriously when their school experience is completely divorced from their everyday life….

Still, even that kind of instructional paradigm leaves a lot of room for useful applications of technology. One of the approaches gaining popularity, and that makes good use of the traditional classroom setting, is the idea of blended learning. Although some teaching is still done in the classroom — with desks, a blackboard and a teacher playing a traditional role — the “heavy lifting” is done with online tools.

KIPP, one of the most successful chains of charter schools in the country, is currently trying just this approach. The KIPP schools credit most of their success to lavishing individualized attention on all its students and by keeping their student-teacher ratios low. In most KIPP schools, class sizes are set at no higher than 20 students.

But the typical approach hit a snag. When severe fiscal constraints forced the Los Angeles Unified School District to rejigger its charter school funding formulas, the latest KIPP charter to be opened in South Los Angeles had its budget slashed by nearly $200,000. The traditional approach of small classrooms and plenty of teachers was no longer an option, so the school decided to attempt something different. http://www.educationnews.orgKIPP’s Latest LA School Experiments With Blended Learning

The “blended learning’ approach has been around several years.

Penn State University describes “blended learning” in What is Blended Learning?

What is Blended?

A blended learning approach combines face to face classroom methods with computer-mediated activities to form an integrated instructional approach. In the past, digital materials have served in a supplementary role, helping to support face to face instruction.

For example, a blended approach to a traditional, face to face course might mean that the class meets once per week instead of the usual three-session format. Learning activities that otherwise would have taken place during classroom time can be moved online.

As of now, there is no consensus on a single agree-upon definition for blended learning. The Resources page contains cites to several articles that provide definitions. In addition, the terms “blended,” “hybrid,” and “mixed-mode” are used interchangeably in current research literature. For the purposes of the Blended Learning Initiative at Penn State, the term “blended” is preferred.

Why Blend?

The goal of a blended approach is to join the best aspects of both face to face and online instruction. Classroom time can be used to engage students in advanced interactive experiences.  Meanwhile, the online portion of the course can provide students with multimedia-rich content at any time of day, anywhere the student has internet access, from Penn State computer labs, the coffee shop, or the students’ homes. This allows for an increase in scheduling flexibility for students.

In addition to flexibility and convenience for students, according to research shared at the ALN Conference Workshop on Blended Learning & Higher Education November 17, 2005, there is early evidence that a blended instructional approach can result in learning outcome gains and increased enrollment retention (http://www.uic.edu/depts/oee/blended/workshop/bibliography.pdf).

Blended learning is on the rise in higher education. 93% of higher ed instructors and admin say they are using blended learning strategies somewhere in their institution. 7 in 10 expect more than 40% of their schools’ courses to be blended by 2013 (Bonk, C. J. & Graham, C. R. (Eds.). (in press).

How to Blend?

There are no rules in place to prescribe what the ideal blend might be (Bonk reference). The term “blended” encompasses a broad continuum, and can include any integration of face to face and online instructional content. The blend of face to face and online materials will vary depending on the content, the needs of the students, and the preferences of the instructor. See the section of this site titled Instructional Strategies for information on selecting an ideal blend and designing a blended course.

Considerations

Creating high-quality blended instruction can present considerable challenges. Foremost is the need for resources to create the online materials to be used in the courses. Materials development is a time and labor intensive process, just as it is in any instructional medium. In addition, blended instruction is likely to be a new concept to many students and faculty. Instructional designers involved in course development or redesign will need to be able to answer questions related to:

  • what blended instruction is
  • why blended instruction  is employed 
  • how best to leverage the advantages of a blended approach 

http://weblearning.psu.edu/blended-learning-initiative/what_is_blended_learning

John Watson studied several “blended learning’ programs for the North American Council for Online Learning (NACOL).

In Blended Learning: The Convergence of Online and Face-to-Face Education, Watson writes:

What are the key lessons that these and other blended programs demonstrate?

First, there is no single type of blended education, and over time we can expect all the spaces along the continuum from fully online to fully face-to-face to be filled. Online curricula will evolve as a ubiquitous component of classroom instruction. At the same time, an increasing number of programs that are primarily distance-based may include a face-to-face teaching component.

Programs designed to use a blended approach from the outset are still in a learning mode, and experience and data will provide guidelines, but absolutes will be hard to find. “As blended learning evolves it needs to stay student focused and avoid artificial, mandated boundaries,” says Susan Stagner, Vice-President, Management and Services, for K12 Inc.

Second, in the same way that online teaching is recognized as different than face-to-face teaching, blended learning is also unique and requires new methods of instruction, content development, and professional development. Online program leaders know that they cannot simply use face-to-face teaching methods in an online class, and vice versa. In addition, as content delivery becomes increasingly digital and online, assessments will need to be designed to test for content presented in various formats.

Third, for school districts and programs that use both fully online and blended courses, content will need to be readily accessible as learning objects to support both types of instruction. Text-based content will be less effective than animation, video, simulations and other engaging and illustrative content that can convey concepts visually and dynamically, more effectively than either paper or an instructor drawing on the blackboard. Teachers will need to be able to access online content quickly and easily to keep the flow of the classroom instruction moving.

Fourth, because blended learning relies on a significant level of web-based communication and content, it relies on a course management system or a learning management system to organize the content and facilitate communication. The presence of software that organizes the course may, in fact, be a distinguishing characteristic between a truly blended course and a face-to-face course that simply incorporates a few digital elements.

Finally, because blended learning can vary in many ways, it may present challenges for research and policy. Because it does not make sense to attempt to fit education into pre-set conceptions based on old methods of teaching and learning, state education policies should allow innovation in directions that may not be foreseeable at this time. In addition, research efforts aimed at quantifying the effects of educational technologies should account for the myriad types of learning that combine online and face-to-face delivery. http://www.inacol.org/research/promisingpractices/NACOL_PP-BlendedLearning-lr.pdf

The question which must be addressed in whether “blended learning’ is appropriate for a particular learning situation.

Resources:

The rise of K-12 blended learning            http://www.innosightinstitute.org/media-room/publications/education-publications/the-rise-of-k-12-blended-learning/

Blended Learning Tool Kit                                            http://blended.online.ucf.edu/

7 Reasons Why Blended Learning Makes Sense http://edtechdigest.wordpress.com/2010/12/08/7-reasons-why-blended-learning-makes-sense/

Blended Learning, Real Teaching – YouTube

6 Pros and Cons of a Hybrid Education                                              http://edudemic.com/2012/05/6-pros-and-cons-of-a-hybrid-education/

Related:

Flipped classrooms are more difficult in poorer schools https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/06/18/flipped-classrooms-are-more-difficult-in-poorer-schools/

The digital divide in classrooms                          https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/01/25/the-digital-divide-in-classrooms/

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

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Free speech on college campuses

13 Aug

The U.S. Constitution should be cherished by every American. Here is information about the First Amendment from the Legal Information Institute:

first amendment: an overview

The First Amendment of the United States Constitution protects the right to freedom of religion and freedom of expression from government interference. See U.S. Const. amend. I. Freedom of expression consists of the rights to freedom of speech, press, assembly and to petition the government for a redress of grievances, and the implied rights of association and belief. The Supreme Court interprets the extent of the protection afforded to these rights. The First Amendment has been interpreted by the Court as applying to the entire federal government even though it is only expressly applicable to Congress. Furthermore, the Court has interpreted, the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment as protecting the rights in the First Amendment from interference by state governments. See U.S. Const. amend. XIV.

Two clauses in the First Amendment guarantee freedom of religion. The establishment clause prohibits the government from passing legislation to establish an official religion or preferring one religion over another. It enforces the “separation of church and state.” Some governmental activity related to religion has been declared constitutional by the Supreme Court. For example, providing bus transportation for parochial school students and the enforcement of “blue laws” is not prohibited. The free exercise clause prohibits the government, in most instances, from interfering with a person’s practice of their religion.

The most basic component of freedom of expression is the right of freedom of speech. The right to freedom of speech allows individuals to express themselves without interference or constraint by the government. The Supreme Court requires the government to provide substantial justification for the interference with the right of free speech where it attempts to regulate the content of the speech. A less stringent test is applied for content-neutral legislation. The Supreme Court has also recognized that the government may prohibit some speech that may cause a breach of the peace or cause violence. For more on unprotected and less protected categories of speech see advocacy of illegal action, fighting words, commercial speech and obscenity. The right to free speech includes other mediums of expression that communicate a message.  The level of protection speech receives also depends on the forum in which it takes place.   

Despite popular misunderstanding the right to freedom of the press guaranteed by the first amendment is not very different from the right to freedom of speech. It allows an individual to express themselves through publication and dissemination. It is part of the constitutional protection of freedom of expression. It does not afford members of the media any special rights or privileges not afforded to citizens in general.

The right to assemble allows people to gather for peaceful and lawful purposes. Implicit within this right is the right to association and belief. The Supreme Court has expressly recognized that a right to freedom of association and belief is implicit in the First, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments. This implicit right is limited to the right to associate for First Amendment purposes. It does not include a right of social association. The government may prohibit people from knowingly associating in groups that engage and promote illegal activities. The right to associate also prohibits the government from requiring a group to register or disclose its members or from denying government benefits on the basis of an individual’s current or past membership in a particular group. There are exceptions to this rule where the Court finds that governmental interests in disclosure/registration outweigh interference with first amendment rights. The government may also, generally, not compel individuals to express themselves, hold certain beliefs, or belong to particular associations or groups.

The right to petition the government for a redress of grievances guarantees people the right to ask the government to provide relief for a wrong through the courts (litigation) or other governmental action. It works with the right of assembly by allowing people to join together and seek change from the government. http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/first_amendment

Peter Bonilla explains why free speech rights on college campuses are important in a PolicyMic article.

In Free Speech On College Campuses a Must, Especially During Election Seasons:

As I’ve written here on PolicyMic, though, and as the case log and publications of my employer, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), make clear, colleges and universities frequently fall far short of being the bastions of free speech they should be. Further, they often come down especially hard on political expression at the very times when it’s most relevant. Part of the problem is universities’ tendency to misinterpret their obligations under the Internal Revenue Code, which prohibits nonprofit educational institutions from engaging in certain political activities, such as institutionally supporting candidates for office.  

Such misinterpretations frequently lead university administrations to prohibit or restrict broad swaths of protected speech, defying both the First Amendment and common sense. The University of Oklahoma, for example, in 2008 banned “the forwarding of political humor/commentary” using university e-mail accounts. That same year, the University of Illinois system issued warnings to faculty against engaging in basic political activities — including wearing campaign buttons, attending rallies, and even placing stickers on their cars. Then in 2011, Illinois’ flagship campus in Urbana-Champaign proposed an electronic communications policy that would have banned any and all “political campaigning” by faculty and students. Fortunately, these policies were all revised or scrapped after FIRE objected. Yet such misconceptions by universities are common enough that FIRE has issued and re-issued a policy statement on political activity to guide universities in policy and practice. http://www.policymic.com/articles/3454/free-speech-on-college-campuses-a-must-especially-during-election-seasons

See, Censorship of Free Speech on College Campuses Grows http://www.educationnews.org/higher-education/censorship-of-free-speech-on-college-campuses-grows/

and Why Students Need a Guide to Free Speech on Campus More Than Ever http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2012/08/why-students-need-a-guide-to-free-speech-on-campus-more-than-ever219.html

Trent M. Kays sums the Free Speech issues nicely in a USA Today opinion piece.

In Opinion: College is about free speech, not stamping out rights, Kays opines:

Social networking sites have caused grief for many people, from politicians to student-athletes. Certainly, there appears to be a lack of digital literacy among those who use these sites. Digital literacy requires us to not only be aware of and know how to use digital tools and sites, but also to consider the consequences of said use.

It has become critically important for digital literacy to be taught in college, and student-athletes and their athletic coaches should be first on the list.

There are many examples of universities and athletic coaches banning social networking sites, most notably Twitter, from being used by student-athletes.

Instead of helping student-athletes understand Twitter, they prefer to just outright ban its use.

Recently, Mississippi State basketball coach Rick Stansbury banned his team from using Twitter because some of his student-athletes posted critical comments following a loss. This was a frighteningly egotistical move by Stansbury — to think he has the authority to so easily stamp out the free speech rights of his student-athletes.

Whether or not those student-athletes should have posted critical comments regarding Stansbury’s performance as an athletic coach is beside the point. Those student-athletes have a right to free and protect speech, including critical commentary, as guaranteed under the US Constitution.

Stansbury isn’t the only one flippant about student rights and free speech.

Other athletic coaches at universities around the nation have also haphazardly decided to stamp out the free speech rights of their student-athletes. This is a disheartening trend. When athletic coaches implement such policies on their student-athletes, it signals they do not trust their student-athletes outside of sporting contexts.

College is about education, and while sports are certainly a significant and important part of the college experience, it isn’t everything.

Twitter use among student-athletes should be encouraged and not banned. Athletic coaches should encourage their student-athletes to use Twitter and all social networking sites with critical awareness and consideration for potential consequences. http://www.usatodayeducate.com/staging/index.php/campuslife/opinion-college-is-about-free-speech-not-stamping-out-rights

Here is information about the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education:

About FIRE

  • What is FIRE?
    The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, or FIRE, is a nonprofit educational foundation based in Philadelphia. FIRE’s mission is to defend and sustain individual rights at America’s colleges and universities. These rights include freedom of speech, legal equality, due process, religious liberty, and sanctity of conscience—the essential qualities of individual liberty and dignity. FIRE protects the unprotected and educates the public about the threats to these rights on our campuses and about the means to preserve them.
  • How do I join FIRE?
    You can join the fight for liberty on America’s college campuses by joining MyFIRE, our online community of supporters interested in FIRE issues. You will receive personalized updates pertaining to cases of your interest and alma mater. You can also sign up for our e-mail list and receive the latest news and updates on cases happening around the country.
  • How can I contribute to FIRE?
    FIRE offers its donors many different options for donating including the option to give right now through our secure online donation form. To learn about all the ways you can contribute, see our Ways to Donate page.
  • I care about the issues. What can I do?
    FIRE encourages you to Take Action in cases that you feel passionately about. On our website, we have given students, faculty, every-day citizens, and lawyers examples of ways they can help create change on college campuses. From hosting FIRE speakers, to posting widgets on your website, to writing to university administrators, there is a lot you can do to help the fight for liberty.
  • I feel my rights were violated, who can help?
    FIRE encourages you to Take Action in cases that you feel passionately about. On our website, we have given students, faculty, every-day citizens, and lawyers examples of ways they can help create change on college campuses. From hosting FIRE speakers, to posting widgets on your website, to writing to university administrators, there is a lot you can do to help the fight for liberty.
  • Who works at FIRE?
    FIRE employs a diverse staff from across the ideological and political spectrum with varying educational backgrounds. For more information about individual members of FIRE’s Staff please check out the biographies on the Staff webpage.
  • What is FIRE’s political affiliation?
    FIRE is nonpartisan; its staff, Board of Directors, and Board of Advisors comprise individuals from across the political spectrum.
  • How does FIRE pick its cases?
    FIRE responds to all case submissions. We only take cases, however, that fall within FIRE’s mission and programs. FIRE has limited resources and receives a remarkable number of requests for help. We are, therefore, unable to take many cases that touch upon important issues. FIRE does not adjudicate genuine questions of academic merit, which sometimes arise during tenure reviews and grading of student work. FIRE also does not take cases that are from the staff of colleges or universities, involve elementary or high schools, are from outside the United States, or are submitted by phone or fax.
  • Does FIRE litigate?
    Since its incorporation as a nonprofit organization in 1999, FIRE has intervened successfully in defense of liberty-related issues on behalf of hundreds of students and faculty members at colleges and universities across the country. While many of the cases we accept can be resolved quickly and amicably by FIRE’s staff, other cases require the intervention of an attorney. Because FIRE does not undertake direct litigation, these cases must be referred to FIRE’s Legal Network, a nationwide team of outside attorneys who share our principles, values and goals.
  • What are FIRE’s Guides to Student Rights on Campus?
    FIRE’s     Guidesto Student Rights on Campusis a set of innovative, widely respected, and well-received handbooks that serve as a vehicle for changing the culture on college and university campuses. They do so by emphasizing the critical importance of legal equality over the selective assignment of rights and responsibilities, of self-governance over coercion, and of the rule of law and fair procedure over the ad hoc and arbitrary imposition of partisan and repressive rules.A distinguished group of legal scholars from across the political and ideological spectrum serves as Board of Editors to this series. The diversity of the members of this Board proves that liberty on campus is not a question of partisan politics, but of the rights and responsibilities of free individuals in a society governed by the rule of law.

    FIRE’s

    Guides to Student Rights on Campus include:

  • FIRE’s Guide to Free Speech on Campus,
  • FIRE’s Guide to Religious Liberty on Campus,
  • FIRE’s Guide to Due Process and Fair Procedure on Campus,
  • FIRE’s Guide to Student Fees, Funding, and Legal Equality on Campus,
  • FIRE’s Guide to First-Year Orientation and Thought Reform on Campus.

The general public may download the Guides free of charge from FIRE’s website. Students may order hard copies at no cost through the website; non-students may purchase them through Amazon.com. http://thefire.org/

Resources:

Center for Campus Free Speech                              http://www.campusspeech.org/

Free Speech Off Campus Must Be Protected                http://chronicle.com/article/Free-Speech-Off-Campus-Must-Be/130660/

Column: Free speech sacks ban on college-athlete tweets http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/forum/story/2012-04-15/twitter-social-media-college-sports-coaches-ban/54301178/1

Student Press Law Center                                                            http://www.splc.org/wordpress/?cat=26

Free Speech, Social Media and Community Colleges: Let the Clash Begin http://www.communitycollegereview.com/articles/401

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

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