Archive | June, 2013

Lumina Foundation study: U.S. not producing enough college grads for projected jobs

18 Jun

 

Moi wrote in Many NOT ready for higher education:

 

Whether or not students choose college or vocational training at the end of their high school career, our goal as a society should be that children should be “college ready.” David T. Conley writes in the ASCD article, What Makes a Student College Ready?

 

The Big Four

 

A comprehensive college preparation program must address four distinct dimensions of college readiness: cognitive strategies, content knowledge, self-management skills, and knowledge about postsecondary education.

 

Key Cognitive Strategies

 

Colleges expect their students to think about what they learn. Students entering college are more likely to succeed if they can formulate, investigate, and propose solutions to nonroutine problems; understand and analyze conflicting explanations of phenomena or events; evaluate the credibility and utility of source material and then integrate sources into a paper or project appropriately; think analytically and logically, comparing and contrasting differing philosophies, methods, and positions to understand an issue or concept; and exercise precision and accuracy as they apply their methods and develop their products.

 

Key Content Knowledge

 

Several independently conducted research and development efforts help us identify the key knowledge and skills students should master to take full advantage of college. Standards for Success (Conley, 2003) systematically polled university faculty members and analyzed their course documents to determine what these teachers expected of students in entry-level courses. The American Diploma Project (2004) consulted representatives of the business community and postsecondary faculty to define standards in math and English. More recently, both ACT (2008) and the College Board (2006) have released college readiness standards in English and math. Finally, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (2008), under mandate of state law, developed one of the first and most comprehensive sets of state-level college readiness standards….

 

Key Self-Management Skills

 

In college, students must keep track of massive amounts of information and organize themselves to meet competing deadlines and priorities. They must plan their time carefully to complete these tasks. They must be able to study independently and in informal and formal study groups. They must know when to seek help from academic support services and when to cut their losses and drop a course. These tasks require self-management, a skill that individuals must develop over time, with considerable practice and trial-and-error.

 

Key Knowledge About Postsecondary Education

 

Choosing a college, applying, securing financial aid, and then adjusting to college life require a tremendous amount of specialized knowledge. This knowledge includes matching personal interests with college majors and programs; understanding federal and individual college financial aid programs and how and when to complete appropriate forms; registering for, preparing for, and taking required admissions exams; applying to college on time and submitting all necessary information; and, perhaps most important, understanding how the culture of college is different from that of high school….

 

Students who would be the first in their family to attend college, students from immigrant families, students who are members of racial and ethnic minority groups traditionally underrepresented in college, and students from low-income families are much more easily thrown off the path to college if they have deficiencies in any of the four dimensions. http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/oct08/vol66/num02/What-Makes-a-Student-College-Ready%C2%A2.aspx

 

The difficult question is whether current testing accurately measures whether students are prepared for college. https://drwilda.com/2012/10/06/many-not-ready-for-higher-education/

 

The Lumina Founation has released the report A Stronger Nation through Higher Education which is skeptical that the U.S. is producing the number of college graduates for future economic success.

 

Here is the press release from the Lumina Foundation about

 

New report shows improved pace of college attainment is still not enough to meet future workforce needs; massive racial achievement gaps continue

 

June 13, 2013

Lumina Foundation Announces 10 New Targets for Moving America Closer to Goal 2025

WASHINGTON, DC, June 13, 2013—As the demand for skilled workers continues to grow, a new report released today by Lumina Foundation shows that the rate of college attainment is steadily improving across America. Unfortunately, the pace of progress is far too modest to meet future workforce needs. The report also finds massive and ongoing gaps in educational achievement—gaps tied to race, income and other socioeconomic factors—that must be addressed.

According to the report, A Stronger Nation through Higher Education, 38.7 percent of working-age Americans (ages 25-64) held a two- or four-year college degree in 2011—the most recent year for which data are available. That figure is up from 2010, when the rate was 38.3 percent and from 2009, when the rate was 38.1 percent. The Stronger Nation report measures progress toward Goal 2025 which is a national effort to increase the percentage of Americans with high-quality degrees and credentials to 60 percent by the year 2025.

Read the full report

A Stronger Nation Through Higher Education 2013

218 pgs. | 8.8M | PDF

“Research tells us that 65 percent of U.S. jobs will require some form of postsecondary education by 2020, yet fewer than 40 percent of Americans are educated beyond high school today,” said Jamie P. Merisotis, president and chief executive officer of Lumina. “Our pace of attainment has been too slow and America is now facing a troubling talent gap. If we intend to address this problem, new strategies are required and a heightened sense of urgency is needed among policymakers, business leaders and higher education institutions across our nation.”

Achievement Gaps by Race Continue

Educational success has historically been uneven across America, particularly among, low-income, first-generation students, racial and ethnic minorities, immigrants and adults who are underrepresented among college students and graduates. The Stronger Nation report shows that degree attainment rates among adults (ages 25-64) in the U.S. continue to be woefully unbalanced, with 59.1 percent of Asians having a degree versus 43.3 percent of whites, 27.1 percent of blacks, 23.0 of Native Americans and 19.3 of Hispanics.

As worrisome as those differentials are, there is an even more troubling trend in the data regarding young adults (ages 25-29) who serve as a leading indicator of where the nation’s higher education attainment rates are headed overall. The highest attainment rate for 25- to 29-year old Americans is among Asians at 65.6 percent, followed by non-Hispanic whites at 44.9 percent. Then, the bottom drops out with an attainment rate for young African-Americans at 24.7 percent, for Hispanics at 17.9 percent and for Native Americans at 16.9 percent.

“This is an intolerable situation,” said Merisotis. “We certainly must close these gaps to meet the attainment levels that our nation needs. But the fact that these racial achievement differentials even exist must be rejected on both moral and economic grounds, given the increasingly severe consequences that come with not having a degree beyond high school. Our democracy and our economy are ill-served by a system that fails to effectively tap all of our available talent.”

New Strategies for Reaching Goal 2025

Earlier this year, Lumina released a new Strategic Plan that outlines how the Foundation will work over the next four years to help move the country closer to reaching Goal 2025. The plan includes strategies to: 1) design and build a higher education system for the 21st century, and 2) mobilize employers, policymakers, institutions, state and metro leaders and others to better position America for success in the knowledge economy.

The strategies for designing and building a 21st century higher education system focus on: creating new models of student financial support; developing new higher education business and finance models, and creating new systems of quality credentials and credits defined by learning and competencies rather than time.

The mobilization strategies focus on: building a social movement to support increased attainment in America; working with employers, metro areas and regions to encourage broader adoption of Goal 2025; advancing state and federal policy for increased attainment, and mobilizing higher education institutions and systems to increase the adoption of data- and evidence-based policies, partnerships and practices.

“The strength of our nation—or any nation—is its people, the sum total of talents, skills and abilities inherent in its citizenry,” said Merisotis. “America needs a bigger and more talented workforce to succeed, but we cannot expect our citizens to meet the demands of the 21st century without a 21st century education. That’s why we are working to mobilize more stakeholders to commit to achieving this 60 percent college-attainment goal. And it’s why we are working to design and build a new system of higher education that is grounded in quality and is flexible and affordable enough to properly serve the needs of students, employers and society at large.”

We cannot expect our citizens to meet the demands of the 21st century without a 21st century educationtweet this

To measure progress toward Goal 2025 in the near term, Lumina has established 10 specific achievement targets for 2016 that will guide the Foundation’s work. They include:

  • 55 percent of Americans will believe that increasing higher education attainment is necessary to the nation. (2012 baseline = 43 percent)

  • 67.8 percent of students will pursue postsecondary education directly from high school. (2012 baseline = 62.5 percent)

  • 1.3 percent of older adults will be first-time participants in higher education. (2012 baseline = 1.1 percent)

  • 3.3 million Hispanic students will be enrolled in college. (2012 baseline = 2.5 million)

  • 3.25 million African-American students will be enrolled in college. (2012 baseline = 2.7 million)

  • 22 million students will be enrolled in college across America. (2012 baseline = 18.1 million)

  • 800,000 fewer working-age adults (ages 25-64) will have some college and no degree (2012 baseline = 36.3 million; 2016 target = 35.5 million)

  • 60 percent of first-time, full-time students will complete college within six years. (2012 baseline = 54 percent)

  • 48 percent of adult learners (ages 25-64) will complete higher education. (2012 baseline = 45 percent)

  • 3 million will be the number of associate and bachelor’s degrees awarded annually. (An increase of 500,000 per year based on 2012 baseline of 2.5 million)

Key Tables from A Stronger Nation through Higher Education Report:

Top 10 states by degree attainment in 2011:

  • MA—50.8%

  • CO—47.0%

  • MN—46.6%

  • CT—46.4%

  • VT—46.2%

  • NH—45.8%

  • MD—45.4%

  • NJ—45.1%

  • VA—45.0%

  • ND—44.7%

Top 10 MSAs by degree attainment in 2011 (among the 100 most-populated MSAs):

Madison, WI 54.81%
Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV 54.73%
Boston-Cambridge-Quincy, MA-NH 54.25%
San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA 54.15%
Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk, CT 52.86%
San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA 52.76%
Raleigh-Cary, NC 52.64%
Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI 50.65%
Albany-Schenectady-Troy, NY 49.27%
Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA 48.28%

Facts about postsecondary attainment in America

Bottom 10 states by degree attainment in 2011: State

41. IN—33.8%

42. OK—33.0%

43. TN—32.1%

44. AL—31.9%

45. KY—30.8%

46. MS—30.3%

47. NV—30.0%

48. AR—28.2%

49. LA—27.9%

50. WV—27.8%

Bottom 10 MSAs by degree attainment in 2011 (among the 100 most-populated MSAs):

Lancaster, PA 31.74%
Las Vegas-Paradise, NV 29.59%
Youngstown-Warren-Boardman, OH-PA 29.38%
El Paso, TX 28.97%
Fresno, CA 27.90%
Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, CA 27.20%
Lakeland-Winter Haven, FL 27.02%
Stockton, CA 26.75%
Bakersfield-Delano, CA 21.35%
McAllen-Edinburg-Mission, TX 21.21%

Lumina Foundation is an independent, private foundation committed to increasing the proportion of Americans with high-quality degrees, certificates and other credentials to 60 percent by 2025. Lumina’s outcomes-based approach focuses on helping to design and build an accessible, responsive and accountable higher education system while fostering a national sense of urgency for action to achieve Goal 2025.

Media contacts:

Lucia Anderson
Lumina Foundation
317.951.5316
landerson@luminafoundation.org

Michael Marker
VOX Global
317.902.2958
mmarker@voxglobal.com

 

– See more at: http://www.luminafoundation.org/newsroom/news_releases/2013-06-13.html#sthash.sE33uxCj.dpuf

 

 

K-12 education must not only prepare students by teaching basic skills, but they must prepare students for training after high school, either college or vocational. There should not only be a solid education foundation established in K-12, but there must be more accurate evaluation of whether individual students are “college ready.”

 

 

Related:

 

Helping community college students to graduate                    https://drwilda.com/2012/02/08/helping-community-college-students-to-graduate/

 

The digital divide affects the college application process https://drwilda.com/2012/12/08/the-digital-divide-affects-the-college-application-process/

 

College readiness: What are ‘soft skills’                               https://drwilda.com/2012/11/14/college-readiness-what-are-soft-skills/

 

Colleges rethinking who may need remedial education https://drwilda.com/2012/10/24/colleges-rethinking-who-may-need-remedial-education/

 

Where Information Leads to Hope ©     Dr. Wilda.com

 

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The 06/18/13 Joy Jar

18 Jun

 

Moi doesn’t even know if it legal, not that the people who put posters or show bills on telephone poles really care. Some are colorful. Others just give facts, just the facts. These posters or show bills chronicle the life of a city from lost pets, to yard sales, to band dates, to political statements, to campaign ads and more. These bits of information, whether wanted or not are just signs of life. Today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ are the urban street posters.

“I remind myself that not everything is a sign, that some things simply are what they appear to be and should not be analyzed, deconstructed, or forced to bear the burden of metaphor, symbol, omen, or portent.”
Diane Schoemperlen, Our Lady of the Lost and Found: A Novel of Mary, Faith, and Friendship

“The sign said don’t do it, so naturally I did it. Signs are always saying stuff in a silent way.
 Writing is a way to say something in a silent way. 
”
Jarod Kintz, Seriously delirious, but not at all serious

“Signs imply ways of living, possibilities of existence, they are the symptoms of an overflowing (jaillissante) or exhausted (épuisée) life. But an artist cannot be content with an exhausted life, nor with a personal life. One does not write with one’s ego, one’s memory, and one’s illnesses. In the act of writing there’s an attempt to make life something more personal, to liberate life from what imprisons it…There is a profound link between signs, the event, life, and vitalism. It is the power of nonorganic life, that which can be found in a line of a drawing, a line of writing, a line of music. It is organisms that die, not life. There is no work of art that does not indicate an opening for life, a path between the cracks. Everything I have written has been vitalistic, at least I hope so, and constitutes a theory of signs and the event.”
Gilles Deleuze

“Art is an evolutionary act. The shape of art and its role in society is constantly changing. At no point is art static. There are no rules.”
Raymond Salvatore Harmon, BOMB: A Manifesto of Art Terrorism

Words are but the signs of ideas.
Samuel Johnson

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National Council on Teacher Quality releases first Teacher Prep Review

17 Jun

 

Moi wrote about teacher preparation in The search for quality teachers goes on:

 

Moi received the press release about improving teacher training standards from the Commission on Standards and Performance Reporting which is an outgrowth of he Teacher Education Accreditation Council, or TEAC, and the far larger and older National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education, or NCATE now called CAEP. Trip Gabriel has an article in the New York Times,Teachers Colleges Upset By Plans to Grade Them about the coming U.S. News Report on teacher colleges. This project is being underwritten in part by the Carnegie Corporation and Broad Foundation. A test of the proposed project was completed in Illinois. You can go here to get a copy of the report. The National Council on Teacher Quality has information about the project at their site. The National Council on Teacher Quality has released the first Teacher Prep Review.

 

Here is a portion of the summary of Teacher Prep Review:

 

 

NCTQ Teacher Prep Review

 

Effective teachers make a fundamental difference in the lives of our nation’s students. With the right training, talented and motivated teacher candidates can graduate ready to lead a classroom.

Why we’re doing the Teacher Prep Review

There’s widespread public interest in strengthening teacher preparation – but there’s a significant data gap on what’s working We aim to fill this gap, providing information that aspiring teachers and school leaders need to be come strategic consumers and institutions and states need in order to rapidly improve how tomorrow’s teachers are trained.

Our strategy is modeled on Abraham Flexner ’s 1910 review of medical training programs, an effort that launched a new era in the field of medicine, transforming a sub-standard system into the world’s best.

How we’re doing it. NCTQ takes an in-depth look at admissions standards, course requirements,course syllabi, textbooks, capstone projects, student teaching manuals and graduate surveys, among other sources, as blueprints for training teachers. We apply specific and measurable standards that identify the teacher preparation programs most likely to get the best outcomes for their students. To develop these standards, we consulted with international and domestic experts on teacher education, faculty and deans from schools of education, statistical experts and PK-12 leaders. We honed our methodology in ten pilot studies conducted over eight years.

Our goals. Currently, high-caliber teacher training programs go largely unrecognized. The Review will showcase these programs and provide resources that schools of education can use to provide trulyexceptional training. Aspiring teachers will be able to make informed choices about where to attend school to get the best training. Principals and superintendents will know where they should recruit new teachers. State leaders will be able to provide targeted support and hold programs accountable for improvement. Together, we can ensure a healthy teacher pipeline.

There is a lot of support for strengthening teacher prep. To date, 24 state school chiefs, over 100 district superintendents, the Council of the Great City Schools and almost 80 advocacy organizations across 42 states and the District of Columbia have endorsed the Review. The Review is funded by 65 local and national foundations. There’s also growing support for raising the bar on the system from national organizations representing state education chiefs (CCSSO), teachers (both the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association) and teacher educators themselves (the new national accreditation body, CAEP).

The first edition of the Review will be published June 18, 2013, in partnership with U.S. News & World Report. What’s next? NCTQ has made a commitment to publish three annual editions of the Review.

There is much that needs to be done before we have a truly excellent system of preparing teachers. We must set a high standard for teacher preparation, shed light on high-performers and give educators the information they need to make the system work for their students. Aspiring teachers and their future students deserve a world-class teacher training system. http://nctq.org/dmsView/NCTQ_Teacher_Prep_Review_background_materials

 

Resources:

 

Contact NCTQ

To contact NCTQ please visit our contact us page. For help reaching an NCTQ expert, you can reach Laura Johnson, our Director of Communications, at 202.393.0020 x117 or email ljohnson@nctq.org.

Questions about the Teacher Prep Review in your area?

Please refer to the map to locate the best contact person for your region.

 
Region 1
Marisa Goldstein
marisa.goldstein@nctq.org
202.393.0020 x115

Region 2
Graham Drake
graham.drake@nctq.org
202.393.0020 x107

Region 3
Amy MacKown
amy.mackown@nctq.org
202.393.0020 x111

Region 4
Katie Moyer
katie.moyer@nctq.org
202.393.0020 x112

Resources

Teacher Prep

District Policy

  • Tr3 Teacher Contract Database: This database houses over 100 school districts’ teacher contracts, school board policies (including school calendars and pay schedules), and state laws, coded so you can easily compare districts. Access information on a single district or create a custom report to compare districts on any of over 300 specific questions, such as the role of seniority in teacher staffing and teacher salaries.

State Policy

  • State Teacher Policy Yearbook: The Yearbook is a 52-volume encyclopedia (51 state reports including the District of Columbia plus a national summary) providing measurement and detailed analysis of the state policies that impact the teaching profession.

 

Amy Hetzner and Becky Vevea of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel wrote in the article, How Best to Educate Future Teachers which is part of a series

 

Alverno College, the small women’s college on Milwaukee’s south side, has been widely cited as a national model for training teachers, thanks to its combination of clinical and classroom experience and use of video and other tools to evaluate whether graduates are meeting the standards for what makes a good teacher…. 

Key elements of an excellent teacher education program: 

  • Strong content knowledge, teaching skills. Future teachers gain a solid grounding in the content to be taught as well as how to teach it.

  • Flexible methods. Emphasis is placed on teaching diverse learners – knowing how to differentiate teaching to reach a broad range of students.

  • Fieldwork. Coursework clearly is connected to fieldwork. The clinical experience, like in medical school, consists of intensive student-teaching, preferably for a semester or entire year, under the supervision of an experienced mentor.

  • Professional mentors. Mentors observe future teachers in the classroom – sometimes videotaping for later analysis – and work with them on everything from lesson-planning and creating assignments to monitoring student progress and grading.

  • Designated “learning schools.” Mentors and school sites for student-teaching are well-chosen. There are close relationships and a sense of joint responsibility among the school sites at which future teachers train, the local district and the teacher-education program.

  • Escalating teaching responsibilities. Future teachers gradually take over a full classroom, first teaching short segments on a single topic with a small group of students, then co-teaching with the mentor before assuming full responsibility for a class.

  • Feedback. Feedback from multiple sources (mentors, professors, peers) is routine.

  • Selective admission standards. Admission to the program is selective; not everyone has the necessary skills or demeanor to be an effective teacher.

 

Sources: National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education; faculty at Columbia University Teachers College, Stanford and Harvard Universities. 

Compiled by Justin Snider of The Hechinger Report

 

These are the elements that have made the graduates of one education school successful.

 

Kids know good teaching when they see it. Donna Gordon Blankinship of AP wrotein the Seattle Times article, How Do You Find An Effective Teacher? Ask A Kid

 

Adults may be a little surprised by some of the preliminary findings of new research on what makes a great teacher.

 

How do you find the most effective teachers? Ask your kids. That’s one of four main conclusions of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and its research partners after the first year of its Measures of Effective Teaching Project.

 

Preliminary results of the study were posted online Friday; a more complete report is expected in April, according to the foundation….

 

The first four conclusions of the study are as follows:

 

-The average student knows effective teaching when he or she experiences it.

 

-In every grade and every subject, a teacher’s past success in raising student achievement on state tests is one of the strongest predictors of his or her ability to do so again.

 

-The teachers with the highest value-added scores on state tests, which show improvement by individual students during the time they were in their classroom, are also the teachers who do the best job helping their students understand math concepts or demonstrate reading comprehension through writing.

 

-Valid feedback does not need to come from test scores alone. Other data can give teachers the information they need to improve, including student opinions of how organized and effective a teacher is….

 

See, Students Know Good Teaching When They Get It, Survey Finds

 

Bottom line, education is a partnership between the student, parent(s) or guardian(s), teacher(s), and school. All parts of the partnership must be involved. Students must arrive at school ready to learn. Parents must provide an environment which supports education and education achievement. Teachers must have strong subject matter knowledge and pedagogic skills. Schools must provide safe environments and discipline. Communities are also part of a successful school system and outcome for community children. Education is a partnership.

 

Related:

 

 

The attempt to evaluate teacher colleges is getting nasty https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/02/05/523/

 

 

Could newest teaching strategy be made in Japan? https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/01/11/could-newest-teaching-strategy-be-made-in-japan/

 

New Harvard study about impact of teachers https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/01/08/new-harvard-study-about-impact-of-teachers/

 

Is it true that the dumbest become teachers? https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2011/12/09/is-it-true-that-the-dumbest-become-teachers/

 

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Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

 

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COMMENTS FROM AN OLD FART©                           http://drwildaoldfart.wordpress.com/

 

Dr. Wilda Reviews ©                                                http://drwildareviews.wordpress.com/

 

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The 06/17/13 Joy Jar

16 Jun

 

Music is its own special type of worship, but the hymn takes the spiritually to a whole other level. Some hymns like ‘Amazing Grace’ or ‘Ava Maria’ can bring people to tears. Today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ are hymns.

“A few songs with Him might change the way you sing. Forever.”
Max Lucado, Next Door Savior

“It is natural to speak of hymns as “poems,” indiscriminately, for they have the same structure. But a hymn is not necessarily a poem, while a poem that can be sung as a hymn is something more than a poem. Imagination makes poems; devotion makes hymns. There can be poetry without emotion, but a hymn never. A poem may argue; a hymn must not. In short to be a hymn, what is written must express spiritual feelings and desires. The music of faith, hope and charity will be somewhere in its strain.”
Hezekiah Butterworth, The Story of the Hymns and Tunes

“The fineness which a hymn or psalm affords If when the soul unto the lines accords”

George Herbert

“And when they had sung an hymn, they went out into the mount of Olives.”

Mark 14:26

You know when you’re young you think you will always be. As you become more fragile, you reflect and you realize how much comfort can come from the past. Hymns can carry you into the future.
Andy Griffith

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U.S. Supreme Court case: Fisher v. University of Texas and race and class

16 Jun

Moi wrote about the intersection of race and class in education in Race, class, and education in America:

Many educators have long recognized that the impact of social class affects both education achievement and life chances after completion of education. There are two impacts from diversity, one is to broaden the life experience of the privileged and to raise the expectations of the disadvantaged. Social class matters in not only other societies, but this one as well.

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                                   https://drwilda.com/2011/11/07/race-class-and-education-in-america/

Lindsey Layton has written the Washington Post article, Schools dilemma for gentrifiers: Keep their kids urban, or move to suburbia?

When his oldest son reached school age, Michael Petrilli faced a dilemma known to many middle-class parents living in cities they helped gentrify: Should the family flee to the homogenous suburbs for excellent schools or stay urban for diverse but often struggling schools?

Petrilli, who lived in Takoma Park with his wife and two sons, was torn, but he knew more than most people about the choice before him. Petrilli is an education expert, a former official in the Education Department under George W. Bush and executive vice president at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a right-leaning education think tank.

He set out to learn as much as he could about the risks and benefits of socioeconomically diverse schools, where at least 20 percent of students are eligible for the federal free or reduced-price lunch program. And then he wrote about it.

The result is “The Diverse Schools Dilemma,” which is being published and released next month by the Fordham Institute.

Petrilli said he wanted his son to have friends from all backgrounds because he believes that cultural literacy will prepare him for success in a global society.

But he worried that his son might get lost in a classroom that has a high percentage of poor children, that teachers would be focused on the struggling children and have less time for their more privileged peers.

As Petrilli points out in the book, this dilemma doesn’t exist for most white, middle-class families. The vast majority — 87 percent — of white students attend majority white schools, Petrilli says, even though they make up just about 50 percent of the public school population.

And even in urban areas with significant African American and Latino populations, neighborhood schools still tend to be segregated by class, if not by race. In the Washington region, less than 3 percent of white public school students attend schools where poor children are the majority, according to Petrilli.

Gentrification poses new opportunities for policymakers to desegregate schools, Petrilli argues….

In the end, Petrilli moved from his Takoma Park neighborhood school — diverse Piney Branch Elementary, which is 33 percent low-income — to Wood Acres Elementary in Bethesda, where 1 percent of the children are low-income, 2 percent are black and 5 percent are Hispanic. http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/schools-dilemma-for-urban-gentrifiers-keep-their-kids-urban-or-move-to-suburbia/2012/10/14/02083b6c-131b-11e2-a16b-2c110031514a_story.html

Often, schools are segregated by both race and class. Class identification is very important in education because of class and peer support for education achievement and the value placed on education by social class groups. Moi does not condemn Mr. Petrilli for doing what is best for his family because when the rubber meets the road that is what parents are supposed to do. His family’s situation is just an example of the intersection of race and class in education.

Richard D. Kahlenberg, a senior fellow at The Century Foundation, looks at the issue of class-based affirmative action in higher education admissions in the Washington Post article, Race vs. class in college admissions: A false dichotomy or not?

Sherrilyn A. Ifill, the president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund Inc., just wrote a New York Times op-ed in defense of race-based affirmative action. The future direction of such policies is likely to be decided at some time in the next two weeks when the U.S. Supreme Court issues its ruling in a challenge to racial preferences in the case of Fisher v. University of Texas.

In particular, Ifill is concerned that “an alarming number of scholars, pundits and columnists—many of them liberal—have declared that economic class, not race, should be the appropriate focus of university affirmative-action efforts.” As a longtime proponent of class-based affirmative action (author of a 1996 book, “The Remedy: Class, Race and Affirmative Action,” coauthor a 2012 Century Foundation report, “A Better Affirmative Action: State Universities that Created Alternatives to Racial Preferences”) and a liberal, to boot, let me explain why I disagree with the four central arguments Ifill advances in favor of racial preference policies.

1. Race Still Matters, Therefore Racial Preferences Are Needed

Ifill argues that because racial discrimination continues to exist in American society—in the criminal justice system, housing, and employment—universities should be allowed to use racial preferences as a countermeasure.

Ifill is correct, of course, to suggest that discrimination continues to be a serious problem, which is why it would be crazy to repeal civil rights laws that are meant to address such discrimination. But the providing of racial preferences—the equivalent of a 310 point SAT boost in admissions to African Americans at selective private universities, according to Thomas Espenshade and Alexandra Radford—has never been held by the Supreme Court to be an appropriate remedy for ongoing societal discrimination. Instead, the argument that has prevailed is that racial preferences are necessary to promote the educational benefits of racial and ethnic diversity in the classroom.

The problem in applying the diversity argument, in turn, is that the University of Texas found a way to create higher levels of racial and ethnic diversity—by reducing reliance on test scores and giving a boost to economically disadvantaged students of all races—than they had using race. In 1996, when a lower court held Texas’s racial preference plan unconstitutional, the freshman class at U.T. Austin (using race in admissions) was 4.1 percent African American and 14.5 percent Hispanic. By 2004, race-neutral alternatives produced a class that was 4.5 percent African-American and 16.9 percent Hispanic. (Texas subsequently began using race again, which prompted the Fisher litigation.)

Moreover, class-based programs can be carefully defined in a way that captures the impact of racial discrimination—by considering, for example, whether a student lives in concentrated poverty, a reflection, in some measure, of racial housing discrimination.

2. Affirmative Action Has Majority Support

Ifill dismisses concerns that racial preferences are unpopular, suggesting that this is not the proper measure of such policies, and then goes on to suggest “a recent New York Times poll showed that most Americans support affirmative action.” The poll indeed found that, by 53 percent to 38 percent, Americans favor “affirmative action programs for minorities in hiring, promoting and college admissions.” But the issue at stake in Fisher is not the amorphous concept of affirmative steps—which can include encouraging minority students to apply—but whether race should count in who is admitted. On that question, a recent Washington Post poll found by 76 percent to 22 percent, Americans oppose “allowing universities to consider applicants’ race as a factor in deciding which students to admit.” And a Wall Street Journal/NBC poll found that even in using the vague affirmative action language, support was at an “historic low.”

3. Universities Need Wealthy Students of Color

Ifill also raises the concern that if universities shift the basis of affirmative action preferences from race to class, “We may simply reinforce stereotypes within the student body that will equate minority students with poverty.” This argument was also advanced by the University of Texas: that race-neutral plans produced too many low-income and working-class minority students and that Texas needed to provide a preference to wealthy minority students such as “the African American or Hispanic child of successful professionals in Dallas” who would defy stereotypes.

This line of argument highlights how far the case for race-based affirmative action has drifted from basic concepts of fairness….

4. Race vs. Class Is a False Dichotomy

Ifill’s final, and most theoretically plausible, argument is that pitting race and class poses a “false dichotomy” because universities can provide a leg up to students on both criteria. Indeed, universities purport to do just that, saying they consider both race and class in admissions.

But extensive research from Anthony Carnevale of Georgetown University and William Bowen, the former president of Princeton University, puts the lie to that claim. In fact, most selective universities provide very heavy preferences based on race, and virtually no consideration to economic disadvantage. From a self-interested perspective, that’s understandable. A lack of class diversity is easier to hide than a lack of racial diversity; and addressing socioeconomic diversity is more expensive because low-incomes students need greater financial aid and support on campus….

I have been hearing the argument, “let’s pursue race and class diversity together,” for more than two decades. But somehow, as long as universities can employ robust racial preferences, the vast majority never gets around to addressing class. As a result, a generation of talented low-income and working-class students have been virtually shut out of America’s competitive colleges and universities.http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/06/15/race-vs-class-in-college-admissions-a-false-dichotomy-or-not/

People tend to cluster in neighborhoods based upon class as much as race. Good teachers tend to gravitate toward neighborhoods where they are paid well and students come from families who mirror their personal backgrounds and values. Good teachers make a difference in a child’s life. One of the difficulties in busing to achieve equity in education is that neighborhoods tend to be segregated by class as well as race. People often make sacrifices to move into neighborhoods they perceive mirror their values. That is why there must be good schools in all segments of the country and there must be good schools in all parts of this society. A good education should not depend upon one’s class or status.

Related:

U.S. Supreme Court to decide the affirmative action case, Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin (Case No. 11-345)                                                                                      https://drwilda.com/tag/fisher-v-university-of-texas-at-austin/

Where Information Leads to Hope ©                   Dr. Wilda.com

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

Blogs by Dr. Wilda:

COMMENTS FROM AN OLD FART©                           http://drwildaoldfart.wordpress.com/

Dr. Wilda Reviews ©                                                http://drwildareviews.wordpress.com/

Dr. Wilda ©                                                                                                       https://drwilda.com/

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The 06/16/13 Joy Jar

15 Jun

Some folk are literally tumbleweeds. They live their life blowing in the wind. The finger must be raised to guage the direction of the wind before a decision can be made. Others know who they are and what they believe. They have a foundation rooted in principle. Healthy body, healthy mind, healthy values = It’s all good Today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ is the firm foundation of strong values.

“Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.”
Henry David Thoreau, Walden

“Your beliefs become your thoughts,
Your thoughts become your words,
Your words become your actions,
Your actions become your habits,
Your habits become your values,
Your values become your destiny.”
Mahatma Gandhi

“For me, I am driven by two main philosophies: know more today about the world than I knew yesterday and lessen the suffering of others. You’d be surprised how far that gets you.”
Neil deGrasse Tyson

“Possessions, outward success, publicity, luxury – to me these have always been contemptible. I believe that a simple and unassuming manner of life is best for everyone, best for both the body and the mind.”
Albert Einstein

“Never compromise your values.”
Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free

“Values aren’t buses… They’re not supposed to get you anywhere. They’re supposed to define who you are.”
Jennifer Crusie

“Tell me what you pay attention to and I will tell you who you are.”
José Ortega y Gasset

“Don’t let your special character and values, the secret that you know and no one else does, the truth – don’t let that get swallowed up by the great chewing complacency.”
Aesop

“It’s not hard to make decisions when you know what your values are.”
Roy Disney

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The 06/15/13 Joy Jar

15 Jun

 

Sometimes, the simplest things are simply the best. An example is buttered toast. If one wants to make embellish buttered toast, just add jelly. Today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ is buttered toast.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A slice of hot, buttered toast is the perfect meal. It’s not too much and not too little, and it gives you just the right buzz.
Naveen Andrews

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I went to a restaurant that serves ‘breakfast at any time’. So I ordered French Toast during the Renaissance.
Steven Wright

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Toast without butter is like a day without sunshine.

 

Unknown

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“I have trouble with toast. Toast is very difficult. You have to watch it all the time or it burns up.”

 

Julia Child

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“If toast always lands butter-side down, and cats always land on their feet, what happens if you strap toast on the back of a cat and drop it?”

 

Stephen Wright

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you’re in the game long enough, you’re going to be the toast of the town one day, and the next day you’ll be toast.
Alan K. Simpson

 

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The 06/14/13 Joy Jar

14 Jun

This country is at one of those junctures that occur periodically. Some in the 4th Estate have ceded their role as watchdogs to become lapdogs and not journalists. Today’s deposit in the ‘Joy Jar’ are those brave folk willing to practice the profession of journalism because they believe in ferreting out the truth.

Mathew Felling of CBS News lists the 10 Best Journalism Quotes:


Number 10:

The difference between literature and journalism is that journalism is unreadable and literature is not read.

  • Oscar Wilde

    Number 9:

    Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.

  • Thomas Jefferson

    Number 8:

    There can be no higher law in journalism than to tell the truth and to shame the devil.

  • Walter Lippmann

    Number 7:

    The liberty of the press is a blessing when we are inclined to write against others, and a calamity when we find ourselves overborne by the multitude of our assailants.

  • Samuel Johnson

    Number 6:

    A free press can be good or bad, but, most certainly, without freedom a press will never be anything but bad.

  • Albert Camus

    Number Five:

    Journalism can never be silent: that is its greatest virtue and its greatest fault. It must speak, and speak immediately, while the echoes of wonder, the claims of triumph and the signs of horror are still in the air.

  • Henry Anatole Grunwald

    Number Four: (Aka: Whenever you can think up a reason to bring up Grace Kelly, do it.)
    The freedom of the press works in such a way that there is not much freedom from it.

  • Grace Kelly

    Number Three:

    News is something someone wants suppressed. Everything else is just advertising.

  • Lord Northcliff

    Number Two:

    Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.

  • Thomas Jefferson

    Number One: (You’ll thank us for this at the picnic.)

    A news story should be like a mini skirt on a pretty woman. Long enough to cover the subject but short enough to be interesting.

  • Anonymous, linked to a Texas newspaper editor

© 2007 CBS Interactive Inc.. All Rights Reserved.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-500486_162-3013288-500486.html

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N.Y. case: Unpaid interns should be paid for tasks

14 Jun

In Interns: the new indentured servants? Moi wrote:

When one thinks of interns, one usually thinks of an eager young undergraduate trying to make a favorable impression on a future employer. Steven Greenhouse reported in the New York Times that the The unpaid Internships, Legal or Not

The question is whether employers caught in a vice between declining revenue and rising costs are using internships as a source of labor without having to comply with labor regulations? 

Steven Greenhouse did a follow-up article which reported about new labor regulations from California. In California Labor Depart. Revises Guidelines on When Interns Must be Paid Greenhouse reports in the New York Times about the California rules.

Greenhouse explores an even more troubling trend in his New York Times article, With Jobs Few, Internships Lure More Graduates to Unpaid Work:

Melissa Reyes, who graduated from Marist College with a degree in fashion merchandising last May, applied for a dozen jobs to no avail. She was thrilled, however, to land an internship with the Diane von Furstenberg fashion house in Manhattan. “They talked about what an excellent, educational internship program this would be,” she said.

But Ms. Reyes soon soured on the experience. She often worked 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., five days a week. “They had me running out to buy them lunch,” she said. “They had me cleaning out the closets, emptying out the past season’s items.”

Ms. Reyes finally quit when her boss demanded that she also work both days of a weekend. She now works part time as a model. Asked about her complaints, the fashion firm said, “We are very proud of our internship program, and we take all concerns of this kind very seriously.”

The Labor Department says that if employers do not want to pay their interns, the internships must resemble vocational education, the interns must work under close supervision, their work cannot be used as a substitute for regular employees and their work cannot be of immediate benefit to the employer.

But in practice, there is little to stop employers from exploiting interns. The Labor Department rarely cracks down on offenders, saying that it has limited resources and that unpaid interns are loath to file complaints for fear of jeopardizing any future job search.

No one keeps statistics on the number of college graduates taking unpaid internships, but there is widespread agreement that the number has significantly increased, not least because the jobless rate for college graduates age 24 and under has risen to 9.4 percent, the highest level since the government began keeping records in 1985. (Employment experts estimate that undergraduates work in more than one million internships a year, with Intern Bridge, a research firm, finding almost half unpaid.)                 

“A few years ago you hardly heard about college graduates taking unpaid internships,” said Ross Eisenbrey, a vice president at the Economic Policy Institute who has done several studies on interns. “But now I’ve even heard of people taking unpaid internships after graduating from Ivy League schools.”

Matt Gioe had little luck breaking into the music and entertainment industry after graduating with a philosophy degree from Bucknell last year. To get hands-on experience, he took an unpaid position with a Manhattan talent agency that booked musical acts. He said he answered phones and looked up venues. Although he was sometimes told to make bookings, he said he received virtually no guidance on how to strike a deal or how much to charge. But the boss did sometimes ask him to run errands like buying groceries.

“It was basically three wasted months,” he said.

Mr. Eisenbrey said many companies were taking advantage of the weak labor market to use unpaid interns to handle chores like photocopying or running errands once done by regular employees, which can raise sticky legal questions.

Eric Glatt, who at age 40 interned for the movie “Black Swan,” is one of the few interns with the courage to sue for wages over the work he did.                                               http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/06/business/unpaid-internships-dont-always-deliver.html?hp

Before accepting an internship, the potential intern should ask some questions. https://drwilda.com/2012/05/06/interns-the-new-indentured-servants/

Danielle Kurtzleben reported in the U.S. News article, Unpaid ‘Black Swan’ Interns Get Court Victory: A New York court rules in favor of unpaid interns, but don’t expect the practice to die anytime soon:

The days of doing menial office work for free may soon be in the past. This week, a judge ruled in favor of two former unpaid interns. Judge William H. Pauley III declared that Fox Searchlight Pictures violated the law by not paying former interns Eric Glatt and Andrew Footman. Labor advocates are hoping it will be the start of a sea change in the way employers offer internships. But that shift could be a long time in coming. 

Glatt and Footman filed suit in 2011 against Fox Searchlight, saying their internships on the production of the 2009 film “Black Swan” violated labor laws. The interns did work such as filing, making coffee, getting signatures on documents, and assembling office furniture, and claimed that they should have been paid for that work under the Fair Labor Standards Act. 

That law lays out six criteria that an internship must meet in order to be unpaid. Among those are the stipulations that the internship must be for the benefit of the intern and must not displace other employees. In addition, the employer of an unpaid intern should get “no immediate advantage” from the intern’s presence – in other words, the intern ought to be there to shadow employees and learn, but not to do productive work. 

The judge found that the “Black Swan” internships fell far from meeting these standards. The decision states that, while Glatt and Footman “received some benefits from their internships” in the form of résumé fodder, references and production knowledge, the interns got the short end of this deal: “Searchlight received the benefits of their unpaid work, which otherwise would have required paid employees,” the judge wrote, adding that “the defendants were the ‘primary beneficiaries’ of the relationship, not Glatt and Footman….” 

This is the first decision of its kind favoring unpaid interns and classifying them as workers, says Juno Turner, an attorney with Outten & Golden LLP, the New York law firm that argued the case, and she believes the effects could be far-reaching…. 

That may imply that many people have been employed unlawfully as unpaid interns, perhaps without themselves or their employers even realizing it. Questions over the legality of these internships have been years in the making. As a Labor Department official put it in a 2010 New York Times article, “If you’re a for-profit employer or you want to pursue an internship with a for-profit employer, there aren’t going to be many circumstances where you can have an internship and not be paid and still be in compliance with the law.”

The Fair Labor Standards Act has long had clear criteria for unpaid interns, so how did employers get into the unpaid-intern habit? One attorney says it’s a function of employers not understanding the law, instead opting to simply do what other employers are doing…. http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/06/13/judge-hands-down-rare-victory-for-unpaid-interns

Case Western Reserve University has an excellent set of questions in the article, Questions to Ask an Employer:

Describe the type of work I would be doing or the types of projects I will be working on.

  • What makes this organization unique?
  • What are the short-term and long-term objectives of the organization?
  • How is the training or orientation program for new employees structured?
  • What characteristics would the ideal job candidate have for this position?
  • Can you tell me about the people/positions I would be reporting to?
  • What do you see as the most challenging aspects of the position?
  • When and how will job evaluations take place?
  • When can I expect to hear from you about my candidacy?
  • What have other [co-ops, interns, new employees] done at the company in the past?
  • How many [co-ops, interns] are typically employed by the company at one time?
  • What percentage of your [co-ops, interns] are hired after graduation?
  • What are the areas of anticipated growth for the company?
  • What is the structure of the company and how does this department fit in?
  • What are the opportunities for advancement?
  • What is your (the interviewer’s) position in the company? (Ask for a business card)
  • Does the company assist with relocation [if necessary]?
  • What is the next step in this search?
  • When can I expect to hear from you about my candidacy?
  • What skills or attributes are you seeking in a candidate that I have not addressed?

http://studentaffairs.case.edu/careers/tips/interviewing/ask.html

In a tight economy, people are desperate for just about any type of opportunity. Don’t let this desperation play into the avarice of an employer who sees the potential intern as unpaid labor with no thought of providing either training or a path to a permanent position.

This seemingly innocuous issue is a real sleeper.

Where information leads to Hope.   ©               Dr. Wilda.com

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

Blogs by Dr. Wilda:

COMMENTS FROM AN OLD FART©                           http://drwildaoldfart.wordpress.com/

Dr. Wilda Reviews ©                                                http://drwildareviews.wordpress.com/

Dr. Wilda ©                                                                                                     https://drwilda.com/

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The 06/13/13 Joy Jar

13 Jun

Moi was walking down the street and she noticed all the wheels. They were on buses, cars, bicycles, scooters, and carts. The wheels make it easier to get from here to there and to carry loads. Today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ is the wheel.

 

 

 

 

“Man has always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much…the wheel, New York, wars and so on…while all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man…for precisely the same reason.”

Douglas Adams

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Without question, the greatest invention in the history of mankind is beer. Oh, I grant you that the wheel was also a fine invention, but the wheel does not go nearly as well with pizza.”

Dave Barry

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 “The guy who invented the first wheel was an idiot. The guy who invented the other three, HE was a genius.”

Sid Cesar

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“The important thing is not the finding, it is the seeking, it is the devotion with which one spins the wheel of prayer and scripture, discovering the truth little by little. If this machine gave you the truth immediately, you would not recognize it,”

Ursula K. LeGuin

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Don’t reinvent the wheel, just realign it.”

Anthony J. De Angelo

 

 

 

 

 

 “The wheel of fortune turns round incessantly, and who can say to himself, “I shall today be uppermost”

Confucius

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“The wheel is come full circle.”

William Shakespeare

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