The 01/31/13 Joy Jar

30 Jan

A couple of weeks ago, moi’s favorite soap and fragrance store at the mall had a sale. You could get three things for x dollars and you could mix and match items. They gave you cute little bags to put you stuff in. The place was crowded and although they say Disneyland is the happiest place on earth, the crowd was happy. Today, moi broke open the Lemon Vanilla lotion and the subtle calming scent really made the moment. Today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ is scented lotion.

 

 

“A good fragrance is really a powerful cocktail of memories and emotion.”
Jeffrey Stepakoff, The Orchard: A Novel

 

Nothing is more memorable than a smell. One scent can be unexpected, momentary and fleeting, yet conjure up a childhood summer beside a lake in the mountains.
Diane Ackerman

To wash one’s hair, make one’s toilet, and put on scented robes; even if not a soul sees one, these preparations still produce an inner pleasure.

Sei Shonagon

“Each day has a color, a smell.”
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, The Mistress of Spices

 

That awkward moment when you have to much lotion on and don’t know where to put it…

Unknown

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The 01/30/13 Joy Jar

29 Jan

Moi loves her big bag or big purse, whatever you want to call it. Actually, moi has several big bags. She keeps all her stuff in it, whether it is immediately needed or not. After all, you might need this or that and someone else might need this or that. They are actually big enough to be useful in Seattle, a city which instituted a plastic bag ban. These days one brings a bag on shopping trips or has to purchase a bag in Seattle. Moi has her calendar, umbrella, smart phone, snacks, lip gloss, and all manner of other stuff. Sometimes, there are snacks. Of course there are pens. Today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ is her big bag.

“Don’t give a woman advice; one should never give a woman anything she can’t wear in the morning”
Oscar Wilde

You’re never too fat for a new purse.
Nia Vardalos

No people is wholly civilized where a distinction is drawn between stealing an office and stealing a purse.
Theodore Roosevelt

Open your mouth and purse cautiously, and your stock of wealth and reputation shall, at least in repute, be great.
John Zimmerman

“Fashion fades, only style remains the same.”
“In order to be irreplaceable one must always be different.”
“A girl should be two things: classy and fabulous.”
Coco Chanel

 

 

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Courts are becoming the mechanism to force states to fund education

29 Jan

Moi wrote about education funding in Education funding lawsuits against states on the rise:

Moi has often said in posts at the blog that the next great civil rights struggle will involve access for ALL children to a good basic education. Sabra Bireda has written a report from the Center for American Progress, Funding Education Equitably https://drwilda.com/2012/01/25/education-funding-lawsuits-against-states-on-the-rise/

Andrew Usifusa writes in the Education Week article, State Finance Lawsuits Roil K-12 Funding Landscape about several lawsuits:

As state budgets slowly recover from several years of economic contraction and stagnation, significant court battles continue to play a related yet distinct role in K-12 policy, even in states where the highest courts have already delivered rulings on the subject.

This year, meanwhile, marks the 40th anniversary of a U.S. Supreme Court decision that was a turning point for the role of property taxes in financing school districts and that continues to complicate fiscal decisions for state policymakers. The 5-4 ruling, in San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez, held that the state did not have to justify the higher quality of education for wealthier districts that might result from their local property taxes.

In a 2008 article for the Virginia Law ReviewRequires Adobe Acrobat Reader, Judge Jeffrey Sutton of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit, based in Cincinnati, wrote: “For better, for worse, or for more of the same, the majority in Rodriguez tolerated the continuation of a funding system that allowed serious disparities in the quality of the education a child received based solely on the wealth of the community in which his parents happened to live or could afford to live….”

Since the 1970s, lawsuits filed in 45 states have challenged the constitutionality of school finance systems, according to the National Education Access Network, a research group that tracks lawsuits related to education finance and equity based at Teachers College, Columbia University.

DOCKET UPDATE

School funding lawsuits continue to bedevil several states still recovering from the economic downturn that began in 2007. The suits are at various stages, and concerns about the courts’ role in education finance have emerged.

Arizona
On Jan. 15, the Arizona Court of Appeals said that lawmakers were wrong to deny school funding increases to account for inflation. The court ruled that legislators did not follow a ballot measure approved by voters in 2000 that mandated K-12 funding increases for inflation.

Texas
A District Court judge is presiding over what began as four separate cases brought by hundreds of districts against the state after the legislature cut $5.4 billion from K-12 aid during its 2011 session. Districts allege that the structure of the current system creates inequalities between school systems based on wealth, and that the state has not provided the “efficient system” of public education as mandated by the state constitution.

Kansas
State Republican lawmakers indicated that they are considering changes to the state’s constitution in order to strengthen the state legislature’s power over K-12 finance and limit the state supreme court’s oversight. The move could be a significant counterpoint to a U.S. District Court ruling Jan. 11 that the state’s funding system is unconstitutional.

Colorado
Lawmakers and others are waiting for the state supreme court to rule in the Lobato v. State of Colorado case that could mandate an increase in K-12 spending by the state by anywhere between $2 billion to $4 billion annually.

Washington
Less than a year after the state supreme court ruled in McCleary v. State of Washington that the state’s K-12 funding system was constitutionally inadequate and needed to be fixed, the state’s chief justice claimed lawmakers had not done nearly enough to remedy the problem. The impact of satisfying McCleary on the court’s terms could cost the state an additional $1.4 billion in the 2013-15 budget cycle.

SOURCE: Education Week http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2013/01/23/18finance.h32.html?tkn=LWRFqQKKDXpkxTdC%2F7veHMLh%2BNzLreVfu2%2F5&cmp=clp-edweek&intc=es

 

Moi wrote in  The next great civil rights struggle: Disparity in education funding: Plessy v. Ferguson established the principle of “separate but equal” in race issues. Brown v.Board of Education which overturned the principle of “separate but equal.” would not have been necessary, but for Plessy.See also, the history of Brown v. Board of Education

If one believes that all children, regardless of that child’s status have a right to a good basic education and that society must fund and implement policies, which support this principle. Then, one must discuss the issue of equity in education. Because of the segregation, which resulted after Plessy, most folks focus their analysis of Brown almost solely on race. The issue of equity was just as important. The equity issue was explained in terms of unequal resources and unequal access to education.

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 city and there must be good schools in all parts of this state. A good education should not depend upon one’s class or status.

I know that the lawyers in Brown were told that lawsuits were futile and that the legislatures would address the issue of segregation eventually when the public was ready. Meanwhile, several generations of African Americans waited for people to come around and say the Constitution applied to us as well. Generations of African Americans suffered in inferior schools. This state cannot sacrifice the lives of children by not addressing the issue of equity in school funding in a timely manner.

The next huge case, like Brown, will be about equity in education funding. It may not come this year or the next year. It, like Brown, may come several years after a Plessy. It will come. Equity in education funding is the civil rights issue of this century. https://drwilda.com/2011/12/02/the-next-great-civil-rights-struggle-disparity-in-education-funding/

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The 01/29/13 Joy Jar

28 Jan

 

Moi doesn’t eat a lot of cake for two reasons. One, she likes the good stuff which is made with milk, eggs, cream, real chocolate, real fruit and real flavorings. That costs $$$$. Given the choice between good wine or good cake, the wine wins. Second, once one has a slice of good cake, why stop at just one piece. Eating the whole cake is as Martha would say, ‘not a good thing.’ Today, moi has a tiny slice of really good cake. The kind of cake that rolls around your mouth and makes your taste buds stand to attention. Today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ is good cake.

 

“Let’s just say you may regret that second piece of cake.’
Oh my God. Regret cake? Whatever was about to happen must be truly evil.”
Rachel Hawkins, Hex Hall

 

“If I was made of cake I’d eat myself before somebody else could.”
Emma Donoghue, Room

 

“Cake is happiness! If you know the way of the cake, you know the way of happiness! If you have a cake in front of you, you should not look any further for joy!”
C. JoyBell C.

 

“I suppose I wanted to have my cake and eat it.
But then again, what were you going to do with your cake if not eat it?
Frame it?
Use it as a sachet in your underwear drawer?”
Marian Keyes, Watermelon

 

Let’s face it, a nice creamy chocolate cake does a lot for a lot of people; it does for me.
Audrey Hepburn

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The 01/28/13 Joy Jar

27 Jan

Moi has been at the ALA Midwinter Meeting for the past couple of days and it has been raining off and on in Seattle. Some folk in Seattle think of themselves as Rambos. They wouldn’t be caught dead carrying carrying an umbrella and some not only forgo an umbrella, but are sans hat. Their choice of badge is Gore Tex. Moi has a trusty fold-away umbrella which she carries everywhere in her purse, even in August. Because in Seattle, no matter the date on the calendar, one never knows. Today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ is my umbrella.

 

It is the habitual carriage of the umbrella that is the stamp of Respectability. The umbrella has become the acknowledged index of social position. . . . Crusoe was rather a moralist than a pietist, and his leaf-umbrella is as fine an example of the civilized mind striving to express itself under adverse circumstances as we have ever met with. Robert Louis Stevenson

 

Prepare the umbrella before it rains. Life is full of surprises!

Unknown

 

“With large umbrellas, come large responsibilities” Matt Maldre

 

“The rain it raineth on the just And also on the unjust fella, But chiefly on the just, because The unjust steals the just’s umbrella”

Charles Bowen quotes

“It ain’t no use putting up your umbrella till it rains.” Alice Caldwell Rice

This last quote could be written for Seattle.

Any fool carries an umbrella on a wet day, but the wise man carries it every day.
Irish Proverb

 

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The 01/27/13 Joy Jar

26 Jan

Moi has been attending the American Library Association (ALA) Midwinter Meeting in Seattle. Several times a week, she goes to the main branch of the Seattle Public Library. It always feels like home. The main library is in the middle of a very diverse city. In fact, moi often says the only places where all classes of people in Seattle meet regularly are the library and the dollar store. Some people who visit the library have issues like mental illness and may be in the throes of some substance. A couple of times moi was at the library and a person had a meltdown. The librarians always try to treat people with dignity and courtesy, no matter who you are. Today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ are librarians.

“Most people don’t realize how important librarians are. I ran across a book recently which suggested that the peace and prosperity of a culture was solely related to how many librarians it contained. Possibly a slight overstatement. But a culture that doesn’t value its librarians doesn’t value ideas and without ideas, well, where are we?”
Neil Gaiman

“Don’t mark up the Library’s copy, you fool! Librarians are Unprankable. They’ll track you down! They have skills!”
Charles Ogden

“The real heroes are the librarians and teachers who at no small risk to themselves refuse to lie down and play dead for censors.”
Bruce Coville

“To all my librarian friends, champions of books, true magicians in the House of Life. Without you, this writer would be lost in the Dust.”
Rick Riordan, The Red Pyramid

“Good librarians are natural intelligence operatives. They possess all of the skills and characteristics required for that work: curiosity, wide-ranging knowledge, good memories, organization and analytical aptitude, and discretion.”
Marilyn Johnson, This Book Is Overdue!: How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All

“In the nonstop tsunami of global information, librarians provide us with floaties and teach us to swim.”
Linton Weeks

“When the going gets tough, the tough get a librarian.”
Joan Bauer

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ALA 2013 Seattle Midwinter Meeting update: The headline is libraries are reinventing and re-purposing themselves

26 Jan

There is a theme running through the ALA 2013 Seattle Midwinter Meeting which is that libraries are reinventing and re-purposing themselves to meet the challenges of surviving in a digital world where publishing is rapidly changing with more challenges to distribution of content and more diversity in the channels of content production. The Friday sessions attended by moi were all consistent with the theme.

ALA President Maureen Sullivan held a joint press conference with Rich Harwood, the founder of the Harwood Institute. The focus of their comments was the joint initiative between ALA and Harwood, called The Promise of Libraries Transforming Communities. See, ALA Midwinter Conversations: Community Engagement and the Promise of Libraries Transforming Communities http://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/news/ala/ala-midwinter-conversations-community-engagement-and-promise-libraries-transforming-communi This is how the initiative is described:

Funded through a grant from IMLS, the multi-phase initiative’s goal is to provide librarians with the tools and training they need to lead their communities in finding innovative solutions by advancing library-led community engagement and innovation. The conversations at Midwinter are one step in building a sustainable, scalable national plan.

The press conference aimed to describe the focus of the initiative. Moi was thinking, obviously libraries have to do something with brick and mortar buildings.

Mr. Harwood started off with the theme that Americans are yearning for a sense of community and because librarians are trusted members of the community and libraries are natural centers for community gathering. Both Cooney and Sullivan emphasized that they wanted to work with individual communities emphasizing “don’t want to adopt and not adapt.” This means that they do not want a one-size-fits-all approach to community engagement, but they want to respond to individual community needs. Harwood focused upon the Harwood Youngstown project. http://www.theharwoodinstitute.org/2013/01/change-happens-in-youngstown/

See, Community Conversation Guide http://mediaengage.org/webinars/uploads/file_154520.pdf

The ALA session, ALA and E-books: Prospects and Directions for 2013 was packed. The session dealt with the changing landscape of not just books, but the delivery of information and content. The session was co-chaired by Sari Feldman and Robert Wolven with remarks by Alan S. Inouye. Panelists were George Coe of Baker and Taylor, Matt Tempelis of 3M, and Jamie La Rue of Douglas County Library of Colorado. It emphasized that ALA is advocating for the interest of libraries to have a free and open information flow. ALA has an e-content blog, a toolkit, and has written an “Open Letter to Publishers.” See, http://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/e-content/open-letter-america-s-publishers

Wolven described the issues with the various business models that exist. These models differ based upon content, terms, price. There is growing diversity in the channels of publishing and how books or content come to market. The question is what content is available and at what price.

Inouye discussed the future direction of e-books. He emphasized that there are different models for large publishers and distributors; smaller and mid-sized publishers; and the self-published markets. The panel could be summarized as the library market is trying to acquire as much information as possible for a price they consider reasonable. The producers of content and distributors want to control as much of the content as they can and charge up to the point that they don’t kill the goose which laid the golden egg.

Moi attended two other sessions, but the point was still the same. Libraries are operating in a world which is a bit like surfing. One hopes to ride the wave and not get knocked off their board to find themselves treading water or drowned.

Corrected to reflect the press conference attendee was Rich Harwood, founder of Harwood Institute.

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The 01/26/13 Joy Jar

25 Jan

Moi is attending the 2013 ALA Midwinter Meeting in Seattle. Don’t know what others think of when they think of a good book and reading, but moi thinks of a comfy chair, a glass of wine, and slippers. Today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ is a comfy pair of slippers.

Don’t you stay at home of evenings? Don’t you love a cushioned seat in a corner, by the fireside, with your slippers on your feet?
Oliver Wendell Holmes

“.. its not so much about the shoes, but the person wearing them”
Adriana Trigiani, Viola in Reel Life

Those must be comfortable shoes, I bet you could walk all day in shoes like those and not feel a thing.

Forrest Gump

“To be happy, it first takes being comfortable being in your own shoes. The rest can work up from there.”

Sophia Bush

If we were nothing here, at least we were children of God. At some far-off point in time, all these things would be rectified and we would get our golden slippers.

Calvin Marshall

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2013 ALA Seattle: Midwinter Meeting: Librarians as guardians of public knowledge

25 Jan

Moi is attending the Seattle Midwinter Meeting of the American Library Association (ALA) and that causes moi to reflect about the role of libraries and librarians in preserving public knowledge. Margaret Jackubcin of Southern Oregon’s Mail Tribune gives ten excellent reasons why libraries are important to a community.

  1. Public libraries are good for the economy.

  2. Libraries are a cornerstone of democracy.

  3. Libraries play an important role in helping young children develop reading skills.

  4. Public libraries provide support to schools and students.

  5. Libraries are forward- thinking, and play an important role at the cutting edge of information technology.

  6. Libraries are repositories of the accumulated understanding of mankind.

  7. Public libraries are a bargain.

  8. Libraries provide a neutral community gathering place for the free exchange of ideas, culture, and entertainment.

  9. A vital and attractive library helps define a community, encourages civic pride, and invests residents with a sense of ownership.

  10. Libraries are the heart and soul of a community and reflect the value residents place on literacy, education, culture, and freedom.

Key to the success of libraries are librarians.

The ALA has a great description of what librarians do:

Me, a librarian?

It’s not every day that you find a job that can make a world of difference in people’s lives. Libraries have been empowering people by offering resources, services and training to expand their knowledge for thousands of years. Consider joining the 400,000 librarians and library workers who bring opportunity every day to the communities they serve.

While there’s no magic test that will tell you if a library career is right for you, there are many characteristics and values that librarians and library workers share:

  • Enjoy helping and serving other people 
  • Interested in developing and providing services, resources and materials that inform and entertain, such as books, movies, music, storytelling, websites, local history, databases, and puppets 
  • Thrive in a technologically changing environment 
  • Interest in information research, preservation and instruction 
  • Willing to connect people with a wide variety of value and belief systems to materials that represent multiple points of view
  • Believe strongly in First Amendment rights protecting the freedom of speech and of the press 
  • Wish to contribute to the greater good of a literate society
  • Want to be part of a professional community that encourages sharing information, opinions and expertise
  • Respect and uphold people’s rights to privacy and the freedom to read what they choose
  • Believe all information resources provided by libraries should be equitably accessible to all library users

If you hold many of these values, then visit Oh, the Places You Will Go to discover the many opportunities available to you in librarianship. http://www.ala.org/educationcareers/careers/librarycareerssite/mealibrarian

If there is a trait that most librarians share, is the love of learning and sharing knowledge.

Ramon Barquin eloquently describes the importance of librarians in his speech, Debt to Librarians:

We have to remember librarians have been the guardians of knowledge from the very beginning of man’s attempts to capture information outside the human brain. The media in which explicit knowledge was stored evolved from clay tablets, parchments and papyrus scrolls into books. But librarianship today has gone substantially beyond books, and the focus of its work is connecting people with a need to know something to the right source of content for that knowledge. Most of these knowledge sources now are online databases or virtual documents that exist in cyberspace.
It’s a far cry from the image we have of the librarian of the past. In fact, many schools of library science have now either changed their academic name outright into schools of ‘information science’ or have added that term to their traditional library science denomination.
And well they should since they are very much into the thick of information science and hence IT, as well as knowledge management. Take something as hot these days as search. There is little that has a higher priority than search for an enterprise that must find specific content in the mountains of virtual documents in order to address the needs of its knowledge workers. Well, to a large degree this is what librarians have been doing for millennia. For them, it starts with developing taxonomies and classification schemes that allow the storing of content in a way that will make it easier later to retrieve what they are seeking. The card catalogues of our school libraries provided a basic example of a multidimensional approach to search. We could look under the author, title and subject  headings in order to find a specific tome or list of possible books that might be helpful in researching a given topic.
With automation came quantum changes in libraries too. Fairly soon we saw the computerised catalogues allowing us to search a library’s collection, then expanding its reach to permit searching sets of collections across collaborating schools or other domains. And because the scope of librarians is no longer tied just to books, the content in databases and knowledge spaces is very much their bailiwick.

http://www.ikmagazine.com/xq/asp/txtSearch.Taxonomies/exactphrase.1/sid.0/articleid.D1EDE6F7-63C2-4672-B210-69D2BC66F93F/qx/display.htm

The ALA is the primary professional group representing the many facets of library science.

The ALA describes its mission:

Mission & History

Founded on October 6, 1876 during the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, the American Library Association was created to provide leadership for the development, promotion, and improvement of library and information services and the profession of librarianship in order to enhance learning and ensure access to information for all. Our current strategic plan, ALA Ahead to 2015, calls for continued work in the areas of Advocacy for Libraries and the Profession, Diversity, Education and Lifelong Learning, Equitable Access to Information and Library Services, Intellectual Freedom, Literacy, Organizational Excellence and Transforming Libraries. http://www.ala.org/aboutala/missionhistory

So, about 10,000 librarians have come to Seattle for a weekend of seminars, meetings, fellowship, and affirmation.

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The University of Wisconsin ‘Flexible Option’ program: A college GED?

25 Jan

Caroline Porter reports in the Wall Street Journal article, College Degree, No Class Time Required:

Colleges and universities are rushing to offer free online classes known as “massive open online courses,” or MOOCs. But so far, no one has figured out a way to stitch these classes together into a bachelor’s degree.

Now, educators in Wisconsin are offering a possible solution by decoupling the learning part of education from student assessment and degree-granting.

Wisconsin officials tout the UW Flexible Option as the first to offer multiple, competency-based bachelor’s degrees from a public university system. Officials encourage students to complete their education independently through online courses, which have grown in popularity through efforts by companies such as Coursera, edX and Udacity.

No classroom time is required under the Wisconsin program except for clinical or practicum work for certain degrees.

Elsewhere, some schools offer competency-based credits or associate degrees in areas such as nursing and business, while Northern Arizona University plans a similar program that would offer bachelor’s degrees for a flat fee, said spokesman Eric Dieterle. But no other state system is offering competency-based bachelor’s degrees on a systemwide basis.

Wisconsin’s Flexible Option program is “quite visionary,” said Molly Corbett Broad, president of the American Council on Education, an education policy and lobbying group that represents some 1,800 accredited colleges and universities.

In Wisconsin, officials say that about 20% of adult residents have some college credits but lack a degree. Given that a growing number of jobs require a degree, the new program appeals to potential students who lack the time or resources to go back to school full time.

“It is a big new idea in a system like ours, and it is part of the way the ground is shifting under us in higher education,” said Kevin Reilly, president of the University of Wisconsin System, which runs the state’s 26 public-university campuses.

Under the Flexible Option, assessment tests and related online courses are being written by faculty who normally teach the related subject-area classes, Mr. Reilly said.

Officials plan to launch the full program this fall, with bachelor’s degrees in subjects including information technology and diagnostic imaging, plus master’s and bachelor’s degrees for registered nurses. Faculty are working on writing those tests now.

The charges for the tests and related online courses haven’t been set. But university officials said the Flexible Option should be “significantly less expensive” than full-time resident tuition, which averages about $6,900 a year at Wisconsin’s four-year campuses.

The Wisconsin system isn’t focusing on the potential cost savings the program may offer it but instead “the university and the state are doing this to strengthen the state work force,” said university spokesman David Giroux. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323301104578255992379228564.html?mod=wsj_valettop_email

Here is a portion of the University of Wisconsin’s description:

University of Wisconsin Flexible Option FAQs

FAQs

What is the UW Flexible Option?

The UW Flexible Option is an innovative way to make UW degree and certificate programs more accessible, convenient and affordable for adult and nontraditional students. Built on the long-standing foundation of high-quality UW degree programs, the new UW Flexible Option will include self-paced, competency-based degree and certificate programs that allow students to earn credit by demonstrating knowledge they have acquired through prior coursework, military training, on-the-job training, and other learning experiences.

UW faculty will determine what students should know and be able to do (knowledge and skills) in order to earn their college degree. Students enrolled in UW Flex programs will make progress towards a degree by passing a series of assessments that demonstrate mastery over competencies (knowledge and skills). Students in a Flex Option program may use the knowledge they have acquired through prior coursework, military and on-the-job training, and other learning experiences, and take assessments wherever and whenever they are ready. As they prepare for those assessments, students acquire knowledge and instruction from a wide variety of sources, working with a UW advisor and progressing at their own pace.

Which UW degrees will be offered with the new UW Flexible Option?

The first cohort of Flexible Option programs, planned for Fall 2013, includes:

• UW-Milwaukee will offer four degree programs and one certificate program: o The College of Nursing will offer both a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree option for Registered Nurses who seek higher credentials (R.N. to B.S.N. and R.N. to M.N.).

o The College of Health Sciences will develop a degree completion in Diagnostic Imaging targeted toward bachelor’s degree-attainment for certified diagnostic imaging professionals.

o The School of Information Studies will offer a B.S. in Information Science & Technology, preparing students for a host of jobs in an increasingly digital culture and economy.

o The College of Letters & Science will offer a Certificate in Professional and Technical Communication, providing students with the essential written and oral communication skills needed in the workplace.

• UW Colleges will offer liberal arts, general education courses in the flexible degree format.

o The University of Wisconsin Colleges is the UW System’s network of 13 freshman/sophomore campuses. Through traditional instruction and the UW Colleges Online, students can earn an Associate of Arts and Science degree and transfer to any baccalaureate and professional program at a four-year UW campus.

o For students who wish to be engaged in Flexible Option degree programs, the UW Colleges will provide general education, liberal arts freshman and sophomore level offerings that will be available in a competency-based, self-paced format as early as fall 2013. Students will be able to complete competencies and assessments in biology, chemistry, mathematics, computer science, engineering, physics, psychology, health, exercise science and athletics, women’s studies, business, political science, English, Spanish, geography, anthropology and sociology, history, art, and music. The UW Colleges will work to provide the Associate of Arts and Science degree via the UW Flexible Option….http://www.wisconsin.edu/news/2012/11-2012/FAQ_FlexOption.pdf

There is a debate about the move to competency-based degrees.

Elle Moxley writes in the NPR report, Why Some Schools Are Considering A Move To Competency-Based Education:

Southern New Hampshire University is the latest to announce it will confer degrees based on something other than credit hour completion. The school plans to offer a $5,000 online degree awarded through a system of “direct assessment.”

Here’s how it works: Students have to prove they can complete a series of tasks — say, writing a business memo or creating a spreadsheet — to advance in their studies.

It’s similar to the competency-based model Western Governors University uses, writes Joanne Jacobs over at Community College Spotlight.

The idea’s spreading. Twenty other schools are working with WGU to design their own competency based programs, Jacobs reports. We noted last month that the U.S. Department of Labor will give community colleges in three states a total of $12 million to teach competency-based courses in key technology fields.

Even though schools like WGU are nationally and regionally accredited, many brick-and-mortar institutions have been reluctant to forgo the traditional college model in favor of competency-based education. Paul Fain over at Inside Higher Ed explains:

The academy’s nervousness about competency is understandable. Students learn at their own pace under the model — without guidance from a traditional faculty member — and try to prove what they know through assessments. If the tests lack rigor and a link to real competencies, this approach starts looking like cash for credits.

And competency-based education is controversial even when it’s backed by sound measurements of college-level learning. Most online courses share plenty with the traditional college classroom, most notably course material delivered by a professor or instructor. … But competency-based education, by definition, eliminates this part of the learning process, typically relying instead on tutors to help students grasp concepts as they work through self-paced course material, and only if they need help.The academy isn’t the only one with reservations about competency-based education, writes Fain. There’s also tension in the federal government, which only has so much money and wants to make sure dollars flow into schools offering degrees of value. Schools like WGU say they offer more bang for the buck because they let students take as many competencies as they can complete in a set period of times. http://stateimpact.npr.org/indiana/2012/10/12/why-some-schools-are-considering-a-move-to-competency-based-education/

See, Competency-based education has fans, detractors http://www.deseretnews.com/article/765618631/Competency-based-education-has-fans-detractors.html?pg=all

The question is what a particular student hopes to achieve from their college experience. In addition to the academics, there is the opportunity for certain social experiences which an online education may not provide. Still, for the mature student with life experience, this might be an opportunity for education or training.

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