Tag Archives: Education Access

A baby changes everything: Helping parents finish school

26 Dec

The structure of the American family is changing. Jennifer Ludden reports in the NPR article, When It Comes To Marriage, Many More Say ‘I Don’t’

The share of all U.S. adults who are married has dropped to a record low 51 percent, according to a new report. If the trend continues, the institution will soon lose its majority status in American life.

The report being released Wednesday by the Pew Research Center finds new marriages dropped a sharp 5 percent last year, which is very likely related to the bad economy. Pew senior writer D’Vera Cohn says it fits with a larger trend….

Half a century ago, nearly 60 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds were married. Today, it’s just 20 percent. But the Pew report finds fewer married people across all age groups.

In their place: more singles, single parents, couples living together — many having children without marrying. In fact, some 40 percent of all U.S. births are now to unmarried mothers. But the driving force in the dropping marriage rate? People who do tie the knot are waiting longer than ever.

The Pew report finds the median age when people finally walk down the aisle is at an all-time high — 26 for women and nearly 29 for men. And it’s higher still for the college educated.

Marriage On The Decline (1960-2010)

Marriage On The Decline (1960-2010)

Notes

Based on adults 18 and older. Percents may not total 100 percent due to rounding.

Source: Pew Research Center analysis of Decennial Census and American Community Survey Data

Credit: Nelson Hsu/NPR

“Well, it does not mean that marriage is dead,” says Stephanie Coontz, a historian on family life at Evergreen State College in Washington state. She says many of those 20-somethings will eventually tie the knot. The Pew report finds a robust 72 percent of Americans have been married at some point…

Cohn says you already see this — school forms with separate address blocks for “Parent 1” and “Parent 2,” or employers asked about benefits for unmarried partners. Yet even as marriage declines, Cohn says, Americans still revere it….

“On the one hand, we had nearly 40 percent of Americans tell us they think marriage is becoming obsolete. On the other hand, when you ask people who aren’t married, ‘Would you like to get married?’ they say yes,” Cohn says.

Cohn says Wednesday’s report also points to a troubling marriage gap — the rich get hitched; the working class, not as much. Historian Coontz says it’s yet another consequence of the nation’s widening economic inequality. Wages for those without a college degree have stagnated, weakening their power in the marriage market.

“The sort of incentive to get married — because you could rely on a man whose real wages would continue to rise, who would get a pension at the end of it — that incentive has been undermined as well,” Coontz says.

http://www.npr.org/2011/12/14/143660764/when-it-comes-to-marriage-many-more-say-i-dont

This trend is troubling because it disrupts the stability of many children not only emotionally, but financially as well. Single parents often have difficulty earning a sufficient income to support a family. It becomes more important for single parents to complete education and/or training programs. In order to increase the well-being of children, parents must be helped to complete their education.

Sara Goldrick-Rab and Kia Sorensen have written The Future of Children journal article, Unmarried Parents in College:

Among all undergraduates, the share of unmarried parents nearly doubled over the past twenty years (from 7 percent to just over 13 percent).7 Unmarried parents make up an especially substantial segment of undergraduates from racial and ethnic minority backgrounds. For example, more than one-third (36 percent) of African American female undergraduates nationwide are unmarried mothers, and 15 percent of African American male undergraduates are unmarried fathers. Unmarried parents make up more than one in five Native American undergraduates (21 percent) and 16 percent of all Latino undergraduates (compared with 10 percent of white and 9 percent of Asian undergraduates).8

More than two-thirds of the increase in college attendance among unmarried parents since 1990 is attributable to attendance among unmarried mothers. Although the representation of unmarried fathers has been growing, a greater proportion of the increase in unmarried parents is driven by the attendance of women. Overall, 8 percent of male undergraduates and 17 percent of female undergraduates are unmarried parents.9 Of course, the appearance of these trends may be affected by the way parenting students are counted in federal data.

One reason for the apparent gender disparity among unmarried parents in attending college is that women are more likely than men to choose to begin or reenter college after having children.10 School reentry is common among mothers (even among high school dropouts), and mothers’ rates of college-going tick upward as children get older.11 Data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study indicate that many unmarried mothers wait until they are in their late twenties and their children enter school before entering or re-entering college.12 In fact, 25 percent of women entering college after the age of thirty are not married at the time of entry.13 In addition, parents who are not currently married appear more likely than currently married or cohabiting parents to enter college.14

Despite the fact that more unmarried parenting students are attending college, their attendance patterns, completion rates, and financial circumstances are quite different from those of nonparenting students and, in some cases, from married parenting students and other low-income students.

Rates of College Success
Parenting students who are not married while they are enrolled tend to complete four-year degrees at rates far lower than other college students, on average.15 Among all students who started college in 1995–96, 29 percent attained a bachelor’s degree by 2001, compared with just under 5 percent of unmarried parents. Among unmarried parents, 11.8 percent earned an associate’s degree (roughly the same share as the rest of that cohort), and 30 percent completed a postsecondary certificate (compared with 12 percent of the cohort as a whole). Unmarried parents were much more likely to depart college early, without a timely return to school (46 percent compared with 35 percent).16

One reason for these lower rates of completion is that it can take longer for parenting students to finish degrees.17 In fact, by neglecting these longer time periods to degree attainment, analysts sometimes tend to make ultimate rates of degree completion appear lower than they are. Although delays in completion (and the older age at which the degree is earned) affect labor market returns and employment opportunities, many unmarried mothers nevertheless acquire their postsecondary degrees—but, as Nan Astone and her colleagues put it, they do so “in a discontinuous fashion.”18 According to one study, “one-third (33.7 percent) of low-income single women with children and slightly more than one quarter (28.8 percent) of low-income married women with children take more than 10 years to complete a bachelor’s degree, compared to 15.6 percent of all women, 16.5 percent of all low-income women, and 12.7 percent of all men.”19 Other researchers, examining educational attainment according to early life course patterns, find clear differences in college-going and attainment based on the speed and trajectory of family formation. As table 1 illustrates, 57 percent of individuals who move rapidly into adult roles such as marriage and childbearing attend some college but only 6 percent complete bachelor’s degrees—and they are unlikely to continue pursuing their education at age twenty-four.20 Individuals who do not become parents by age twenty-four and remain unmarried are far more likely to attend and complete college, and many are still continuing their education at age twenty-four….

Contents

Figures & Tables

Download

http://futureofchildren.org/publications/journals/article/index.xml?journalid=73&articleid=536&sectionid=3692

Jenna Johnson has a excellent Washington Post article, How can colleges help teen moms (and teen dads)?

So what can colleges do to help these students? Here are seven ideas from local schools and teen moms:

1) Recruit these young parents: Quite often when a woman becomes pregnant, people stop talking to her about attending college — that is, if they were even pushing the idea in the first place. But a college degree is what could help her get a better-paying job and support her child….

2) Provide as much financial aid as possible: Tuition isn’t the only cost of going to college — there are also books to buy, fees to pay and transportation costs, just to name a few. Plus, every hour that a parent spends studying is one hour he or she is not working. It takes a lot of motivation to keep going to class when you have a family to feed.

The first step is easy: Make sure that teen parents have filled out the FAFSA (likely, as independent of their parents) and are receiving federal financial aid. Several of the Generation Hope scholars have not yet done this and are missing out on thousands in grants….

Beyond that, some schools have set up scholarships that will cover things like transportation or childcare. The College of Southern Maryland provides a number of scholarships for young parents, including the Bradley M. Gottfried “Against All Odds “Scholarship.

And the help can be less formal than a scholarship with an application process. At Trinity Washington University, the Dean of Student Services often gives young mothers Metro fare cards or meal passes for the dining hall. Earlier this semester, Generation Hope leaders heard that one of their students was on the verge of dropping a math class at Montgomery College — because she couldn’t afford a textbook that cost more than $100. Lewis rushed to campus to buy the book for her.

3) Assist with childcare: When I started reporting this story, I figured that the most daunting challenge facing most teen moms in college would be financial or academic. Nope, it’s childcare.

If your campus does not have a childcare center, then help your students apply for local programs or childcare vouchers for low-income parents. But many community colleges and four-year universities have begun to build childcare centers on campus to accommodate the children of faculty and students….

Students at Howard Community College can enroll their children in an on-campus lab school called the Children’s Learning Center. The cost is set on a sliding scale, and many women likely wouldn’t be able to attend class without the service. The program has helped the school increase its retention rate for single mothers in their early 20s, said school spokeswoman Nancy Santos Gainer. More than half of the students who use the center for childcare have a GPA of over 3.0, she said, and 13 percent have a GPA of over 3.5.

4) Support your teen parents: Sometimes that just means smiling and asking how their day is going. Being a teen mother can be lonely, as it’s difficult to make new friends when you have a baby to care for. And some teen moms have been so beaten down by the system as they applied for free prenatal care and WIC or tried to get child support through the court system, that they are afraid to seek out help.

Some ideas for doing this institutionally: Create a student-led support group, match young parents with volunteer mentors, offer a parenting session at freshman orientation, officially add “help teen parents” to the title of someone in the student affairs office, or build a single Web page for teen parents that includes links to all the resources they might need….

5) Help with housing: Along with childcare, housing can also be a challenge for students who are no longer living with their parents. In addition to helping teen parents find subsidized housing in the community, some residential schools also offer affordable “family housing” on campus. This sort of service can not only help undergraduates who are parents, but also older graduate students and young faculty members.

6) Offer a variety of class options: Many young parents have found that online classes work better into their schedules than showing up to campus a few times a week — but that can mean missing out on the traditional college experience. Colleges of all sorts have started to offer a wider range of classes, including hybrid classes (a mix of online and in-the-classroom) and more late-night, weekend and summer courses. They are also setting up satellite campuses that might be closer to where students live or work.

7) Don’t underestimate or pity teen parents: When I sat down to interview one of the Generation Hope mentors, who years ago put herself through Trinity while parenting, one of my first questions was something along the lines of: Wow, how did you do it? She explained that compared to all of the other challenges she had faced in her life, going to college was one of the easiest. She was focused and determined to get an education. She just needed the opportunity and resources.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/campus-overload/post/how-can-colleges-help-teen-moms-and-teen-dads/2011/12/22/gIQAcp7aBP_blog.html?tid=sm_btn_tw

For a good discussion of why child care is important to students, see the journal article, Contemporary Childcare Issues Facing Colleges and Universities by Marybeth Kyle, William J. Campion, William R. Ogden; College Student Journal, Vol. 33, 1999.

In order for low-income people, particularly single mothers to have a shot at escaping poverty, they must get an education, trade, or vocation. For many, affordable child care is the key determinant of whether they can advance. Alexandra Cawthorne in the 2008 report for the Center for American Progress, The Straight Facts on Women in Poverty describes the issues facing women in poverty. The National Coalition for Campus Children’s Centers has statistics about Children on Campus

College must not only be affordable for many student populations, it must be accessible as well.

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

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Improving education: Community schools

21 Dec

There is no magic bullet or “Holy Grail” in education. There is only what works to produce academic achievement in each population of children. That is why school choice is so important. For some communities and for some children, “community schools” might improve education achievement. The Coalition for Community Schools is a great resource for those interested in “community schools.”

A community school is both a place and a set of partnerships between the school and other community resources. Its integrated focus on academics, health and social services, youth and community development and community engagement leads to improved student learning, stronger families and healthier communities. Schools become centers of the community and are open to everyone – all day, every day, evenings and weekends.

Using public schools as hubs, community schools bring together many partners to offer a range of supports and opportunities to children, youth, families and communities. Partners work to achieve these results:

  • Children are ready to learn when they enter school and every day thereafter. All students learn and achieve to high standards.
  • Young people are well prepared for adult roles in the workplace, as parents and as citizens.
  • Families and neighborhoods are safe, supportive and engaged.
  • Parents and community members are involved with the school and their own life-long learning.

To learn more about the Coalition’s vision of a community school, read the section An Enduring Vision in the Coalition’s report, Making the Difference: Research and Practice in Community Schools. Also, watch as the U.S. Secretary of Education speak of the importance of community schools on Charlie Rose.

For more information on what it means to be a community school, read Community Schools: Partnerships for Excellence (PDF, 426k).
http://www.communityschools.org/aboutschools/what_is_a_community_school.aspx

Valerie Strauss of the Washington Post has written an interesting article about “community schools.”

In Why community schools are part of the answer, Strauss writes:

Community schools, by directly dealing with many of the out-of-school issues that affect how students do in school — such as violence, family mobility, etc. — help to create the conditions that allow young people to actually concentrate on academics. Community schools seek to create conditions for learning that include:

*Fostering early childhood development through high-quality comprehensive programs.

*Providing students qualified teachers, challenging curriculum and high standards and expectations.

*Addressing the basic physical, mental and emotional health needs of families.

*Creating safe, supportive school climates through community engagement.

There is not a single model of community school initiatives but rather a number of different ones that share common principles, according to the Coalition for Community Schools. The coalition is an alliance of elementary, secondary and post-secondary organizations at the state, local and national level that are involved with education, youth development, community planning and development, family support, health and human services and more.

One of the many models of community schools, which serve millions of children around the country, is called “Schools of the 21st Century,” which provides school-based child care and family support services.

Created by Edward Ziegler, a professor at Yale University who was an architect of the Head Start program, this model is now being used in 1,300 schools across the country and turns regular public schools into year-round centers where different services are provided to families the before, during and after school hours. You can learn about other models here.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/why-community-schools-are-part-of-the-answer/2011/12/15/gIQAdu9T4O_blog.html

The Center for American Progress’ report, Turning Around the Nation’s Lowest Performing Schools by Karen Baroody looks at strategies for turning around low-performing schools.

For more than a decade, Education Resource Strategies, Inc., or ERS, has worked with urban districts to transform the use of people, time, money, and technology so that all students receive the support they need to succeed. Based on this work ERS believes that successful school turnaround also requires district turn-around—fundamental changes in the way that districts think about and provide support for schools. ERS has identified five steps that districts can take in designing and implementing their school improvement programs that will increase the probability that their efforts will achieve lasting improvement:

1. Understand what each school needs. Districts must develop a comprehensive, systematic, and ongoing approach to identify the needs of schools, students, and teachers. Districts must evaluate the needs of current and incoming stu- dents, examine whether the principal and the teachers in the school have the skills required to address student needs, and assess school practices.

2. Quantify what each school gets and how it is used. Districts must identify all resources currently available to each school and understand how effectively schools are using those resources to improve instructional quality and meet individual student needs, through such strategies as teacher assignment and support, student grouping, and daily scheduling.

3. Invest in the most important changes first. Districts must aggressively target those challenges that make persistently low-performing schools different from other schools and provide the additional resources and support that each school needs to overcome the challenges. Key priorities, in order of importance, are to ensure each school has a strong school leader and teachers who collectively have the skills to meet student needs; to make sure that at-risk students receive basic health, social, and emotional support; to implement school designs that organize teaching expertise, time, and attention to match student needs; and to provide each school with the necessary central office support.

4. Customize the strategy to the school. Each school faces its own unique challenges–the needs of its particular students, the quality and skills of its leader and teachers, and the resources it currently receives. Districts must be thoughtful in tailoring the intervention strategy to each school’s most pressing and critical needs.

5. Change the district, not just the schools. Strategies that focus only on changes at individual schools, without addressing the underlying systemwide structures that allowed these schools to fail in the first place, will not achieve lasting improvement. Districts must ensure these schools have the resources and support they need to succeed even after intervention efforts are over, and leverage the lessons learned from turnaround schools to implement broader reforms that support the ongoing improvement of other low-performing schools in the district.

There is no silver bullet—no single solution for how to turn a failing school around. But by taking these five steps district leaders can improve their probability for sustainable and scalable success.

There is no one approach that works in every situation, there is only what works to address the needs of a particular population of children.

The current one-size-fits-all approach does not work.

Resources:

Making the Difference: Research and Practice in Community Schools

Blank, Martin J.; Melaville, Atelia; Shah, Bela P.

PDF ERIC Full Text 

Connecting the Dots: Progress toward the Integration of School Reform, School-Linked Services, Parent Involvement and Community Schools.

Lawson, Hal; Briar-Lawson, Katharine

PDF ERIC Full Text

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

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Childhood obesity: Recess is being cut in low-income schools

15 Dec

The goal of this society should be to raise healthy and happy children who will grow into concerned and involved adults who care about their fellow citizens and environment. In order to accomplish this goal, all children must receive a good basic education and in order to achieve that goal, children must arrive at school, ready to learn. There is an epidemic of childhood obesity and obesity is often prevalent among poor children. The American HeartAssociation has some great information about Physical Activity and Children:

Why is exercise or physical activity important for my child?

Increased physical activity has been associated with an increased life expectancy and decreased risk of cardiovascular disease.  Physical activity produces overall physical, psychological and social benefits. Inactive children are likely to become inactive adults. And physical activity helps with

  • controlling weight
  • reducing blood pressure
  • raising HDL (“good”) cholesterol
  • reducing the risk of diabetes and some kinds of cancer
  • improved psychological well-being, including gaining more self-confidence and higher self-esteem 

How do I promote physical activity in my child?

  • Physical activity should be increased by reducing sedentary time (e.g., watching television, playing computer video games or talking on the phone).
  • Physical activity should be fun for children and adolescents.
  • Parents should try to be role models for active lifestyles and provide children with opportunities for increased physical activity.

What if my child is uncoordinated or overweight?

All children, even less-coordinated ones, need to be physically active.  Activity may be particularly helpful for the physical and psychological well-being of children with a weight problem.

The American Heart Association recommends:

  • All children age 2 and older should participate in at least 60 minutes of enjoyable, moderate-intensity physical activities every day that are developmentally appropriate and varied.
  • If your child or children don’t have a full 60-minute activity break each day, try to provide at least two 30-minute periods or four 15-minute periods in which they can engage in vigorous activities appropriate to their age, gender and stage of physical and emotional development.

http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/GettingHealthy/Physical-Activity-and-Children_UCM_304053_Article.jsp#.TummU1bfW-c

Unfortunately, many low-income children are having access to physical activities at school reduced because of the current recession.

Sandy Slater is reporting in the Education Nation article, Low-Income Schools Are Less Likely to Have Daily Recess

Here’s what we know:

• Children aged six to 17 should get at least one hour of daily physical activity, yet less than half of kids aged six to 11 get that much exercise. And as kids get older, they’re even less active.

• The National Association of Sport and Physical Education (NASPE) recommends that elementary school students get an average of 50 minutes of activity each school day – at least 150 minutes of PE per week and 20 minutes of daily recess.

• Kids who are more active perform better academically.

As a researcher and a parent, I’m very interested in improving our understanding of how school policies and practices impact kids’ opportunities to be active at school. My colleagues and I recently conducted a study to examine the impact of state laws and school district policies on PE and recess in public elementary schools across the country.

During the 2006 to 2007 and 2008 to 2009 school years, we received surveys from 1,761 school principals in 47 states. We found:

• On average, less than one in five schools offered 150 minutes of PE per week.

• Schools in states with policies that encouraged daily recess were more likely to offer third grade students the recommended 20 minutes of recess daily.

• Schools serving more children at highest risk for obesity (i.e. black and Latino children and those from lower-income families) were less likely to have daily recess than were schools serving predominantly white students and higher-income students.

• Schools that offered 150 minutes of weekly PE were less likely also to offer 20 minutes of daily recess, and vice versa. This suggests that schools are substituting one opportunity for another instead of providing the recommended amount of both.

• Schools with a longer day were more likely to meet the national recommendations for both PE and recess.

So what does this mean?

We need strong state laws and district policies for PE and recess to help more of our youngest students meet the national recommendations for physical activity.

What can be done?

First, Congress should consider making PE a core requirement of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. This would help ensure that all students get adequate amounts of exercise and that PE classes follow evidence-based guidelines and are taught by certified teachers.

Second, states should adopt and/or strengthen their PE and recess policies so they align with the national recommendations.

Third, school districts should continue to strengthen their policies by requiring time for PE and recess that aligns with the national recommendations.

Finally, given competing time demands and other issues schools face, increasing the amount of time for physical activity during the school day may be challenging. That’s why it’s critical for schools to help kids make the most of the time they do have for physical activity. Schools can do this by increasing the amount of time kids spend in moderate-to-vigorous activity during PE, recess and brief classroom breaks (you can find some resources here and here) and by offering intramural sports and physical activity clubs before or after school.

http://www.educationnation.com/index.cfm?objectid=ACF23D1E-229A-11E1-A9BF000C296BA163&aka=0

The gap between the wealthiest and the majority is society is also showing up in education opportunities and access to basic health care.

Moi said 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.wordpress.com/2011/11/07/race-class-and-education-in-america/

To quote Yogi Berra, ” It’s deja vu all over again“

Resources:

US Department Of Education Helping Series which are a number of pamphlets to help parents and caregivers

Related AHA Scientific Statements:
Children
Obesity
Physical Activity

Related AHA publications/programs:

See also:
Body Mass Index
Cardiac Disease in Children Statistics
Cholesterol in Children
Dietary Guidelines for Healthy Children
Exercise (Physical Activity) and Children
High Blood Pressure in Children
Infants and Diet
Overweight in Children
Obesity and Overweight

www.physicalactivityplan.org
http://ncppa.org/

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

 

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Online for-profit K-12, good for bankers, bad for kids

14 Dec

We all make assumptions about other people. To assume what a person is like based upon limited bits of information may often lead to an incorrect assessment. This training exercise Assumptions – a training exercise demonstrates that some assumptions are at best premature or often incorrect. Nisbett and Wilson conducted an experiment to demonstrate the halo effect

 The halo effect is generally defined as the influence of a global evaluation on evaluations of individual attributes of a person, but this definition is imprecise with respect to the strength and character of the influence. At one extreme, the halo effect might be due simply to an extrapolation from a general impression to unknown attributes. Global evaluations might color presumptions about specific traits or influence interpretation of the meaning or affective value of ambiguous trait information. Thus, if we like a person, we often assume that those attributes of the person about which we know little are also favorable. (Politicians often seem to capitalize on this tendency by appearing warm and friendly but saying little about the issues.)

Many of us assume that most folks should be like us and have a similar outlook on life and value system. We all know what the right thing to do in a situation, right? How do educators who may have not encountered those of a different social class, religion, or value system deal with children who do not share their attributes? Because we all make assumptions, it is one type of survival skill, the question for educators is how to minimize the effect of negative assumptions on children.

Teachers will increasingly face declining and inadequate resources, an increasingly challenging student population, and institutional structures in crisis. Students will come to school at different levels of readiness for instruction because of language challenges, family challenges, and inadequate prior foundation for learning. Parents, will face economic challenges and demands on their time and attention which impact their ability to parent. Given this teaching environment teachers often must put aside normal assumptions in order to save children from succumbing to the chaotic world outside the school.    

Yes, the child’s mother may make Dolly Parton look demure or their dad may be so tricked or pimped out that 50 Cent looks tame by comparison, that doesn’t have to be the future for child. Most parents do care in an emotional sense for their children. Many don’t know how to be parents and don’t know how to set boundaries or to work within a system which is oriented toward those that understand and know how to use middle class rules. For many parents English is not their first language and they may have many success values which they cannot express. For those who may teach in more affluent areas, there are different challenges. You may teach extremely bright, capable, well supported children who are slackers. Should you give one of these children the grade they earn rather than the grade which is expected, there may be consequences. You may challenged by a parent who feels you are preventing their child from becoming the next Ivy League standout and Rhodes Scholar. The focus should not be on any perceived inadequacies of the parent, but helping the child to overcome their challenges. A Hoover Institute article by Jacob and Lefgren describes a study of the types of teachers parents request. The findings of In Low Income Schools, Parents Want Teachers who Can Teach is in line with my personal observation.

Even more interesting, however, we find stark differences across schools in the type of teachers that parents tend to request. We find that parents making requests in high-poverty schools place less value on student satisfaction than those in lower-poverty schools. Conversely, parents in high-poverty schools value a teacher’s ability to improve student achievement considerably more than parents in lower-poverty schools.

At the end of the day, it is really about producing academic achievement in the population of children the teacher is responsible for.   

Don’t try to fix the students, fix ourselves first. The good teacher makes the poor student good and the good student superior. When our students fail, we, as teachers, too, have failed.

There is a brilliant child locked inside every student.  

Marva Collins 

All children can learn. Stephanie Saul of the New York Times is reporting on the cynical operation of for-profit charter schools in the article, Profits and Questions at Online Charter Schools which describes how the dreams of some children are being hindered.

By almost every educational measure, the Agora Cyber Charter School is failing.

Nearly 60 percent of its students are behind grade level in math. Nearly 50 percent trail in reading. A third do not graduate on time. And hundreds of children, from kindergartners to seniors, withdraw within months after they enroll.

By Wall Street standards, though, Agora is a remarkable success that has helped enrich K12 Inc., the publicly traded company that manages the school. And the entire enterprise is paid for by taxpayers.

Agora is one of the largest in a portfolio of similar public schools across the country run by K12. Eight other for-profit companies also run online public elementary and high schools, enrolling a large chunk of the more than 200,000 full-time cyberpupils in the United States.

The pupils work from their homes, in some cases hundreds of miles from their teachers. There is no cafeteria, no gym and no playground. Teachers communicate with students by phone or in simulated classrooms on the Web. But while the notion of an online school evokes cutting-edge methods, much of the work is completed the old-fashioned way, with a pencil and paper while seated at a desk.

Kids mean money. Agora is expecting income of $72 million this school year, accounting for more than 10 percent of the total anticipated revenues of K12, the biggest player in the online-school business. The second-largest, Connections Education, with revenues estimated at $190 million, was bought this year by the education and publishing giant Pearson for $400 million.

The business taps into a formidable coalition of private groups and officials promoting nontraditional forms of public education. The growth of for-profit online schools, one of the more overtly commercial segments of the school choice movement, is rooted in the theory that corporate efficiencies combined with the Internet can revolutionize public education, offering high quality at reduced cost.

The New York Times has spent several months examining this idea, focusing on K12 Inc. A look at the company’s operations, based on interviews and a review of school finances and performance records, raises serious questions about whether K12 schools — and full-time online schools in general — benefit children or taxpayers, particularly as state education budgets are being slashed.

Instead, a portrait emerges of a company that tries to squeeze profits from public school dollars by raising enrollment, increasing teacher workload and lowering standards.

Current and former staff members of K12 Inc. schools say problems begin with intense recruitment efforts that fail to filter out students who are not suited for the program, which requires strong parental commitment and self-motivated students. Online schools typically are characterized by high rates of withdrawal.

Teachers have had to take on more and more students, relaxing rigor and achievement along the way, according to interviews. While teachers do not have the burden of a full day of classes, they field questions from families, monitor students’ progress and review and grade schoolwork. Complaints about low pay and high class loads — with some high school teachers managing more than 250 students — have prompted a unionization battle at Agora, which has offices in Wayne, Pa. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/13/education/online-schools-score-better-on-wall-street-than-in-classrooms.html?emc=eta1

The Illinois Online Network has a good synopsis of the pros and cons of online education at Strengths and Weaknesses of Online Learning  K-12 for profit schools exhibit many of the deficiencies of other for-profit schools. See, For-profit colleges: Money buys government, not quality for students, https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2011/12/12/for-profit-colleges-money-buys-government-not-quality-for-students/

Technology can be a useful tool and education aid, BUT it is not a cheap way to move the masses through the education system without the guidance and mentoring that a quality human and humane teacher can provide. Education and children have suffered because cash sluts and credit crunch weasels have destroyed this society and there is no one taking them on. They will continue to bleed this society dry while playing their masters of the universe games until they are stopped.

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

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For-profit colleges: Money buys government, not quality for students

12 Dec

For-profit education institutions are problematic. There is an inherent possible conflict. The goal of an education institution should be to provide a quality education for those who attend. The goal of a for-profit institution is to provide a return to its shareholders or owners. The conflict is when the profit motive is supreme to providing a quality education. The General Accounting Office (GAO) has a report which details just how far from bargains some for-profit schools are. According to the article, GAO: 15 For-profit Colleges Used Deceptive Recruiting Tactics written by Daniel de Vise and Paul Kane some for-profit schools used deceptive practices to recruit students.

The GAO summarized their findings:

Undercover tests at 15 for-profit colleges found that 4 colleges encouraged fraudulent practices and that all 15 made deceptive or otherwise questionable statements to GAO’s  undercover applicants. Four undercover applicants were encouraged by college personnel to falsify their financial aid forms to qualify for federal aid–for example, one admissions representative told an applicant to fraudulently remove $250,000 in savings. Other college representatives exaggerated undercover applicants’ potential salary after graduation and failed to provide clear information about the college’s program duration, costs, or graduation rate despite federal regulations requiring them to do so. For example, staff commonly told GAO’s applicants they would attend classes for 12 months a year, but stated the annual cost of attendance for 9 months of classes, misleading applicants about the total cost of tuition. Admissions staff used other deceptive practices, such as pressuring applicants to sign a contract for enrollment before allowing them to speak to a financial advisor about program cost and financing options. However, in some instances, undercover applicants were provided accurate and helpful information by college personnel, such as not to borrow more money than necessary. In addition, GAO’s four fictitious prospective students received numerous, repetitive calls from for-profit colleges attempting to recruit the students when they registered with Web sites designed to link for-profit colleges with prospective students. Once registered, GAO’s  prospective students began receiving calls within 5 minutes. One fictitious prospective student received more than 180 phone calls in a month. Calls were received at all hours of the day, as late as 11 p.m. To see video clips of undercover applications and to hear voicemail messages from for-profit college recruiters, see http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-10-948T. Programs at the for-profit colleges GAO tested cost substantially more for associate’s degrees and certificates than comparable degrees and certificates at public colleges nearby. A student interested in a massage therapy certificate costing $14,000 at a for-profit college was told that the program was a good value. However the same certificate from a local community college cost $520. Costs at private nonprofit colleges were more comparable when similar degrees were offered.

http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-10-948T

Eric Lichtblau’s New York Times article, With Lobbying Blitz, For-Profit Colleges Diluted New Rules  is yet another example of we have the government money has bought, not the best government money could buy.

Last year, the Obama administration vowed to stop for-profit colleges from luring students with false promises. In an opening volley that shook the $30 billion industry, officials proposed new restrictions to cut off the huge flow of federal aid to unfit programs.

But after a ferocious response that administration officials called one of the most intense they had seen, the Education Department produced a much-weakened final plan that almost certainly will have far less impact as it goes into effect next year.

The story of how the for-profit colleges survived the threat of a major federal crackdown offers a case study in Washington power brokering. Rattled by the administration’s tough talk, the colleges spent more than $16 million on an all-star list of prominent figures, particularly Democrats with close ties to the White House, to plot strategy, mend their battered image and plead their case.

Anita Dunn, a close friend of President Obama and his former White House communications director, worked with Kaplan University, one of the embattled school networks. Jamie Rubin, a major fund-raising bundler for the president’s re-election campaign, met with administration officials about ATI, a college network based in Dallas, in which Mr. Rubin’s private-equity firm has a stake.

A who’s who of Democratic lobbyists — including Richard A. Gephardt, the former House majority leader; John Breaux, the former Louisiana senator; and Tony Podesta, whose brother, John, ran Mr. Obama’s transition team — were hired to buttonhole officials.

And politically well-connected investors, including Donald E. Graham, chief executive of the Washington Post Company, which owns Kaplan, and John Sperling, founder of the University of Phoenix and a longtime friend of the House minority leader, Nancy Pelosi, made impassioned appeals.

In all, industry advocates met more than two dozen times with White House and Education Department officials, including senior officials like Education Secretary Arne Duncan, records show, even as Mr. Obama has vowed to reduce the “outsize” influence of lobbyists and special interests in Washington.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/10/us/politics/for-profit-college-rules-scaled-back-after-lobbying.html?emc=eta1

SHAME on the weasels who caved.  The reasons for the attempt to regulate for-profit colleges were detailed by Tamar Lewin in the New York Times article, For-Profit College Group Is Sued As U.S. Lays Out Wide Fraud

Before signing-up for any course of study, people must investigate the claims of the institution of higher learning regarding graduation rates and placement after completion of the degree. The U.S. Department of Education has an accreditation database and you can always check with the department of education for your state. Back to College has a good explanation of College Accreditation: Frequently Asked Questions

Too bad, we have the government which money has bought, not the best government money could buy.

Citation:

For-Profit Colleges: Undercover Testing Finds Colleges Encouraged Fraud and Engaged in Deceptive and Questionable Marketing Practices

GAO-10-948T August 4, 2010

Highlights Page (PDF)   Full Report (PDF, 30 pages)   Accessible Text   Video

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

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Buyer beware of some for-profit colleges

25 Nov

The General Accounting Office (GAO) has a report which details just how far from bargains some for-profit schools are.

According to the Washington Post article, GAO: 15 For-profi Colleges Used Deceptive Recruiting Tactics written by Daniel de Vise and Paul Kane some for-profit schools used deceptive practices to recruit students.

Congressional officials on Wednesday identified 15 for-profit colleges where recruiters allegedly encouraged investigators posing as prospective students to commit fraud on financial aid applications or misled them about such matters as tuition costs and potential salaries after graduation.

The Government Accountability Office’s findings, presented to a congressional committee along with grainy video clips captured by hidden cameras, may amplify federal scrutiny of the fastest-growing higher-education sector.

Many of the largest for-profit entities were named among the 15 sites targeted by GAO investigators: University of Phoenix, with more than 400,000 students; Argosy University, part of the 136,000-student Education Management Corp.; Kaplan College, part of the 119,000-student Kaplan Higher Education operation owned by The Washington Post Co.; and Everest College, part of the 110,000-student Corinthian Colleges.

Also named: Westech College in California, Bennett Career Institute and Potomac College in the District, MedVance Institute in Florida, College of Office Technology in Illinois, Anthem Institute in Pennsylvania, and Westwood College and ATI Career Training in Texas. Kaplan, Everest and Phoenix each were cited twice, for different campuses.

Four of the colleges — Westech, MedVance, Anthem and Westwood — “encouraged fraudulent practices” in meetings with undercover investigators, the report says. All 15 “made deceptive or otherwise questionable statements.”

At a morning Senate hearing, some of the most powerful revelations came in a brief video presentation, spliced together from hidden-camera feeds….

For-profit or “career” colleges have grown in enrollment from 365,000 students to nearly two million over the past several years, and their students borrowed more than $20 billion in federal loans last year. With so many tax dollars at stake, Congress asked the GAO to determine whether the sector has engaged in fraud, deception or questionable marketing practices, as its critics allege.

Across official Washington, reaction to the findings and the video was swift and unequivocal.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan termed the apparent evidence of fraud “unacceptable, absolutely unacceptable.” [Emphasis Added]    

See, Online K-12 education as a cash cow for ‘Wall Street’ https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2011/11/21/online-k-12-education-as-a-cash-cow-for-wall-street/

Kelly Field is reporting in the Chronicle of Higher Education article, Undercover Probe Finds Lax Academic Standards at Some For-Profit Colleges:

An undercover investigation by the Government Accountability Office has found evidence of lax academic standards in some online for-profit programs.

The probe, which is described in a report made public Tuesday, found that staff at six of the 12 colleges that enrolled the investigators tolerated plagiarism or awarded credit for incomplete or shoddy work.

The release of the report, “For-Profit Schools: Experiences of Undercover Students Enrolled in Online Classes at Selected Colleges,” comes roughly a year after the accountability office revised an earlier report on recruiting abuses at for-profit colleges, acknowledging errors and omissions in its findings. A coalition of for-profit colleges has sued the office over that report, accusing its investigators of professional malpractice….

This time, the agents attempted to enroll in online programs at 15 for-profit colleges using a home-school diploma or a diploma from a closed high school. Twelve of the colleges accepted them.

The “students” then proceeded to skip class, plagiarize, and submit “substandard” work. Though several ultimately failed their classes, some got credit for shoddy or plagiarized work along the way.

At one college, a student received credit for six plagiarized assignments; at another, a student submitted photos of political figures and celebrities in lieu of an essay, but still earned a passing grade. A third student got full credit on a final project, despite completing only two of the three required components. That same student received full credit for an assignment that had clearly been prepared for another class.

In two cases, instructors confronted students about their repeated plagiarism but took no disciplinary action against them. One student received credit for a response that was copied verbatim from other students’ discussion posts.

Instructors at the other six colleges followed their institutions’ policies on grading and plagiarism, and in some cases offered to help students who appeared to be struggling.

All of the students ultimately withdrew or were expelled from the programs. Three of the colleges failed to provide the departing students with federally required exit counseling about their repayment options and the consequences of default.

http://chronicle.com/article/Undercover-Probe-Finds-Lax/129881/

The Chronicle of Higher Education has an interesting report by Josh Keller about the tactics used by some for-profit colleges.

In Online Ads Hijack Prospective Students, Former Employee Says Keller reports:

Last year, James Soloway called hundreds of prospective students per day on behalf of a company that placed advertisements on Google and Bing. The ads promised to help students contact the admissions offices of public colleges if they filled out an online form and included their phone number.

He told students that they would hear from their preferred public college, even though they almost never did. In the meantime, he said, they should consider attending a for-profit college—such as Kaplan University and Westwood College.

Most of the prospective students were confused. Some hung up. But sometimes the pitch worked. Some people, especially high-school students, believed he was an educational counselor and gave weight to his recommendations, he says.

The entire process was designed to redirect students who wanted information on a public college to a for-profit college, Mr. Soloway says. “The expectation was that we were not to allow a call to end with a student until we had created three private-school leads.”

Victor Hugo said it best when dealing with many for-profit colleges:           

Caution is the eldest child of wisdom
~Victor Hugo

Resources:

College accreditation – U.S. Department of Education

http://ope.ed.gov/accreditation/

College Accreditation: Frequently Asked Questions

http://www.back2college.com/library/accreditfaq.htm

Ask questions before deciding on a for-profit college [Video]

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/money_co/2011/02/questions-deciding-for-profit-college-video.html

For Profit Colleges: Get the Facts

http://www.education.com/magazine/article/for-profit-colleges/

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

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Online K-12 education as a cash cow for ‘Wall Street’

21 Nov

There should be a variety of options and approaches in education. Still, School choice does not mean education on the cheap! K-12 education should not be the next sub-prime mortgage or derivative gambit for large for-profit companies. Lee Fang has written the alarming Nation article, How Online Learning Companies Bought America’s Schools.

While most education reform advocates cloak their goals in the rhetoric of “putting children first,” the conceit was less evident at a conference in Scottsdale, Arizona, earlier this year.

Standing at the lectern of Arizona State University’s SkySong conference center in April, investment banker Michael Moe exuded confidence as he kicked off his second annual confab of education startup companies and venture capitalists. A press packet cited reports that rapid changes in education could unlock “immense potential for entrepreneurs.” “This education issue,” Moe declared, “there’s not a bigger problem or bigger opportunity in my estimation.”

Moe has worked for almost fifteen years at converting the K-12 education system into a cash cow for Wall Street. A veteran of Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch, he now leads an investment group that specializes in raising money for businesses looking to tap into more than $1 trillion in taxpayer money spent annually on primary education. His consortium of wealth management and consulting firms, called Global Silicon Valley Partners, helped K12 Inc. go public and has advised a number of other education companies in finding capital.

Moe’s conference marked a watershed moment in school privatization. His first “Education Innovation Summit,” held last year, attracted about 370 people and fifty-five presenting companies. This year, his conference hosted more than 560 people and 100 companies, and featured luminaries like former DC Mayor Adrian Fenty and former New York City schools chancellor Joel Klein, now an education executive at News Corporation, a recent high-powered entrant into the for-profit education field. Klein is just one of many former school officials to cash out. Fenty now consults for Rosetta Stone, a language company seeking to expand into the growing K-12 market.

As Moe ticked through the various reasons education is the next big “undercapitalized” sector of the economy, like healthcare in the 1990s, he also read through a list of notable venture investment firms that recently completed deals relating to the education-technology sector, including Sequoia and Benchmark Capital. Kleiner Perkins, a major venture capital firm and one of the first to back Amazon.com and Google, is now investing in education technology, Moe noted.

http://www.thenation.com/article/164651/how-online-learning-companies-bought-americas-schools

Henry M. Levin of Columbia University had some cautionary notes about for-profit K-12 education in 2001.

In the 2001 paper, Thoughts on For-profit Schools, Levin wrote:

The fact is that we know little about how for-profit schools will operate and how they will affect students and other schools. At least three major questions have yet to be answered satisfyingly:

• If schools are a potentially profitable endeavor, then why did entrepreneurs wait so long to enter the market? Is there something unique about schooling that makes it difficult to earn a profit?

• Now that we do have for-profit schools, how will they achieve cost savings? Will they bring fundamentally different approaches to education through curricular and technological innovations that will “break the mold”?

• Even if they are more effective or less costly, or both, will they earn profits that are comparable to the returns on other investments?

http://www.ncspe.org/publications_files/7_OP14.pdf

Levin mused about some of the other issues that for-profit operators of K-12:

In short, even the most expensive private schools with the most elite clientele fail to cover their costs with tuition. This goes far in explaining why entrepreneurs have shied away from the K–12 market. This is not to say that an individual, for-profit, family-owned school can’t survive. I know of a few for-profit schools at the K–12 level and more at the preschool level that appear to be marginally profitable. But much of what appears as profit is due to the family members’ hard work for little pay. The salaries they draw on the school understate the value of their time, leaving the impression that the enterprise is profitable.

Whether this can be replicated on a large scale by corporate entities is doubtful. Historically, economic studies have not identified substantial economies of scale in education at school sites or in multi-school endeavors. Perhaps this is for the reason suggested by John Chubb and Terry Moe in Politics, Markets, and America’s Schools (1990): that the best results are obtained when schools are given great autonomy.2 A corporate competitor in schooling must establish brand and product identity, which necessitates relatively uniform operations and services from site-to-site. This puts the need for quality control and similarity from site to site in direct competition with the need to be responsive to differences among particular clients and settings.

http://www.ncspe.org/publications_files/7_OP14.pdf

One business plan about how the big corporations plan to turn a buck in K-12 education is the move toward online education. Laura Herrerra’s New York Times article, In Florida, Virtual Classrooms Without Teachers describes what may actually happen in practice.

 MIAMI — On the first day of her senior year at North Miami Beach Senior High School, Naomi Baptiste expected to be greeted by a teacher when she walked into her precalculus class.

“All there were were computers in the class,” said Naomi, who walked into a room of confused students. “We found out that over the summer they signed us up for these courses.”

Naomi is one of over 7,000 students in Miami-Dade County Public Schools enrolled in a program in which core subjects are taken using computers in a classroom with no teacher. A “facilitator” is in the room to make sure students progress. That person also deals with any technical problems.

These virtual classrooms, called e-learning labs, were put in place last August as a result of Florida’s Class Size Reduction Amendment, passed in 2002. The amendment limits the number of students allowed in classrooms, but not in virtual labs….

Under the state’s class-reduction amendment, high school classrooms cannot surpass a 25-student limit in core subjects, like English or math. Fourth- through eighth-grade classrooms can have no more than 22 students, and prekindergarten through third grade can have no more than 18.

Alix Braun, 15, a sophomore at Miami Beach High, takes Advanced Placement macroeconomics in an e-learning lab with 35 to 40 other students. There are 445 students enrolled in the online courses at her school, and while Alix chose to be placed in the lab, she said most of her lab mates did not.

“None of them want to be there,” Alix said, “and for virtual education you have to be really self-motivated. This was not something they chose to do, and it’s a really bad situation to be put in because it is not your choice…”

Some teachers are skeptical of how well the program can help students learn.

The Illinois Online Network has a good synopsis of the pros and cons of online education at Strengths and Weaknesses of Online Learning Technology can be a useful tool and education aid, BUT it is not a cheap way to move the masses through the education system without the guidance and mentoring that a quality human and humane teacher can provide.

Many critics put the emphasis on “for-profit” and will adamantly argue that any entity which is for-profit is inherently bad for education. Moi would put the emphasis on neighborhood choice and argue that entities without strong ties to the neighborhood they intend to operate in, do not have the loyalty to succeeding in that particular neighborhood and will probably not be successful. Let’s be honest, corporations intend to generate a profit from their education activities as their primary goal. The secondary goal is probably the education of children. Moi is skeptical that a for-profit entity really has the commitment to a neighborhood and thus to a neighborhood’s schools. Still, moi is not like some so called “anti-reform” types who foam at the mouth at the words charter and for-profit. There is no magic bullet or “Holy Grail” in education. There is only what works to produce academic achievement in each population of children. That is why school choice is so important.

Children are not the new sub-prime mortgage business or the new derivative gambit. People must be afraid, very afraid of the vultures who are now hovering around the education sector. If folks don’t watch them, the results will not be pretty.

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

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