Does it help parents and students find where to get the most bang for their educational buck? No.
We must take action by fixing our schools and redesigning our workforce development system to ensure prosperity for generations to come.
How should we redesign federal student financial aid into a program that gets better results for students?
from ICW
In 2013, it seems just about every federal law governing education and workforce training is due for a tune-up.
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A new report hits on some of the biggest leverage points we have to improve our education system.
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Much of the blame for the dip in college-going can be linked to backwards, regressive policies and practices that continue to plague higher ed.
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On pensions for their referees, the league took the more difficult and more painful road now, rather than facing a potentially fatal decision in the future. Education will have to do the same.
What are institutions spending their money on?
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Is an investment in any college degree worthwhile?
If the institutions aren't willing to provide information on higher education quality, they should not be shocked when others fill the void.
If we continue to prejudicially attack for-profit institutions while ignoring every other part of higher education, we’ll have improved absolutely nothing while leaving those with the greatest need nowhere to go for help.
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Assessments should be conducted under one set of rules for all institutions.
One option is to blend online learning with in-person instruction into a hybrid delivery model.
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We focus on this because we have an enormous need in filling STEM-related jobs.
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Education, in general, has been rather resistant to change in spite of wave after wave of societal push to do so.
If we, as a society, want more from our colleges and universities, we have to start paying attention to factors that matter.
Students too often have to take far too many credits in pursuit of completion.
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No matter which way you choose to look at it, postsecondary education graduation rates are abysmal.
When you peer out over a sea of college graduates, you might just wonder to yourself – how much did all of this cost?
AEI recently released a report examining the societal economic impact of the inability of the community college system to graduate its students at a high rate.
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Our policies and practices seem to be attracted towards making a college education more difficult to obtain instead of making it easier and more cost effective.
Unless we make learning outcomes a primary focus of higher education, degree attainment in general runs the risk of becoming irrelevant.
The questions persist with the President's "Community College to Career Fund."
In the wake of President Obama’s announcement that institutions of higher education were officially “on notice,” the typical and predictable fear mongering began.
Colleges and universities have done exceptionally little in the way of taking steps to reduce costs over the years, choosing instead to pass costs directly onto the students when legislatures refuse their demands for more money.
The push for innovation and technology becomes a third rail issue for far too many within academia. Many traditionalists feel the need to pump the brakes and keep fighting for the status quo, even in the face of the growing demands of a global, 21st century society.
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Why not a dose of transparency for college students when they're selecting their programs of study?
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel recognizes the insanity and the importance of our ongoing skills gap, pointing out that his city has a 10 percent unemployment rate while 100,000 jobs continue to go unfilled. He is absolutely right when he says “it’s unacceptable that at a time o
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It’s everybody’s favorite time of year again, and I’m not talking about the day that Congress finally realizes it has to pass an appropriations bill. I’m talking about the Holidays! Christmas! Chanukah! And more importantly, the gifts that come with them! We at the Institute for a Competitive
Rarely does a day go by at ICW when we aren’t asked for best practices or examples of the business community diving into education reform, usually regarding a specific education issue. It’s not always as straightforward a question as it seems, and frankly, it’s one we often hesitate to answer. We
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The New York Times today published an article discussing what many of us have known for quite a while now – that the skills of our current workforce are not matching up with industry needs. One company highlighted, Ben Venue Laboratories in Cleveland, was only able to hire 47 people out of 3,600 jo
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by Domenic Giandomenico
It wasn’t long ago that education advocates used to push the notion that we needed all kids to be “college ready” upon completion of high school. In recent years some – ourselves included – have pushed to change the phrase to be “college and career ready,” recognizing that n
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Randi Weingarten of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) kicked off the start of an education forum at the website Care2.com with a blog entry. In it, she lauds the success of the Spring Garden School in Philadelphia, PA. However, she doesn’t give any reason why she praises the school, outside
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One of the most bandied ideas for stimulating our economy starts with the notion of “green jobs” - that we should consider a green economy which designs, produces, and installs environmentally-friendly products. I, for one, think that is a great idea, but we first have to consider whether or not we
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"Before Bloomberg and Klein, everyone knew that an incompetent teacher would realize it and leave on their own. There was no need to push anyone out."
Those are the words of Brandi Scheiner, a teacher in New York City Schools who has been placed into a Temporary Reassignment Center, more affection
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That time of year has come again, as the U.S. News and World Report and Forbes Magazine have released their respective lists of America's best colleges. These lists represent the apex of accountability in higher learning. Nearly every school spends significant time, money, and effort into increasin
The Government Accounting Office released a report this month on the implementation of the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Improvement Act of 2006 (commonly referred to as “Perkins IV”), the federal law that governs career technical education (CTE). The report describes the difficult
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Sports fans and education wonks alike are undoubtedly familiar with Title IX – the landmark 1972 law that mandates gender equity in education. Its role has been primarily to level the playing field in collegiate athletics, mostly because women already outnumber men in many, if not most, education-r
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by Domenic Giandomenico Earlier this week, the United Federation of Teachers and the Green Dot Public Schools, one of the nation’s leading charter school organizations, reached a labor agreement. Terms of the agreement include an untimed "professional day", which requires that teachers be on-site du
The DC Public Charter School Board (DCPCSB) announced at its April meeting that it would revoke the charter of a low performing school for the second time this year. According to outside audits, interviews and staff reports, the MEI Futures Academy, which was a residential charter school targeting
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Last week, the U.S. Department of Education unveiled the results of the 2007 Trends in Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), with mixed results for the United States. TIMSS is administered once every four years, and is one of a handful of international benchmarks used in education. Here are the
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With only three weeks of shopping left in this holiday season, we here at ICW often get asked what holiday gifts we would wish to see. While we might individually dream of a Blu-Ray player or a Nintendo Wii (and yes, these are hints for my wife), as a group, we have more modest wishes to improve o
Quyen Arana gave a very thoughtful comment on a post from last Friday "New College Board Test Receives Unfounded, Transparent Objections".
Testing is a two-edged sword. NCLB has moved mountains with regards to gaining a pulse on the American classroom, something we've never been able to do previou
On October 22nd, The College Board unveiled a new test called "ReadiStep" that will be offered to eighth-graders starting next fall. The goal of the test is to help assess students’ readiness to more rigorous high school and college work. It will not be used as another college admissions tool, as C
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American businesses are increasingly concerned about the ability to compete in a global economy. Incorporating incentives to bring the most qualified and experienced people into the teaching profession, particularly in the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) subjects, could be
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"We need more rigor in the classroom!"
That’s the motto on the minds and tongues of most people surrounding the discussion of education reform. Experts give speeches on the topic, Congress writes the word into nearly all of its new education laws, and assessments try to capture it. After all, who
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It’s one of those things you talk about casually all the time. Maybe it happens when you get the bill from your plumber, or perhaps you ponder the issue when a storm blows down the power lines, but invariably, you ask a simple question: "How much money do they make?!"
In many cases, it’s much, muc
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The Olympics began on Friday with an opening flourish that few will soon forget. Thousands of individual performers, turning in nothing less than perfection. Unbelievable technical achievements, including the world’s largest LED screen. In one of the acts, two-thousand and eight drummers counted d
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Research published yesterday in the journal Science shows that the gap between boys and girls in math test scores has been closed in every grade, from second through eleventh. Janet Hyde, a researcher from the University of Wisconsin – Madison, analyzed the No Child Left Behind state test scores of
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Human capital is on the decline in the United States, with fewer and fewer Americans obtaining advanced degrees. While Clive Crook questions whether or not an educational ceiling has been reached, he also postures that, "Another plausible argument is that in-work training and mid-life schooling ar
