higher ed

Excellent Teachers? Focus on Excellent Teacher Ed

Eduflack higher ed, Teacher Education, teachers

Over at Education World this week, I have a piece that looks at some recent Politico analysis following the U.S. Department of Education’s call for equitable distribution of excellent teachers in our public schools. It should come as no surprise, the current data regarding teacher quality is disturbing to say the least.

How do we begin to address the problem? One way is to strengthen our teacher preparation efforts. And that can be done by looking at the lessons learned by a number of programs currently engaged in transforming teacher education to meet the challenges and rise to the opportunities.

Give the piece a read. The reccs on how to address state-based improvement to teacher education is well worth the time.

The Path to Improving Teacher Education

Eduflack higher ed, Teacher Education, teachers

Last week, the U.S. Department of Education released its long-anticipated draft regulations regarding teacher education. The regs focus on several key areas, including a state-based approach to improvement, the need for employment metrics (including how long teachers stay in the profession and how their employers rate them), student learning outcomes, and accreditation.

For those looking to better understand exactly what is in the regs, EdWeek’s Stephen Sawchuk has the best primer on the regs, their meanings, and the initial reactions from the education community. You can find the full article here.

Lyndsey Layton at the Washington Post has an excellent write-up of the announcement. So, too, does the New York Times’ Motoko Rich. And if you can get beyond the firewall, Caroline Porter of the Wall Street Journal offers some great analysis as well.

Of course, dear ol’ Eduflack is particularly partial to the analysis Arthur Levine offered to these teacher ed regs. The president of the Woodrow Wilson Foundation and the former president of Teachers College at Columbia University, Levine called the new proposed regs “an important step forward” in a Huffington Post commentary. Levine continued:

All of us involved in teacher education should look for ways to strengthen these regulations and improve the teacher prep process. But let us be clear: we need real action now. Our colleges and universities have waited far too long to transform these programs to meet the needs of both today and tomorrow. We cannot afford to wait as another generation of teachers passes through programs that are lacking. In the states where Woodrow Wilson has worked, we have seen a real hunger — from state leaders, from school districts, and from colleges themselves — to enact the sort of changes needed. We must act together — and swiftly — to change the very fabric of teacher education nationwide. These regulations are the first step toward achieving that.

The regs now move into their “public comment” period. Groups like AACTE, AFT, and NEA have already weighed in with their concerns (or opposition). Other groups like Education Trust, DFER, and Urban Teacher Center have come out strongly in support of the new direction.

Regardless, it is heartening to see a focus on teacher education and the need to improve how we prepare teachers for the classroom. While all might not agree on the specific action steps needed to get us to the intended destination, none can argue that the current model, a model we have been using to prepare teachers for generations, is the most effective and valuable way to prepare 21st century educators for the challenges of the 21st century classroom.

(Full disclosure, Eduflack works with Levine and the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, and has worked with AACTE, AFT, NEA, EdTrust, and UTC.)

Seat Time or Competency?

Eduflack 21CS, higher ed

For most, the equation for earning a college degree is fairly simple. Take approximately 120 credit hours (give or take) and you get the sheepskin. For many, what is supposed to be a four-year endeavor can actually take five or six years. For a select few, they manage to shave a semester or two off the top before walking in their caps and gowns.

But is the true measure of college learning the number of hours you’ve actually spent sitting in a lecture hall? Is a college education about seat time, or is it about what you’ve learned and how you can apply it?

Over at Strategy Labs, an initiative supported by the Lumina Foundation, they are exploring a number of topics related to “state policy to increase higher education achievement.” One of the topics that is of particular note is the exploration of competency-based higher education. As the folks at Strategy Labs define in a new white paper on Competency-Based Education Initiatives, competency-based ed “allows students to earn their degrees by demonstrating specific knowledge and skills related to programs of study, as well as general skills, abilities and behaviors such as the ability to communicate well with a variety of audiences orally and in writing.”

Imagine that. College degrees focused on what you actually know and how you can apply it. Degrees that look at skills and abilities, and not simply time on task. A degree that, in theory, is outcomes based and not simply about the time-based inputs that went into the degree pursuits.

In looking at those states involved in national competency-based education initiatives, what is most surprising is that the vast majority of IHEs involved are public institutions, and not private or for-profit ones. Those states that can boast competency-based ed at at least one public college or university include: Arizona, California, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah, and Wisconsin.

Add to it states that are seeing competency-based action at just their private or for-profit universities, and we can add Ohio, Tennessee, Washington, and Wyoming to the mix. And many states can also add partnerships between their community colleges and Western Governors University to the mix.

So which states aren’t in on the fun? Who’s still clinging to the old model of seat-time based college degrees? That would include Alabama, Alaska, Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Vermont, Virginia, and West Virginia.

The white paper is definitely worth a look, particularly when you see some “name brand” universities involved in competency-based higher education. Northern Arizona University, one of the true leaders in online higher ed, is on the list., So is DePaul University, IUPUI, University of Maryland (University College), the Minnesota State Colleges and University System, Texas A&M, and University of Wisconsin. The Kentucky Community and Technical College System is also representing. As are the Missouri Community Colleges.

As Strategy Labs notes:

Competency-based education is not new to higher education; however, there has been a recent resurgence of interest. The growth has been driven primarily by efforts to redefine the quality of higher education in terms of student learning, As states, systems and institutions more widely implement competency-based programs, there are a number of initiatives aimed at better understanding these programs, how to set supportive contexts for these programs and how to effectively scale and communicate about these programs.

As more states start exploring $10,000 degrees, as more IHEs recognize that students are consumers and their needs must be factored in, and as we demand more than a “well-rounded student” from those who attain a postsecondary degree, focus on competency-based education will continue to grow. The challenge will be how to meet the need without sacrificing quality. But these institutions seem to be off to a good start.

A College-Educated United States

Eduflack higher ed, Media

For the past five years, the education community has been fond of quoting President Obama’s 2009 goal of having more college graduates, per capita, in the world by the year 2020. It is an area where we were once a leader, but have seen other nations pass us by.

That isn’t saying that we don’t have a huge number of Americans who are graduating from college. Nor does it mean that the number of college grads has seen a decline in recent years or recent decades. We are talking per capita numbers here, an area where it can be difficult to pick up gains when the percentage of P-12-age students is rapidly growing.

That’s why Eduflack was fascinated to see a new map, offered by the folks at Vox, which looks at the growth in the number of Americans gaining a college education over the past four decades. Vox bills it as a chance to “watch the US get more educated in 20 seconds.” And they are right. You can look state by state, major urban area by major urban area, and see the map change before your beautiful eyes.

What is Vox charting? In 1970, one in 10 Americans had at least a bachelor’s degree (according to data provided by the USDA Economic Resource Services). Today (OK, 2012), that number is now almost triple that.

As Vox writer Danielle Kurtzleben notes:

College degrees clearly became more commonplace nationwide over the last 40 years, but the geography of them is striking today. Broadly speaking, the South remains the place where degrees are the least common. Meanwhile, cities — and particularly the northeastern Amtrak corridor — are where college graduates have concentrated.

What’s most striking about the data Kurtzleben has charted is that we saw the steepest growth in college attainment earlier on. Between 1970 and 1980, the number of degree holders almost doubled. But even from 2000 to 2011, we saw some pretty impressive gains.

Strongest gains, over time, can be found in the Northeast out in the Northwest (both Pacific and in the Big Sky country areas). The weakest showing appears to be in the Midwest, with the Southeast coming in a close second.

It is definitely worth the look. It’ll be 20 seconds you won’t regret spending.

School Leadership and Business School Training

Eduflack accountability, Achievement gap, higher ed, Teacher Education, Woodrow Wilson

Last week, Eduflack was fortunate to visit America’s heartland in pursuit of a better way to prepare tomorrow’s school principals and district leaders today. We’ve all seen the research. After classroom teachers themselves, we know that school leaders have the second-greatest impact on learning. Some research even says a school principal accounts for 25 percent of a school’s total impact on student achievement. Yet the preparation of said leaders seems to get short shrift in today’s debates on school quality.

As a result, too many of our current education leadership programs are focused on quantity and how many graduates they can provide administrator’s credentials to in the shortest period of time. It isn’t necessarily about quality. It isn’t necessarily about ensuring tomorrow’s principals have the skill sets to lead tomorrow’s schools. And it rarely is about who those future leaders can lead by example in their quests to improve student achievement, serving as the instructional leaders they truly are.

So it was heartwarming to see efforts in two states that break the leader prep mold and focus on how best to prepare tomorrow’s school administrators. In both Indiana and Wisconsin, efforts are underway to create a more rigorous terminal degree to prepare school leaders. In each state, business schools are taking the lead, offering MBA courses given through an education lens, combined with clinical instruction and meaningful partnerships with local k-12 school districts.

The expected result? A new generation of education leaders who are equipped with the knowledge, skills, and tools to help close the achievement gaps in the schools they will soon lead. And we are talking about closing the dual achievement gaps we currently face, the gaps we see within and between states here in the United States and the gaps we unfortunately see with our nation’s highest performing schools and their peer institutions internationally.

Chalkbeat Indiana’s Hayleigh Colombo has the story on how a generous gift from the Lilly Endowment is expanding the Woodrow Wilson MBA Fellows program in Indiana. And Erin Richards at the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel has the story on how Wisconsin is blending school leadership and business acumen.

Both pieces are well worth the read. If we are serious about getting excellent administrators into our schools and districts, we need to examine new ways to prepare those leaders, providing them more than just traditional pedagogy. Programs like those in Indiana and Milwaukee are working to do just that.  

 

Cast Your SxSWedu Votes Now!

Eduflack accountability, Dadprovement, DCPS, higher ed, reform, Teacher Education, teachers

It’s that time of year! Only a few more weeks left to have your say in some of the edu-panels that will be on the docket for next year’s SxSWedu event.

As always, there are tons of terrific ideas out there. But not every good idea gets a time slot. They need the backing of the audience as well. So it means you need to go to the SxSW PanelPicker and give a great big thumbs up to those sessions you think are worthy of SxSWedu.

When we go to the ballot box, we usually face a gauntlet of folks handing us sample ballots of those we should vote for. SxSWedu is no different. Take a gander over at Twitter and you can see tons of folks lobbying for their sessions. All can be found at #SxSWedu.

Your cheat sheet is here, though. Three panels worth your consideration and your endorsement:

Disruptive Change in Higher Ed: Replace or Repair?

In the digital age, higher education, willingly or unwillingly, will undergo disruptive change. Existing institutions can lead the change or become its victim. If higher education resists, new digital institutions will be established to meet the needs of the time. Tradition simply cannot save a college or university unwilling to adapt or unable to learn from those who adapted previously. It will explore what disruptive innovation really means for higher education in the 21st century learning.

Forget Leaning In, We Need to Dadprove

Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg and Pepsi’s Indra Nooyi have preached the merits of “leaning in.” But if we are serious about boosting student achievement and inspiring successful children, we need less leaning in and more fathers who are “diving in” to their families. Instead of encouraging more to prioritize work over family, we need to inspire a generation of men to realize what they can and should do as dads, being active in their children’s lives and involved in their learning process. (Fair warning, this is a presentation by dear ol’ Eduflack)

Tech x Teacher Prep x Disruption = Student Success

In different ways, these panelists are leaders challenging the status quo in education to help teachers and students today and tomorrow. They understand a continued rise in teacher attrition is a huge problem for all, and solutions come in the form of a smart intersection of tools and technology, support, education and mentorship. Successful teachers help us get to student success, and leadership in learning takes on new meaning when this group covers what it will take to get us there and why.

Each one unique. Each one important. Each one worthy of your endorsement. Vote early. Vote often. And make sure you vote for these sessions for SxSWedu 2015!

The Future of American Higher Education?

Eduflack accountability, higher ed, Students

Last week, The Atlantic ran a cover story on “The Future of College.” As we have heard many times over the past few decades, the article lamented the death of higher education as we have long known it, focusing on a future “by stripping it down to its essence.”

In this case, it meant looking to the work of the Minerva Project, a for-profit effort to “replace the modern liberal-arts college.”

Of course, one could ask what the “modern liberal-arts college” actually is. If we look at the thousands of college campuses around the United States, there is little modern about them. Sure, we may have new buildings and have replaced card catalogs with technology, but what is taught and how it is taught is largely unchanged. Liberal arts, as our parents or grandparents may have studied it, is very much like the liberal arts education our children have received today.

We’ve heard many stories like those coming from the Minerva Project. University of Phoenix made a similar promise. Just a few years ago, we were told that MOOCs were going to do the same thing, put the final nail in traditional higher ed’s coffin and usher in a new era of consumer-based higher education.

Years ago, when Eduflack was working in for-profit higher education, I remember having discussions with researchers about why we would expect traditional higher education to change. People will pay tens of thousands of dollars a year to access the current model. Acceptance rates and wait lists tell us that the demand is larger than the supply. That just tells us we should be charging more. There is real hunger for what we have now, so why change it? Why have a “New Coke” moment in higher ed when we all are clamoring for Coke Classic?

The arguments are enough to frustrate even the most aggressive of cynics. Why repair or replace our existing IHEs? Why fix something that so many people don’t see as broken?

We are reminded of why this past weekend in an editorial that appeared in the Chicago Tribune (and was republished in the Indianapolis Star here). Its editorial board looked at the efforts of current Purdue University President (and former Indiana Gov.) Mitch Daniels and his push to reinvent the American university on the Indiana campus.

In its analysis, the Trib noted, in looking at Daniels’ approach to financial management at the IHE:

Daniels isn’t the first college chief to cut costs or hold tuition steady. We know that many schools are pushing hard to make higher ed affordable; a few have even trimmed tuition rates. But it’s big news when a major university freezes tuition, even for a year. Would that such news, accompanied by news of frozen spending, were ho-hum routine at many campuses.

 

Unfortunately, it isn’t. Daniels offers a chart (reproduced nearby), which won’t shock parents struggling to pay for college. It traces how tuition costs have outstripped inflation since 1990.

“In our view, that game that relied on jacking up costs year after year is over,” he tells us. “The marketplace is beginning to rebel.” Does he worry that Purdue could be unilaterally disarming against other schools still investing lavishly in amenities for students? “It could be that we’ll still lose students to someone with a higher climbing wall, but we are prepared to take that chance.”

 

Daniels isn’t focused solely on cost cuts. He’s also invested in expanding Purdue’s engineering and computer science programs, among others. In a letter to the Purdue diaspora, he set this goal: “If we can maintain a campus-wide commitment to holding costs down, counting every $10,000 saved as a ‘student tuition equivalent,’ we can fulfill our duty to our students, taxpayers and everyone who chooses to invest in Purdue’s enterprise.”

 It is an interesting approach, and one that is far too unusual in higher education today. Focusing on the students as consumers, and ensuring they are getting ROI and tuition (and state) dollars are being spent wisely and focused on educating the students themselves. Investing in new programs that better provide students the pathways from higher ed to the jobs their communities and states and nation have the most need to fill. And a recognition that just because we have done things one way in the past, and just because our peers may now do it that same way, does not mean it is what is best for our institution, our students, and our nation.

As the Trib summarizes:

The ultimate test of Daniels’ tenure: Will a focus on value help lift moderate-income students into productive lives and careers? Might a degree from a leaner, no-nonsense Purdue gain luster at a time when other campuses project the creature-comforting images of country clubs?

 

Ultimately students and hard-pressed parents will vote with their feet, and their checkbooks, on whether Daniels has succeeded at making an already fine institution a greater value than it is today.

 

A greater value, that is, than other major universities that compete with Purdue to educate the best and brightest.

That is indeed the case. When we talk about the future of higher education, it will be decided by the outcomes and byproducts of its work. The universities that will thrive will do so because they will meet the changing needs and expectations of their customers. They will offer a high-quality product that aligns with their students and the career opportunities they seek. They will be prudent with the dollar. And they will realize we must begin to change structures and approaches to ensure we are meeting the future needs of our students and communities, and not simply using IHEs to pay homage to educational days of yore.  

Is Education a “Top” U.S. Issue?

Eduflack Achievement gap, higher ed, Immigration, Media, polls

Today, Gallup came out with its latest public opinion poll on the top problems in the United States. It should come as no surprise that dissatisfaction with government was at the top of the list. Whether frustrated with a do-nothing Congress, an overreaching president, or general frustration with Big Brother telling us what to do, Americans speak loud and clear that they are frustrated with government. (Of course, they are coming at it from all sides, so there is no clear fix.)

Immigration is a close second, with the economy coming in third. All of the issues we would expect to see at the top of the list for our citizenry’s general frustration.

So where is education on the list? Surely with all of the national fights over testing and Common Core and teacher tenure and everything else that is keeping edu-minded Americans up at night, concerns about our educational systems must be right up there, right?

Uh, not quite. Education comes in with a thud at number nine. It follows poverty and comes in just above the national debt. Where 18 percent of Americans say government is our top concern, and 15 percent say it is immigration, a whopping 4 percent say it is education. And that is now down a percentage point (or 20%) from last month.

Should this surprise us? No. For decades now, we’ve long realized that education is not a ballot box issue. Sure, we are all concerned about education, but it isn’t an issue that is make/break for us. We care, but not before we care about six or eight other issues first.

What do we do about this? First, we need to recognize that while many of us live in the edu-bubble, the vast majority of Americans do not.

Second, we need to be mindful of how education ties into the topics that are driving concern. Concerns about government? We see that extended in frustrations with everyone from EdSec Arne Duncan to local superintendents and principals. Immigration a concern? Especially as it relates to those kids who are stuck at the border, looking for a better life and opportunity that begins with access to our public schools. Economy a worry? How does that crosswalk with grad rates and STEM and higher education in general?

The short story is that education does not live in its own silo. It permeates each and every topic of discussion and concern that we have. If we treat “education” solely with a neat little k-12 or higher education label, we miss the bigger picture. And we lose the opportunity to draw attention to both the concerns and the solutions.

I yield the soapbox …

 

“Disruptive Change in Higher Education: Replace or Repair?”

Eduflack higher ed, Media, reform

Earlier this summer, Arthur Levine, the president of the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation and the former president of Teachers College, wrote for Forbes magazine on disruptive change in higher education.

In the piece, Levine noted that:

In the digital age, higher education, willingly or unwillingly, will undergo disruptive change. Existing institutions can lead the change or become its victim. If higher education resists, new digital institutions will be established to meet the needs of the time.

This observation isn’t a matter of advocacy; rather, it is a conclusion based on the experience of disruptive change in two industries—the silent film industry, transformed by the advent of sound, and the news media, still being reshaped for the digital age. In each case, the major and highest-status companies resisted the change with dramatically different results.

We talk a lot about disruptive innovation in a general sense, but we seem to resist applying it to established institution like our colleges and universities.

But it is an important topic. And it is an issue that Levine seeks to speak on at the SxSWedu 2015 event. His session, Disruptive Change in Higher Education: Replace or Repair?, looks at these very issues, exploring how IHEs can “lead the change or become its victim.”

A fascinating topic. An entertaining and passionate speaker. What more can SxSWedu be looking for? Visit the SXSW PanelPicker now and give a thumbs up to Dr, Levine and a close look at whether we repair or replace or universities to meet 21st century needs and expectations. Give the big ol’ thumbs up right here: http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/vote/37380

(Full disclosure, Eduflack works for the Woodrow Wilson Foundation and with Dr. Levine. But even if he didn’t, he’d still be giving this panel discussion a shout out.)