Texas Ed Spectator

Very interesting article on Harvard’s new accessibility to the middle class. Families making less than $120,000 won’t pay any tuition. The author, Steven Roy Goodman, argues that by providing additional aid, Harvard and others with generous endowments, are hoping to head off legislation by Congress that would mandate schools to spend 5% of it’s endowment as required by other private foundations.

Goodman reports that Harvard claims the tuition initiative could cost it $22 million a year. However, if it heads off the Congressional mandate, the school saves $245 million dollars a year for the endowment.

The real story on Harvard’s generosity – The Boston Globe

Quite a trick. Spend at best a tiny fraction of the endowment, while reducing growing political pressure in Washington and around the country that could potentially cost the university more than 10 times the additional amount of financial aid.

When there are plenty of colleges with endowments of less than $50 million, like Goodman, I can’t help but wonder what Harvard plans on doing with it’s endowment. It’s obvious that it doesn’t need it to educate the vast number of struggling and unprepared students it admits every year (that’s sarcasm, it’s 25th% for the SAT was 1390.)

Maybe it could spend some it’s money on initiatives with high schools that don’t send as many students to the selective schools. It could pay for some college test prep classes that many high school students can’t afford. It could give some high school students  stipends that allow them to pursue the all important extracurricular activities instead of working a part time job. Or maybe provide a bridge year of studies for free for students who’s high schools have ill prepared them for college.

Better yet, if money is so important for quality education, Harvard should put the quality of it’s endowment and education to the test. Admit not so spectacular students and see if the Harvard experience can make them even better students. It’s easy to educate someone with a 1400 SAT, how about someone with less than a 1000?

I can’t imagine Harvard going for that one. The entire admissions’ process from the school’s point of view is to admit students that will create the best possible “community” and “education environment” on campus. If that’s the case, then why not provide free undergraduate tuition? I’m sure this would increase the applicant pool and allow Harvard to become even more selective. And as Goodman points, out it just might save its endowment from Congress so that is can be used for…what?

Technorati Tags: Steven Roy Goodman, Harvard, College Endowments, college costs, tuition

Last spring, the legislature passed a law that restricts public college students in Texas to drop only a maximum of six classes as an undergraduate. The idea was that this will help students graduate faster.

I see it as the perfect example of what passes for legislative support for higher education in Texas.

College officials say law capping dropped classes may hurt students | Dallas Morning News | News for Dallas, Texas | Latest News

The author of the law, Rep. Fred Brown, R-College Station, said he doesn’t buy the complaints about logistical nightmares.

Colleges work with transcripts all the time, he said. Plus there’s money at stake. The state pays colleges based on their enrollments. Students who drop classes may forfeit their tuition, but the state doesn’t recoup its dollars.

Mr. Brown said he’s not sure how much money the law will save the state and its colleges, “but the savings has to be huge,” he said.

With unregulated tuition increasing at state schools and overall decreasing financial contributions by the state, the legislature provides the citizens of Texas with a “no drop” law to show it’s support for higher education. Thank you Mr. Brown, for making higher education so much more accessible to the poor and middle class. By the way, do you know exactly how many students had dropped six or more classes before passing this law? Of course not, otherwise you would have been able to tell us how much the state will save.

Just one more example of those responsible for education in Texas being penny wise and pound foolish.

Technorati Tags: Texas Legislature, Higher Education, Funding, Fred Brown, capping dropped classes

In case you haven’t heard, the Texas Education Agency has fired the agency’s director of science, Christine Castillo Comer, for forwarding an email about a talk on evolution. It also looks like the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board is seriously considering approving a program that offers a Masters Degree in Creation Science. And if you don’t think our State Board of Education lead by Creationist Advocate, Dr. Don McLeroy, is getting ready to push for eliminating the teaching of evolution from the state’s biology textbooks, consider the following:

Official Leaves Post as Texas Prepares to Debate Science Education Standards – New York Times

But several months ago, in response to an inquiry letter, Ms. Comer said she was instructed to strike her usual statement about the board’s support for teaching evolution and to quote instead the exact language of the high school biology standards as formulated for the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills test.

“The student knows the theory of biological evolution,” the standards read, and is expected to “identify evidence of change in species using fossils, DNA sequences, anatomical similarities, physiological similarities and embryology,” as well as to “illustrate the results of natural selection in speciation, diversity, phylogeny, adaptation, behavior and extinction.”

As I see it, the board no longer wants to be associated with teaching the theory of biological evolution. Therefore, Comer was instructed to use the exact language which makes no reference to the board’s support. If this wasn’t such an important issue to the board and they don’t intend to push for a policy change, who then is responsible for such a level of micromanaging?

Technorati Tags: Texas Education Agency, Christine Comer, teaching Evolution, Texas, Don McLeroy, State Board of Education, Lizzette Reynolds, Creation science, intelligent design

From my basic list of colleges.

Gustavus Adolphus College is a liberal arts college in Minnesota with a relatively high graduation rate, high admittance rate, and a large endowment. I didn’t see anything especially compelling about the school from available public information. My overall impression, which could be totally wrong, is a school that provides lots of individual attention to students but that the students aren’t necessarily challenged and haven’t really come together as a community.

• 72% graduation rate
• Median SAT 1165
• $16,250 Student Related Expenditures per FTE
• 60.5% degrees awarded in Arts and Sciences
• 79.7% Admitted
• Princeton Review reports 35% attending graduate school
• US News College Rankings report an endowment of over 96 million dollars and an alumni giving rate of 31%

Read the rest of this entry »

The story till now: South San ISD wants to shut down low performing, low enrollment school. Parents protest and attempt to get a court injunction which is denied. The school district retaliates by suing the parents for court costs. The parents’ lawyer, David Van Os, has a press conference and reads a blog posting supposedly by the school district’s attorney.

Fake Blog Post Riles West Campus Community – Yahoo! News

The blog posting — littered with grammatical and spelling errors — read:

“Save West Campus has cause alot of inconvience for the community … ,so when the district files a lawsuit against the parents of Save West Campus,each of them individualy,that’s the only way to recover the legal fee’s the taxpayers had to pay,so if they claim they have no money,we will file to seize their property,assets & have thier wages garnish,when we win the lawsuit. And hope this will put all this to and end.”

Now is anyone actually surprised that the school district’s attorney said that he did not write the post or have anything to do with it? So what are the possibilities here?

• Someone, presumably on the parent side, planted the post. Does the person really think lawyers write like and is that a reflection of the education quality provided by South San Antonio?

• David Van Os actually writes like that which is why he thought it was the real thing? If true, that would explain why they lost their injunction.

• The school district planted the post knowing that David Van Os would jump on it before verifying it’s authenticity. What does that say about Van Os’ reputation? What does that say about the administration’s respect for the parents?

It’s a sorry situation when the district sues the parents who were pursuing their right to be heard in court. It’s a sorry situation when the parents go to court to solve their problems when there was a school board election that occurred at the same time. It’s a sorry situation when you can’t figure out who to feel sorry for.

Technorati Tags: South San ISD, West Campus, San Antonio, David Van Os, Mark Anthony Sanchez

Will someone please explain to me how this improves education in Northside?

MySA.com: Metro | State

Acknowledging that some projects offered partial funding would not be able to move forward, the group agreed — this time in an almost evenly divided vote — to move any money that might be freed up first to fully fund the Olympic natatorium proposed by Northside Independent School District, which received $7 million of the $10 million it sought;

Technorati Tags: Northside, NISD, Olympic Natatorium