I’m not quite myself this morning (sniffles), so let me throw out some links without much fanfare, hoopla, or commentary:
The Common Core fights are bringing up a new focus on gifted and talented programs and the role of local school boards.
An interesting case for universities to diversify their hiring practices.
Harry responds to Megan’s article. He buries the lede. Colleges aren’t going to prioritize teaching, because there is no pressure from the market. “Parents, and students, are not buying education, but a credential. As long as that is what they are doing the brand is going to matter more than the actual instructional quality or how much they learn. ”
I don’t get the Lady Gaga love from last night. She couldn’t touch the original.
Apt. 11d 
OMG THANK YOU re Lady Gaga. I missed it the first time (also missed Glory and their win/speech). But I rewound the DVR and was definitely underwhelmed. It helps too that I am not the biggest Sound of Music fan, I guess.
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Is anyone else having trouble commenting at 11D? I am, and am wondering if it is just me.
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If you can read this, it worked fine for me.
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My didn’t post this morning or just now. Trying as a reply?
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Sorry again, guys. I’m having trouble downloading the new wordpress program. I’m going to have to get on the phone with tech support, but I’m going into the city this morning. I’ll have to do it later this afternoon.
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Sorry, I need to update the wordpress software. maybe that will fix the problem.
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So I can reply, but not leave a new comment. All I wanted to say was feel better soon.
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“Parents, and students, are not buying education, but a credential. As long as that is what they are doing the brand is going to matter more than the actual instructional quality or how much they learn. ” Brighouse, what a short-termer he is!
My claim is that there is feedback. Yes, hiring officers and grad school admitters are looking for folks who know what town Yale is in, and can do a 30 page research paper with consistent footnotes which does not trigger the plagiarism alarms in turnitin. And by the way, why American blacks useta overwhelmingly like the Reeps and more recently overwhelmingly like the Dems. Bonus points if they know who Senators Moynihan and Bilbo were, and why they mattered.
So, admission officers at Grinnell, and Wisconsin, and Dartmouth can select for kids who either know this stuff already or can be quickly trained, so their brand is good when their graduates can. And admissions officers at Chico, and Radford, and CCNY don’t have that luxury. BUT I’m claiming feedback! If hiring officials at GM, or Google, or Washington Post – notice that their last three hires from Wisconsin did substantially worse than expected, and their last three hires from Radford did better, it will feed back into their hiring decisions going forward, and into the schools’ reputations.
Some of that is fed by whether Radford can buy itself some better students with merit scholarships, but some if it must result from that actual quality of instruction. At least, I want to believe that…
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dave s has *long* time horizons. The problem is that reputations change slowly and incrementally, and for parents (and students themselves), they can pretty safely rely on the institution having the same reputation when they leave as when they began. And any institutional reform will have its effects only after they have left. So the time horizons of market actors are too short for them to have an incentive to discipline the institution. (Think about the problem with your kid’s school — given how hard it is to achieve change, and how unlikely it is for that change to affect your kid before she leaves the school, you are better off expending energy on remediating for your kid than trying to get the institution to change).
Laura, there is definitely a problem with comments.
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I still haven’t had any trouble with comments. I’ve just been quiet because I’m working and not big on education policy. I don’t really understand what the big issue about undergraduate education is. The state cuts funds for undergraduate education and the feds provide more money for research and graduate education. What do people think was going to happen?
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Adam Smith, he said: “there’s a great deal of ruin in a nation” and I think it’s so for these great flagship universities whose faculties are sure they are being brought low by the Philistines in government. My Berkeley has been being brought low by Philistines since Reagan, and somehow still manages to be in the top rank on everyone’s list of swell schools forty years plus later. Positive feedback can move things faster – here in VA both George Mason and Longwood are moving up the league tables notably, and it seems to me by providing better educations and surprising the world with their grads. The dean of the new Irvine Law School, Chemerinsky, got a donor to pay tuition for his entire first year class, this bought him a very high LSAT average and moved him far ahead of what anyone would have though possible for a starter law school – I’m not so impressed by this move…
That said, yeah, it’s remarkable how similar the hierarchy of schools is now to what it was when I was forming opinions about colleges fifty plus years ago.
But it’s worth thinking who should have the long time horizons. As you said, parents can’t afford to think long term about what will make the school more swell fifteen years out. Faculty can, as can university administrators. Governors? and in particular governors who can hear the faint strains of ‘hail to the chief’ in the wind whistling through the leaves? They are probably more like parents in their time horizons. Mitch Daniels! There’s the guy with the long term interests at heart!
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Right — but there’s the problem. faculty have an interest in the status quo, and are incredibly conservative. Politicians have short time horizons and short attention spans, and, frankly, don;t understand either the institution or what is wrong with it. Parents and students — short termers. In my experience, which isn’t trivial, the most enlightened people in the game are administrators (I don’t mean all of them, I mean that when you find enlightened people they are administrators). They are beset by short term crises (faculty complaining about parking, alumnae about football, parents about I forget what, and students about sex, in Clark Kerr’s day — the crises have changed, but you know what I mean)). And administrators, contrary to most faculty say and believe, have limited power because faculty have so much veto power (formally in many places, but informally everywhere).
So, meaningful and good change will come, mostly, from administrators is my prediction. (So, eg, I know nothing about George Mason, but I’d bet that all came from some smart team of administrators).
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