Archive for the ‘College’ Category

Dhathri Chunduru is a former Fulton County special educator. She works for an educational non-profit and supports the development of teachers and instructional coaches.

In this piece, she addresses the growing sentiment that too many people are going to college, that not everyone needs high education.

She makes an interesting point: A century ago, we said the same thing about a high school diploma. Yet, no one would ever say now that people don’t need to graduate high school.

Chunduru also raises another interesting issue: We don’t yet know the jobs of the future. The low-level jobs that do not require college may disappear.

By Dhathri Chunduru

Non-educators and educators alike have been spouting something as of late that worries me: that not everyone is meant for college.

Short-sighted beliefs that fail to take in the perspective of history and explore the possibilities of the future are depressing. They signify the loss of optimism, the acceptance of the prevailing ideology …

Continue reading A college degree may someday be as essential as a high school diploma »

Emory President James Wagner (Emory)

The Emory Wheel is reporting tonight that the college faculty rejected a  “no confidence” motion against President James W. Wagner. Voting began Monday and ended tonight.

Wagner created controversy recently when he cited the infamous 1787  “three-fifths compromise” in an essay as an example on how leaders reach agreement. The compromise counted slaves as three-fifths of a person for the purposes of distributing funds back to states and determining representation in Congress.

Some students and faculty were already upset with Emory’s decision to close its educational studies division, its physical education department, its visual arts department and its journalism program and suspend admissions to the graduate programs in Spanish, economics and the Institute of Liberal Arts.

Faculty members in the College of Arts and Science decided to vote to determine their level of confidence in Wagner.

According to the Emory Wheel: (This is an …

Continue reading Emory faculty rejects “no confidence” motion against university president »

Emory President Jim Wagner (Emory)

Faculty members in the College of Arts and Sciences at Emory University begin voting today on whether they still trust in the ability of embattled President James Wagner to lead the university. The online voting will continue through Friday.

I have been getting a lot of emails both for and against Wagner, who sparked a firestorm with a recent essay in which he cited the infamous  1787  “three-fifths compromise” as an example on how leaders reach agreements.

Established in the give-and-take of shaping the U.S. Constitution, the compromise counted slaves as three-fifths of a person for the purposes of distributing funds back to states and determining representation in Congress.

Writing  in Emory Magazine, Wagner used the compromise as an example of how people with conflicting views can find common ground.

He wrote:

One instance of constitutional compromise was the agreement to count three-fifths of the slave population for purposes of state …

Continue reading Emory faculty vote on Jim Wagner starting today. Can he still lead Emory or has he been compromised? »

Paul Thomas, a Furman University associate professor of education, writes about range of education issues, including the push in South Carolina to follow Florida’s retention policy. This is his second appearance on the Get Schooled blog, but you can read more of his stuff at his “becoming radical” blog.

Thomas sent me this opinion column on the issue of retention. Retention is still one of education’s most hotly debate topics. State policy says Georgia students in grades 3, 5 and 8 should repeat the year when they fail certain standardized tests. But it seldom happens.

The AJC found that districts promote the vast majority of  students even if they fail the retest or blow it off altogether.

Here is an excerpt of the 2008 AJC story:

The AJC obtained state databases — with students’ names removed — that contained spring CRCT scores, summer retest scores and students’ grade level the following fall for 2006 and 2007. In total, the newspaper examined nearly 800,000 …

Continue reading Reading between the lines: Florida’s retention program is not worth replicating »

Mathematician Lew Lefton joined the faculty of Georgia Tech in 1999 and is now Director of Information Technology for the School of Mathematics and the College of Sciences. Lefton’s research interests are in scientific computing and applied mathematics. But he has a sideline as an improvisational comic. His business card explains it: “Lew Lefton, Mathematician/Stand Up Comic, “He’s funny and he can prove it.”

This blog entry reflects both his expertises. Many folks today received an email from Lefton with a link to an official-looking Tech survey on finding an alternative to the mascot Buzz. I already saw on Facebook where folks are taking the survey seriously despite the fact the calendar says April 1. (Click on the survey link to respond to the survey.)

In the spirit of the day, here it is. And to be clear — as newspapers have a bad record with parody pieces being taken seriously by readers — this is a joke.

From Lew Lefton

The Ramblin’ Wreck is the official mascot of …

Continue reading To bee or not to bee: Is it time for Georgia Tech to introduce a Killer Buzz or a robotic one? »

More technical college students will now receive the HOPE Grant.

The General Assembly passed a bill tonight that lowers the GPA necessary to win the lottery-funded grant, which applies to technical colleges.

House Bill 372 qualifies students for the grant if they maintain a 2.0 grade-point average. The current mandate is 3.0, but the change would reinstate the rule that existed before lawmakers overhauled HOPE two years ago.

The change reflects concerns that too many technical college students dropped out or chose not to enroll because they couldn’t meet the higher bar. The new standard is estimated to allow between 2, 500 and 5,000 students to re-enroll in the grant program.

The HOPE Scholarship, which is used by University System of Georgia students, would keep its 3.0 GPA requirement. Both awards cover most of the in-state tuition.

–from Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled  blog

Continue reading Legislators lower bar to earn HOPE Grant for technical colleges »

If you have time today, tune in to watch the last gasp of the 2013 legislative session where guns on campus will be one of the top stories.

Today marks the final day when bills either pass or die.

The state’s universities are battling hard against a push to allow college students to carry guns on campus, and seem to have the state Senate on their side. But the Georgia General Assembly is among the nation’s most gun friendly, and most lawmakers do not want to alienate the gun lobby. So this will be a close battle and one that is getting national attention.

To watch from your computer, go here and click on the links on the left side. Updates also will be posted frequently on ajc.com.

According to the AJC summary of where the gun bill and the budget stand:

Efforts to expand access to guns across Georgia in places such as schools and college campuses are going right down to the wire. The crux of the issue: The House wants to allow guns on college campuses; the Senate, so far, …

Continue reading Do or die: Last chance for bills in the Legislature, including the controversial guns on campus effort »

The Georgia Senate debated the qualifications to become a Zell Miller scholar this afternoon while discussing House Bill 131, which accords high school students who take dual enrollment college classes the same .5 boost in their final grade that Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate students now earn.

Ultimately, the Senate approved the grade boost for dual enrollment, but voted 33-15 against against an amendment  to change how the Zell Miller Scholarship is calculated so that more rural Georgia students would qualify.

Only one group of Georgia college students — those who graduated high school with a 3.7 or higher GPA  and scored at least 1200 on the math and reading portions of the SAT test or a 26 on the ACT –   now earn full tuition under the changes made to the lottery-funded HOPE Scholarship. These students are known as Zell Miller Scholars. Zell Miller is also extended to all high school valedictorians and salutatorians.

State Sen. Jason Carter, …

Continue reading The top HOPE Scholarships: Are the best and the brightest in Fulton and Gwinnett? Is rural Georgia shortchanged? »

Here is a guest column on the planned cut to tuition assistance given by the state to Georgia students who attend private in-state colleges. The authors are Beth Holder, a trustee and alumna of Agnes Scott College, and Elizabeth Kiss, president of Agnes Scott.

According to the AJC:

House budget writers reduced the  Tuition Equalization Grant — money paid to all private college students — from $700 to $500. The subsidy program has been around for about 40 years and is meant to help private college students pay tuition.

The $6 million saved by reducing the grant would be plowed into the Technical College System of Georgia. Deal proposed a $24 million cut in technical college funding because of an enrollment drop at the schools. Technical colleges, like University System of Georgia schools, are funded largely based on enrollment.

The cut has alarmed private colleges, which contend that the money is often a factor in a student’s ability to enroll.

By Beth Holder and …

Continue reading President of Agnes Scott and college trustee: Cutting aid to private college students will cost more than it saves »

A reader sent me this note about cheating and asked that I put the issue before the Get Schooled blog readership:

I am wondering if you have done much on student cheating? I have read about teacher cheating but don’t remember anything on the student side of the equation.

Now that my child is in high school, I am amazed at what online resources are available at the click of the button. I am aware of an instance where a teacher used an online study guide as a test….most of the students used it (teacher was unaware it was public domain) and received 100 percent on the test.  Smart on the students’ part, I’d say yes. Lazy on the teacher’s part, I’d say yes.

I’ve had some discussions with parents. Teachers don’t change their test, and the students share what’s on the test with their classmates who have not taken yet taken it.

That is cheating. But the parents I’ve spoken to call it “collaboration” and see nothing wrong with it. Teachers are aware it goes on but say it is …

Continue reading Cheating or collaboration? Do students really not know the difference? »