oflovefaithhopedream

Updated May 30, 2011--and again June 1 I've been watching as UW Madison moves into the post-NBP phase of life ( wait, there is life after NBP ?). In particularly, I'm finding the (re)framing of recent events by NBP proponents both fascinating, and disturbing. Spin is, to some degree, expected. We can't blame Chancellor Martin for trying to save face, or Governor Walker for that matter. What I didn't expect, and what upsets me most, is the self-righteousness evident in those who proclaim "we accomplished something here." Something, they claim, UW System did not. Could not. Would not. Sad and short-sighted, perhaps, but not surprising. On the other hand, a recent tweet from a Madison student stopped me in my tracks. On Saturday he wrote, "No #UWNBP. Disappointing. Looks like we have to be tied to the poor decisions #UWSystem makes." Surprised at his statement, I responded, "Ever been to System? Ever met anyone there? Why do you follow blindly...

The New Badger Partnership is -- reportedly-- dead. In the meantime, the Legislative Fiscal Bureau has just released its analysis of what Public Authority would look like if the NBP were passed. The report is quite interesting, and in particular I think the following points are worth highlighting: (1) Despite the Chancellor's claims that what she wanted was "part of a national trend" the governance structure Madison asked for was quite unusual, when considering arrangements in other states. "Attachment 1 provides an overview of the governance structures of institutions that are similar to UW-Madison in terms of size and federal research and development funding. These institutions are all public or "state-related" institutions with large student populations, high six-year graduation rates, and federal research and development expenditures above $400 million in 2008-09. As shown in the Attachment, these institutions have a variety different governance st...

I know we in Wisconsin are sick and tired of hearing about Virginia....but please bear with me, because a new report out of UVA will likely resonate-- especially with my UW-Madison readers. A new Lumina Foundation-funded report from the Miller Center and the Association of Governing Boards of Colleges and Universities, based on a December 2010 meeting about "how to maximize higher education’s contributions to the American economy" makes the following provocative statement: The past few decades have seen far too many colleges and universities engage in a rush toward elite status. The more selective an institution is, the better. The more research money it collects, the better. The higher it ranks in national and international publications, the better. But what has the race for status contributed to the public good? It is possible to build state institutions that are noted in U.S. News & World Report and national rankings of research universities but ignore the needs of ...

Evidence-based decision-making requires data. We can disagree over the merits of using evidence to make decisions and we can also worry about the quality of the data collected, but if we hope to ground decisions in facts we need data. As all higher education researchers know, there are enormous barriers that prevent the use of data in decision-making about program effectiveness. Think it's difficult to study the k-12 system? Come over to the dark side sometime, where de-centralized colleges and universities get to act independently when making decisions about granting data access, and nearly all find some convoluted way to hide behind FERPA . Oh FERPA, that big hairy monster that claims to protect students' rights by shielding them from the benefits of evidence-based practices. Paying skyhigh tuition to your college while assuming they have ensured the way they teach actually "works"? Think again--- in all likelihood, the only people who've looked at the data...

                                  Brian Jones and Julie Cavenaugh:                                   Two Courageous Teachers I had the pleasure and privilege of attending the premiere of THE INCONVENIENT TRUTH BEHIND Waiting For Superman on Thursday night and hearing the excellent panel discussion afterwards. This is a movie that, as Diane Ravitch said, needs to go viral. Go here to request a copy: http://www.waitingforsupermantruth.org/ Consider showing it wherever you can. And think about this: we're individuals, working collectively, to fight a small number of billionaires and their pawns and puppets. There are vastly more of us than there are of them....

Recently, another study ( Researchers Probe Causes of Math Anxiety : It's more than just disliking math , according to scholars) has appeared proposing to explain the causes of mathematics anxiety. It shows up as part of a book called CHOKE: What the Secrets of the Brain Reveal About Getting It Right When You Have To, by Sian Beilock. If what's in the article is an accurate depiction of what the study has to tell us, there's not much new to see.  On my view, math anxiety is obviously not something many people, if any, are born with: for the most part, we catch it from others. However, it is worth noting that there are many carriers who are not themselves suffering from the disease. Contemptuous, arrogant math ematics teachers can readily drive someone into math anxiety , and frequently do, I strongly suspect. So can rigidity about what doing and being "good at" math ematics entails. Given how most US teachers present the subject in K-12, math is only or ...