21st Century Scholar

I can’t tell if this is the best time to bring this up, but I am going to anyway. By the time you read this blog, USC graduation will be about a week old. This means that within the next three months or so, most graduates, except those who are continuing on to new academic [...]

  State Fall 2005 Fall 2006 Fall 2007 Fall 2008 Fall 2009 Fall 2010 California 5.43% 6.46% 6.20% 6.81% 8.20% 8.67% Texas 3.89% 2.16% 1.94% 1.90% 2.08% 2.41% New York 3.97% 1.63% 1.74% 1.73% 1.78% 1.92% Florida 9.52% 4.60% 5.14% 5.16% 6.05% 7.58% Arizona 41.18% 60.32% 67.01% 63.70% 73.06% 74.25% These are some interesting numbers. [...]

One of my fondest memories of college occurred during my first semester as an undergraduate at the University of Maryland, College Park. I remember walking from class one chilly November evening. As I was contemplating the class discussion of The Laramie Project, a play about the tragic death of Matthew Shepard, I exited from a [...]

State Fall 2005 Fall 2006 Fall 2007 Fall 2008 Fall 2009 Fall 2010 California 26.32% 19.84% 18.85% 20.72% 24.79% 24.99% Texas 15.28% 9.85% 9.29% 9.48% 10.92% 12.98% New York 7.83% 2.81% 3.02% 3.05% 3.15% 3.33% Florida 27.28% 12.75% 14.31% 14.09% 16.31% 19.85% Arizona 89.45% 97.56% 98.06% 98.10% 98.74% 98.89% So, it looks like private for-profit [...]

Mr. Mathis, has any school ever told you ‘no’? The above question was posed by a high school junior enrolled in my Collegiate Academic Scholars course in an Early College High School. In a recent conversation regarding my educational career, the student asked if I was ever denied to any of the colleges I applied [...]

Graduation is around the corner and you know what that means—pull out the academic regalia and prepare for some pretty boring events. At USC we have three ceremonies: on Thursday morning there is a hooding for all Ph.D. candidates in the university auditorium; on Thursday afternoon the Rossier school has a ceremony where the Ed.D. [...]

Last week, I discussed the difference between deficit and surplus perspectives in education. A surplus of cultures exists in many low-income neighborhoods. And yet, current research, policy, and practice often assume a deficit perspective. I argued, instead, that scholars, policymakers, and practitioners ought to consider a surplus perspective. Such a perspective refocuses discussions from what [...]

I thought it might be useful to highlight some of the issues the AERA Council is tackling over the next year. I was fortunate to have Arnetha Ball precede me as president who encouraged me to plan ahead. We have three task forces already up and running. One of them, chaired by Dorothy Espalage and [...]

I was famously quoted in a PBS documentary on for-profit education that I thought, for the vast majority of students who do not attend a highly-selective research university, that education was a business. Two years later, I have to admit, I still think so. What led me to revisit this issue was not the recent [...]

Did you know that Anaheim offers residents wireless capabilities throughout the city? Austin, too. Not so in Vancouver. This post is inspired, in part, by the unforeseen Internet access challenges I experienced at AERA 2012. I’m not complaining. On the contrary, my intent is to investigate connectivity options outside the home computer environment so as to [...]