21st Century Scholar

Did LAUSD make the right move with their school choice decisions?

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPzkwwTUlI0&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0] Last summer, Los Angeles Unified School District canceled summer school for K-8, leaving tens of thousands of children without, among other things, guided instruction.  Of course, wealthy Westsiders had their pick of summer programs.   Those with a little less, had to make do as they could.  Students in my Writing 340: Advanced Writing course [...]

There is a bill working its way through the California legislature that will regulate for-profit colleges and universities.  The topic of regulation always gets people angry.  Conservatives look at government control as putting a strangle-hold on free enterprise.  The other side looks at deregulation as a consumer’s nightmare – everyone is at risk.  Who can [...]

Last week, the President and Secretary of Education announced a plan to accelerate reform and innovation. President Obama stated that “[t]his competition will not be based on politics or ideology or the preferences of a particular interest group. Instead, it will be based on a simple principle: whether a state is ready to do what [...]

The purpose(s) of compulsory education in modern America have not been clear. Today, during President Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s announcement of the criteria for the “Race to the Top” Fund, they will become a little clearer. In The Washington Post, both the President and Secretary of Education discussed the new plan. Duncan outlined four reforms: “To reverse [...]

I mentioned in an earlier thread that for-profit colleges and universities have a higher proportion of first-generation, low-income and minority college-goers than traditional institutions.  For-profits like to tout that point, and those in traditional institutions generally don’t know what to make of it.  It is embarrassing that we have profit-making organizations doing a better job [...]