Blog bill pullback raises questions about on-time graduation options for CA students

A California bill to permit MOOC companies to provide public postsecondary students an alternate way to get required course credits for on-time graduation has been postponed for a year. Faced with opposition from faculty and the desire of university systems to create their own online offerings, Senate Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg has delayed his push for SB520. In his May budget, Gov. Jerry Brown proposed $37 million  for higher ed technology to support the university-driven approach. Several efforts will be developed, each crafted within the three distinct tiers of the state college system, but it is unclear how these are being studied or evaluated, how transfer articulation will be addressed with these online courses from three different systems, how that information will be shared with the public, or how these efforts will ensure more timely educational offerings for California public university students and their families. A report by the 20 Million Minds Foundation has found that California's 145 public colleges and universities have failed to offer timely courses to their students and have offered only a patchwork set of "homemade" online courses at different campuses that fail to transfer across campuses.