Gainful Employment Rules for Education Programs

Federal education officials issued final rules this week to ensure vocational programs lead to jobs. The effort caps four years of debate and legal challenges and was initially spurred by reports of high student loan default rates and poor job outcomes among students attending some for-profit postsecondary institutions. An estimated 1,400 programs--nearly all for-profits--are expected to fail to meet these standards, which puts them at risk of losing access to federal student loan funds, according to Arne Duncan, education secretary. The federal government provides $16 billion in loans and $6 billion in Pell Grants each year toward employment programs, according to a report in Inside Higher Ed. Students attending for-profit and community college workforce programs use these forms of funding. The for-profit industry is expected to challenge these rules too. According to a fact sheet, programs must certify that their vocational programs' graduates are paying below a certain threshold of their post-graduation/credentialing annual earnings toward loans. They have up to 3-4 years to improve the outcomes to avoid ineligibility. The new rules are scheduled to go into effect July 1, 2015.

Unconstructive vs. Constructive Viewpoints on Education Innovation

Veteran New York Times op ed writer Bob Herbert has a new book out about "America" -- by which he means the United States, as opposed to South America, Central America, or North America -- and how it is losing its way. Among other things, Herbert takes a contrary position toward charter school experimentation and technology engineering in education. His basic point is that "the rich" are damaging U.S. public education by getting educators to try experiments with alternative delivery models in education because these experiments often fail to show better results than business-as-usual. His alma mater, Empire State College (NY) is, interestingly enough, in the vanguard of such experimentation. Perhaps that is what irks him. Not sure. The problems with his argument are, first, he fails to acknowledge the positive findings of the successful experiments, second, he fails to acknowledge the very real constraints of mass education business-as-usual, such as the limitations of time and attention that any single teacher can have for any single learner, and third, he does not provide any insight to advance understanding of how to address these real problems.  He appears to be well-meaning in a fiery sort of way, but has applied the us-them, rich-vs.-poor schema in a way that is about as helpful to those working in the trenches as wringing one's hands might be to a scientist trying to find the cure to cancer.

More helpful is the perspective of those actually engaged in these experiments. Here is the view of Terry Norris from the College of Southern Nevada, a college technology administrator who notes that online technology can work but that it needs systems to enhance personal connections between learners and teachers and ways to flag when students are falling behind. I also highly recommend the book by education reporter Amanda Ripley, The Smartest Kids in the World, a very thoughtfully constructed exploration of the education systems of a few of the countries that outscore the U.S. on the PISA critical thinking test. Refreshingly, it is told from the perspective of everyday American exchange students studying in three of these other countries--Finland, South Korea, and Poland. These are fresh voices precisely because instead of framing every critique of education as part of tiresome culture wars narrative, they recognize that the U.S. has real problems with its educational system that need to be solved.

A new idea: Centralized workforce credentials?

Seeking to expand the options for documenting workforce-relevant expertise, a group of foundation and advocacy group leaders convened this week in Washington to explore the idea of developing guidelines for national workforce credentialing standards. The group seeks to implement a national credentialing program, as noted within a larger policy document released earlier this year. They seek to set guidelines for new "micro-credentialing tools," such as digital badges and e-portfolios. The effort is being led by the Lumina Foundation and the American Association of Community Colleges.

Calculating the value of college

President Obama has proposed rating colleges as a way to channel more students to colleges that are worthwhile, but the idea has yet to gel and already is facing criticism by academia. Academics dismissed the presidents' proposal overwhelmingly in comments to an article in Inside Higher Education covering an interview by Tumblr with the president about high student debt. The president's broad goal is to permit consumers to determine the cost-benefits of higher education expenses. The actual Tumblr interview was much more wide-ranging--addressing government efforts to attract more students to STEM fields and to help those going into low-paying, public service fields. Currently, the most popularly-known college ranking system is conducted by the U.S. News and World Report, which is informed by factors other than student outcomes, such as how much research funding a university amasses. There have been efforts by a group using regional employment data and other research organizations using college loan data to provide such data to students and their families too.

Facing changes in funding game, CCs define new rules

Community college systems, which have increasingly seen their state funding shift away from the number of students they enroll to how many they graduate, seek to influence the way their performance is gauged by redefining the rules of accountability. Two states have adopted the Voluntary Accountability Framework, an initiative of the American Association of Community Colleges, as a system to report how how their colleges are performing, and several other states are considering adoption. The framework seeks to broaden accountability metrics beyond a narrow focus on degree completion and to consider the performance of part-time, not just full-time, students. Community colleges have long argued that federal accountability systems place too much emphasis on the types of degree completion metrics that favor the 4-year university model. By contrast, they argue they serve a more diverse set of students who have a more complex set of goals and educational pathways.

CCs and Udacity focus on Corporate Training

The vast Maricopa Community College system in Arizona has responded to reduced state support by expanding its contract training business with local industry. This article mentions Global Corporate College (GCC), a small Ohio woman-owned startup to help colleges capture this business. I met with GCC founder, Denise Reading, and her team, last year as part of some exploratory technology work with my employer. Additionally, this article refers to Udacity founder, Sebastian Thrun's, announcement some months back about his interest in seeing MOOCs support corporate training. There are some technological hurdles to clear to design and develop the content for online learning materials, particularly to ensure the quality of the learning experience.

Few CC Students Prep for Math Placement Exam

According to data from the American Association of Community Colleges, only a third of entering students study for the mathematics placement exam. In most colleges, a poor score on this test channels students into remedial math classes that cost them and taxpayers money without earning college credit. Research indicates as many as 40% of these students never complete college as they fail to pass these classes. These classes cover high school algebra, a form of mathematics required in only 5% of jobs that require "some college."

Measuring Knowledge that Matters in the Workplace

Interesting report on the PBS Newshour about how employers find that A's in school fail to predict solid performance on the job. The misalignment is particularly acute in school mathematics. Most jobs require mathematics taught through middle school. About 5% of jobs require higher mathematics, and the job growth is not in those jobs. Employers requiring middle skills are reporting more predictive success based on ACT's Workkeys Assessment than diplomas and GPAs.

Competency vs. Credit Hours

Like MOOCs, the call for "competency-based" higher education is an effort to provide more flexibility around seat-time, which has been a mainstay of the nation's systems for adult learning. The notion is, if you know your stuff and you can pass the test quickly, why should you be required to put in a certain amount of hours? The idea is receiving increasing scrutiny and experimentation from both the U.S. Department of Education and foundations. Pioneers in this concept include non-traditional institutions such as Western Governor's University, Excelsior, and Capella, and Southern Hampshire University has become the first traditional higher education institution to decouple seat time ("the credit hour") from degree attainment. Assessment becomes the central indicator of competency, but not all assessments are created equal. Some tests focus on measuring how much terminology and facts someone knows. Some focus on the testing the skill of communicating and explaining connections among ideas. Others focus on applying concepts while solving problems. Some focus on hands-on skill and situational decision making. Many of the more complex skills are not easily or accurately captured by test formats that are easiest to administer and auto score; they require complex judgments based on multiple factors. Few people like to think about tests, but getting the metrics right offers a way out of proxies such as "seat time." The only way to do this well is to think about what few like to think about: assessment.

MOOCs: Less image management, more design principles, please

I begin with the news and then offer a perspective of an educational researcher. First, the news--The MOOC experiment at San Jose State University continues, but one of the pioneers of the experiment is expressing reservations and its would-be faculty guinea pigs are using the machinery of campus politics to slow down the effort.

The SJSU faculty have requested a review of the campus chancellor's leadership after last spring and sunmer's online education experiment showed weak results: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/11/19/facultyi -members-san-jose-state-u-urge-outside-review-institutions-governance

In the meantime, the leader of the SJSU experiment, Sebastian Thrun of the MOOC provider Udacity, recently told a writer for the magazine Fast Company that he is downshifting his MOOC ambitions from the loftier climes of higher education learning to the supposedly much more straightforward and achievable workd of workforce training (????), specifically for computer scientists: http://www.fastcompany.com/3021473/udacity-sebastian-thrun-uphill-climb.

Although Udacity continues its work with SJSU after a very poor success rate (25% passed) compared to face-to-face classes (53% passed) last spring, the (entirely predictable!) lack of evidence of actual course completion and learning in many MOOCs has been (finally!) grabbing media  attention lately:

"And yet, all of these efforts have been hampered by the same basic problem: Very few people seem to complete courses when they're not sitting in a lecture hall. Udacity employs state-of-the-art technology and sophisticated pedagogical strategies to keep their users engaged, peppering students with quizzes and gamifying their education with progress meters and badges. But a recent study found that only 7% of students in this type of class actually make it to the end. (This is even worse than for-profit colleges such as the University of Phoenix, which graduates 17% of its full-time online students, according to the Department of Education.)"

"Among those pupils who took remedial math during the pilot program, just 25% passed. And when the online class was compared with the in-person variety, the numbers were even more discouraging. A student taking college algebra in person was 52% more likely to pass than one taking a Udacity class, making the $150 price tag--roughly one-third the normal in-state tuition--seem like something less than a bargain. The one bright spot: Completion rates shot through the roof; 86% of students made it all the way through the classes, better than eight times Udacity's old rate. (The program is supposed to resume this January; for more on the pilot, see "Mission Impossible.")

I have been reporting these media reports rather dutifully for several months now, and at last, I have an actual opinion and perspective to express. Let's start here: Note that the experience with the SJSU developmental math MOOC was somewhat different from other MOOCs.  The low completion rates that have plagued most online learning for the past 15 years were not replicated. In this case, students finished; they just didn't pass. This is an interesting finding that no one seems to be discussing much. 

One wonders why these students didn't do what most savvy students do when they are gaming the traditional higher Ed system: Drop the class you're clearly not passing to "maintain" your GPA--and the illusion that you are a traditional "good student."  Perhaps they're not savvy students. There is good circumstantial evidence to support this claim. For example, perhaps not being savvy students is why they are in dev Ed. Somewhere along the line, they didn't get the memo about playing the school game. They didn't cram before the placement test to avoid the dev Ed class when they came to the admissions office. But make no mistake--the savvy students do that. Further, we are at SJSU, a tier 2 college. These students likely didn't take lots of SAT prep classes and GPA-goosing AP classes in high school either. After all, that is what the savvy students do. So these students were able "only" to get into SJSU rather than a supposedly "better" institution of higher Ed.

And think about that last statement. What is it with the brand names in higher Ed? I have worked with some very terrific SJSU grads and some pretty lame Stanford grads. Enough on the brand name nonsense! Is anyone else noticing how perverse things have become? What does any of the business of being a savvy student and embroidering your resume with the right schools have to do with actual learning? It really boils down to a ridiculous level of image management. Do we really want, as a society, our youngest, most idealistic citizens focused on image management, which is really what being a savvy student has become? Where does that lead us, as a society? 

Now, that's my opinion. Here is the substantive perspective part as an educational researcher: What is the difference between finishing and passing, and what does this tell us about learning? Could it be that the 75% of folks who did not pass may tell us something about the failures of thinking you can simply put typical course material online (video lectures, slides, readings) and then make magic happen? What needs to change in the design of learning content to permit the other 75% to learn online? As it happens, there is plenty of research into online learning that has clarified that point, and yet no one discusses that research in these various reports.

Back to opinion: Instead, the reporters seek the answer from entrepreneurs with pedigrees from brand name institutions who have not spent not more than a moment studying pedagogy. Hey, why would they? Studying pedagogy--let's face it, studying "education"--isn't good for their "image." Education is not a prestige field. Everybody knows that, right? Why do it then?

Back to perspective: But, for the record, here are some design principles we know... You need social support to learn, mainly to provide what is called learner "self-regulation," which means keeping the learner focused consistently to finish. (In the old days when mostly women taught in schools, we called it "helping." But I digress...) Anyway, you also need multiple representations of knowledge, frequent feedback, and -- get this -- multiple trials to reach mastery. Yes, it turns out that the notion that you learn "fast and efficiently" is simply goofy. You learn slow and painstakingly, through lots of hard work and effort. Yes, the sad truth is that we must be "grinds" to learn. But again, what would saying that do for our "image?" Oh by the way, that reminds me, we in the Ed field are calling hard work "grit" now. 

Could it also be that there is an implicit identification of the central problem of the design of traditional higher Ed learning in these data? Perhaps those 75% non-completers represent the kinds of students who do not learn very well under the old model of "time pressured, image-managed, competitive grade learning" the first time around, but ultimately could learn if permitted to study with some form of support on their own time and less pressure around image management? The MOOC experiment does not answer these questions, but these results raise such questions. 

Instead, in the MOOC coverage, we see the predictable narrow focus on one data point or two (pass rates! completion rates!), and on to the next personality piece about the next entrepreneur with something to sell us. There is very little thought about what the evidence of pass and completion rates tells us about the design of education. Instead, we see the predictable political positioning to protect the status quo without any overt evidence of a good faith effort to try to improve the design of the status quo (e.g., SJSU and UCSC faculty "protests"). We see the sort of half-baked questioning about the "social justice" of such proposed innovations without really looking at the details of what is actually happening in the cases of the oft-quoted stereotypes of the "underrepresented, needy student." So, we use these stereotypes as a prop to block change and we learn nothing about how the design of learning could be improved to actually help them (and, hey, if we are honest, everyone else too)-- (for the PC perspective, see this: http://www.hackeducation.com/2013/11/14/thrun-as-saint/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+HackEducation+%28Hack+Education%29 ). 

None of this is constructive or focused on solving the education problem in this country. That takes real work and a laser focus on the problem and designing a solution -- and not a focus on the personalities, political strategy, or political correctness. 

Be advised, that kind of focus on the design of learning IS happening, but coverage of that work is in short supply in the media of all forms and all channels. 

Why not? Because it isn't a sexy story, and that isn't good for the image of the reporter or the media outlet publishing it. 

Study Shows Effort Not MOOC Tech Spells Success

Student effort, not whiz bang technology, made the difference for passing mathematics courses designed by online provider Udacity through San Jose State University last spring, according to a report released by the university. The research, funded by the National Science Foundation and conducted by a team from the state's community college system and San Jose State, described problems collecting data from any but the top students and from Udacity, which countered these claims. See the full story here and the original report appears here.

Pushing college math remediation into high school

An experiment to use online self-directed learning software in high school has shown impressive results in increasing the numbers of students ready for college in Tennessee. The program that brings community college instructors into high school computer labs to assist students working on Pearson's MyMathLab program has yielded pass rates as high as 83% among students who are at high risk of failing college math placement tests. In addition, 25% of the students have gone on to complete college credit mathematics courses while still in high school. As many as 60% of entering community college students test into remedial math, and only about half of those ultimately pass those non credit-bearing courses. The high cost of remedial math and low success rate at the college level has the states of Florida and Connecticut passing laws to remove college requirements forcing students to take such non credit remedial courses.

Community Colleges offer own measures of success

In response to federal survey metrics that they say favor the mission of 4-year universities, an association of U.S. community colleges has offered its own approach to reporting how part-time and transfer students do on their campuses. Development began two years ago and 40 colleges served in the pilot group. See a sample here.

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. 

Udacity effort at San Jose State University on "pause"

San Jose State University's has announced its plan to place on hold its collaboration with Udacity, an online MOOC company, after spring semester testing showed students using the online program performing more poorly than peers in traditional classes. The experiment, announced in January by Gov. Jerry Brown and encouraged by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, showed that only 51% students in Udacity's developmental mathematics courses passed compared to 74% of those in the regular courses. These results were announced by the university's vice provost at a meeting of fellow California State University provosts last month and shared with the Inside Higher Education news publication by the California Faculty Association, whose members have been critiquing the university's plans to adopt MOOCs as a way to cut costs rather than improve educational quality. By contrast, the university's EdX MOOC experiment, designed as a course supplement rather than a course replacement, is going relatively better. University leaders are attributing some of the Udacity course problems to its rushed creation last winter and selection of particularly high risk students. They plan to absorb the lessons learned and continue design work with Udacity in the spring of 2014.

Old fashioned shoe leather and MOOCs

Ry Rivard, a reporter for Inside Higher Ed, filed a solid piece of old fashioned journalism today on how MOOCs are securing service agreements in 21 universities in 16 states without going through the usual bidding process intended to keep costs down to taxpayers. The novelty and uncertainty of how to make money from these MOOC services appear to have contributed to the trend. Universities typically engage multiple bidders for similar services, such as learning management systems. In the wake of the MOOC hype over the past year, traditional LMS businesses have begun offering their own MOOC support services too. The universities' diversion from standard procurement practices reflects the similar diversion from standard internal review and privacy waivers associated with the MOOC trend. Universities have permitted MOOCs to have access to student learning data without securing waivers to FERPA regulations or going through an internal review board. They do this by designating MOOCs as "service providers." By contrast, traditional researchers measuring the effectiveness of educational interventions have to devote substantial time and research resources to securing such permissions, and often must grapple with highly incomplete data as a result.

Calling Bruce Bochy and Jim Harbaugh: City College needs you

To anyone who has spent even a few moments at a board meeting of the City College of San Francisco, the news of its possible shutdown comes as no surprise. The dysfunction is painfully apparent. If CCSF were a play, it would feel as though all the players, from faculty to college president to board members, were elbowing each other like a bunch of third-rate drama queens on a stage, each one striving to play Camille in her famously wordy death scene.

It is perhaps in disgust with this spectacle that last week the college's accreditor gave the motley troupe of CCSF a year to shut down its 11 campuses or somehow come together to file a cogent appeal. The letter cited the college's failure to address 11 out of 14 accreditation requirements. These include relatively mundane bureaucratic requests, such running a healthy budget and showing how well students are learning. Reading between the lines, one can almost hear the accreditor saying: "Enough Camille! More Baron de Varville!" (The baron was the social climber's dull, cuckholded husband who underwrote her colorful Parisian lifestyle.)

For models of what could be done, we turn from the theater to sports, which is one institution that actually works in San Francisco. Perhaps the CCSF group should borrow some tips from the head coach of the 49ers or the talented manager of the currently slumping, but ever classy and team-focused, Giants. Instead, reports indicate that the CCSF troupe plans another--get ready of it-- "mass campus protest." They cannot get enough drama, apparently. As Camille said: "I always look well when I'm near death."

Labor Department's Top Workforce Training Exec Heads to University of Phoenix

After running the federal government's largest community college workforce training program during the Obama administration, Jane Oates will now be doing similar outreach to industry for the nation's largest for-profit university. The University of Phoenix announced Oates' appointment this week. This switch says a lot about how fluid the workforce training field is today, when a top political official crosses the pitched battle lines from public workforce training programs to for-profit. A key priority in Oates' work will be to continue to identify employers' needs and ensure Phoenix can demonstrate its graduates meet job requirements. Assessment is a key lynchpin to this kind of effort--and finding ways to make the work products of school more transparent and aligned with those of the workplace.

For those not up to speed on beltway politics, Oates resigned earlier this spring from the Department of Labor's Education and Training Administration, accepting blame for budgetary overruns in the Job Corps program that runs 125 training centers nationwide. ETA has played a key role in disbursing $1 billion in funds to community colleges to accelerate retraining for displaced workers through the Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training (TAACCCT). The budgetary problems led the department to turn away trainees beginning in late January of this year. Oates estimates roughly 10,000 trainees were turned away and about 700 people lost their jobs at the training centers. The training program was to resume in April.

Assessment for the humanities, MOOCs, and students

With all the attention that the sciences have received in recent years, now humanities educators say they need to defend the relevance of their field. A new report outlines their argument, which underscores the importance of preparing for a "career," not just a job, and being a good communicator across multiple cultures and fields. Accurate measurement of learning and clear, actionable feedback have ever been a problem in these fields, as anyone who has fled them can attest. Perhaps the reformers could start there. How many students have felt their humanities courses required the skill of "reading the professor's mind"? This perception stems from the lack of transparent or clearly defined learning objectives and grading standards, and these are practices every educator should cultivate.

In the meantime, more colleges are claiming they can "roll their own" MOOCs, from the Midwest to Australia. The Australians seem to be capturing the promise of offering low-cost alternatives--courses with assessments. The Americans continue to talk a lot about protecting faculty control and IP, the ever vexing problem of assessment, and student data privacy. What is interesting to me, as a researcher, is how tough it is for educational researchers to obtain access to student data, particularly learning data. We routinely must jump through IRB and FERPA hoops to show evidence of effectiveness, often ending with scant and flawed information. But in the MOOC era, the same universities that run external researchers in circles seem to be granting MOOC partners free access to student data by dubbing them "institutional partners," and the like. Student data is the core of the assessment problem, so the conversation needs to advance there--and students, not just administrators and faculty, should be involved.

MOOCs and faculty IP entitlements

College faculty should seek to preserve their intellectual property claims for courses they create as MOOCs, according to former leader of a national college faculty association, who plans a book on the topic later this year. The issue arose some months ago when the academic senate at the University of California, Santa Cruz, questioned a MOOC agreement that awarded the university rights to online courses its professors created for provider, Coursera. Lots of righteous anger here, but what is really going on? And who might get stuck with the bill?

Apparently, some universities' faculty unions had won collective bargaining agreements in the past to give faculty, not their university employer, IP rights to the courses they created. But recently the game has changed as MOOC providers like Coursera set up course distribution agreements with those same universities. Coursera provides broad access to the professors' courses only when they voluntarily sign away those rights, a move unions perceive as undermining the agreements they have with their university bosses. For those scratching their heads, these agreements appear to have grown out of the scientific places on the campuses, where inventions created during research can lead to real money.

We'll see how the course story unfolds, but from what I can tell, the IP story appears a little different for all the academics who write courses. A course isn't so much an invention as a kind of written product, and like most written products, it depends on a distribution channel to give it life. Here's the rub: The owner of the distribution channel has rights too, and this arrangement has long been understood in the mass media realm. For example, journalists routinely sign away their creative rights to have their writing distributed on mass media venues. Researchers do the same when their work is published in peer-reviewed journals. Further, when that research or journalistic report is completed on company time, the researcher or journalist forfeits additional proceeds back to the employer because the employer already paid for its creation. Based on these analogous situations, under what terms should professors expect any proceeds from the courses they create on university time? How is having your course distributed on a MOOC mass media channel any different from having your work distributed via a newspaper or journal or the television airwaves? 

Read more: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/03/19/u-california-faculty-union-says-moocs-undermine-professors-intellectual-property#ixzz2W6ZULlUt 

Inside Higher Ed