Links for 2/1/10

F. King Alexander

many states based their entire higher education reductions not on valid educational principles or state formulaic considerations, but on the simple threat of losing federal resources…
12 states (including Colorado in 2011) reduced their funding for higher education to the exact amount or within less than half of 1 percent of the threshold set by the maintenance of effort requirement…

The power of these data convinces me that … Congress should make maintenance of effort requirements a regular part of doing business when allocating federal funds for higher education…

Tim Ranzetta

the number of Pell Grant recipients grew to 6.2 million from 4.7 million while the dollars disbursed grew to $13.9 billion from $8.9 billion. The average Pell Grant also grew to $2,223 from $1,885, an 18% increase…

Eric Kelderman

The report is from the Data Quality Campaign, an effort begun in 2005 through the efforts of 10 education groups to press states to collect and use information on student performance. The campaign says states are largely succeeding in gathering the data: Forty-six states have put in place at least eight of the 10 benchmarks the organization has set for such systems…

But having data doesn't help if states aren't sharing the information with decision makers and using it to drive their policies, the campaign says, and that is where states continue to fall short.
For example, only nine states share reports on individual students with their teachers, the survey found, and no state yet has policies to train teachers in how to access, analyze, and use the data on student achievement to improve their work in the classroom…

Doug Lederman

a U.S. Congressman and several supporters unveiled legislation Thursday … The bill… would (1) cement in federal law definitions of "diploma mills" and "accreditation mills" (the unauthorized agencies from which the phony institutions claim to derive their authority to operate), (2) bar federal agencies from using degrees from diploma mills to provide jobs or promotions that depend on candidates' educational credentials, and (3) give the Federal Trade Commission more authority to define and crack down on deceptive practices by dubious institutions...