Links for 3/29/10

Rick Hess

I am among those (including, apparently, Rep. David Obey) warning that failure to sensibly insulate Race to the Top (RTT) from political officials and pressure poses risks to the credibility and sustainability of the centerpiece of the Obama administration's ed reform agenda.

Now, in a development ripe with irony, Chicago Breaking News has raised a ruckus in Chicago with its report that then-Superintendent Arne Duncan's staff kept a list of politicians' school requests. The report has raised concerns about political favoritism and lack of transparency…

Let's see. Assertions that questionable decisions are just sensible management. Declarations that, of course, Duncan and his team would never exert pressure or tell people what to do. Surprise that anyone might doubt these assurances. At least some plausible grounds for concern that scarce public resources were used to serve private political ends. The decision to limit transparency justified on the grounds of administrative convenience. These are precisely the concerns skeptics have flagged when it comes to RTT…

Sue Shellenbarger

Some critics say today’s kids have never learned to deal with rejection. “This is a generation of kids where everyone on the soccer team gets a trophy. You show up and you’re rewarded,” one admissions dean says. A college denial letter may be the first significant rejection the teen has received…

Anya Kamenetz

Nine colleges were founded in the colonies before the Revolution, and they’re all still in business: Harvard, William and Mary, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Penn, Brown, Rutgers, and Dartmouth.

For universities, history is authority...

Aisha Labi

in a highly competitive international marketplace, countries and universities are realizing that more foreign students are choosing where to study based not just on where they can get the best education, but also on where their postgraduation job prospects are brightest.

Institutions are scrambling to respond to the growing student focus on employability and are pressing governments to retool immigration policies to allow students more flexibility in seeking jobs after graduation...