Links for 1/26/11

Doug Lederman

the Lumina Foundation for Education is today releasing a draft of its Degree Qualifications Profile…

intended to establish, in more specific ways than has historically been the case, what the recipients of associate, bachelor's and master's degrees (regardless of discipline) should know and be able to do…

"it's a heck of a lot better than what we have now," Adelman said -- a situation in which politicians perceive colleges to pay too little attention to learning and constantly threaten to wade in and fix the problem.

And they will, Adelman warned, if colleges (and accreditors, whom he sees playing a key role) don't confront their perceived failings themselves…

Mark C. Taylor

When there is pressure to teach large classes to help the bottom line, the wisest policy is to assign little reading or writing and to grade easily. Teaching well takes lots of time and helping student to learn to read critically and write well cannot be done in lecture halls with hundreds of students…

Adam Kissel

Michigan State University… MSU's draconian e-mail policy. Unlike virtually all colleges and universities, MSU claims in its policy that "The University's e-mail services are not intended as a forum for the expression of personal opinions."

Greg Mankiw

we often remind policymakers that their decisions should be based on objective, empirical research rather than uninformed supposition. Yet when we are the decision makers, as we are when we run our own educational programs, we often have little data-driven analysis on which to base on our judgments. This kind of research should, over time, lead to a better educational system...

Consider now the fact that many students drop out of graduate school ... it is likely that in many cases their choice to drop out is optimal. They entered graduate school without fully knowing what it was like and whether it was a good match for them. After a couple of years, they decided it wasn’t. In light of the inherent uncertainty when choosing a path in life, a bit of experimentation is desirable...