Links for 2/21/11

Doug Bennett via Daniel de Vise

tell colleges and universities they cannot award any federal financial aid (Title IV) if they award merit aid. That is, tell them they can award need-based federal financial aid only if they award only need-based aid. We need to be sure that as much financial aid as possible is being devoted to meet need. Every dollar of merit aid is a wasted dollar with regard to the national problem of access…

the higher education marketplace is much too dominated by considerations of prestige and much too little dominated by considerations of real value or effectiveness…

(1) that we do not have nearly enough instruments for assessing student learning, and (2) that too few institutions are prepared to publicly disclose what they know about whether and what students are learning…

Neal McCluskey

evidence of success has never been important in decisions to keep or kill programs...

Roy Flores

students testing into the lowest levels of developmental education have virtually no chance of ever moving beyond remedial work and achieving their educational goals. For those students and their families, developmental education is expensive and demoralizing…

the realization that we cannot help every student…

Paula Marantz Cohen

Chinese universities have been accused of copying American models as they seek to evolve, but there is evidence that they are also altering our models in original and effective ways. One noteworthy example is tenure, recently introduced in China but in a slightly different form from what we know in America. Contracts are granted not for life but for three-year periods, and while tenured professors are largely assured sustained employment, they undergo regular review. There are obvious political reasons for that approach, but it also has clear benefits, prodding faculty to remain engaged and productive for the length of their careers…

A related innovation has to do with teaching. Those university professors not judged to be good teachers are placed on a research track, which, far from being a reward as in the United States, prevents those assigned to it from achieving the highest rank in their fields. The result is to create good researchers who work hard to become good teachers…