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Higher Education Reform/Innovation

Schools: The Disaster Movie New York Magazine September 6, 2010 The excitement and agitation around "Waiting for Superman" might seem hyperbolic, overblown. Yet both are symptomatic of a signal moment in the annals of American education, when a confluence of factors - a grassroots outcry for better schools, a cadre of determined reformers, a newly demanding and parlous global economy, and a president willing to challenge his party's hoariest shibboleths and most potent allies - has created what Secretary of Education Arne Duncan calls a "perfect storm."

The Olive Garden Theory of Higher Education Chronicle of Higher Education September 6, 2010 Should colleges and universities find "innovative ways to skimp on quality"?  That provocation was made the other day by Matthew Yglesias of the Center for American Progress. He believes the American system of higher education could learn lessons from certain middlebrow suburban restaurant chains.

The End of Tenure? New Yokr Times Sunday Book Review - Essay September 5, 2010 The debate over American higher education has been reignited recently, thanks to two feisty new books. ­Higher Education? How Colleges Are Wasting Our Money and Failing Our Kids - And What We Can Do About It, by Andrew Hacker, a professor emeritus of political science at Queens College, and Claudia C. Dreifus, a journalist, is full of sarcastic asides, but its arguments have been praised in The Wall Street Journal and given a respectful airing on The Atlantic's Web site. They are also echoed in Mark C. Taylor's Crisis on Campus: A Bold Plan for Reforming Our Colleges and Universities, which is more measured in tone but no less devastating in its assessment of our unsustainable "education bubble."

Higher education bubble poised to burst The Examiner, Washington, D.C. - Column September 3, 2010 People are beginning to note that administrative bloat, so common in government, seems especially egregious in colleges and universities. Somehow previous generations got by and even prospered without these legions of counselors, liaison officers and facilitators. Perhaps we can do so again.  Still others wonder whether the four-year residential college model is worth the investment when you can spend much less on two years in community college and then transfer to a four-year school.

The Quality Question Chronicle of Higher Education - Special Report August 30, 2010 Over the next few months, The Chronicle will explore debates about quality in higher education-how to measure it and how to improve it.  This series, known as "Measuring Stick," will cover a broad territory, but it will always be anchored by two sets of questions.  First, how should quality in higher education be measured?  Second, are higher education's ostensible quality-control mechanisms functioning well?

Education secretary Arne Duncan: headmaster of US school reform Christian Science Monitor August 30, 2010 As students head back to school, educators nationwide are implementing controversial school reform wrought by Arne Duncan. Pushing competitive market approaches and armed with unprecedented funding and support from the president, he is possibly the most powerful education secretary ever.

'Forgive Us Our Debts, as We Forgive Our Debtors' Chronicle of Higher Education - Opinion Piece August 24, 2010 Richard Vedder calls for "a radical reformation of our inefficient and costly higher-education delivery system, one that radically limits third party payments that have contributed to the cost explosion. The problem is NOT that there is too little federal money in higher education, but rather that there is too much."

Apollo Group and University of Phoenix Examine the Future of Higher Education in America News Release August 23, 2010 Apollo Group, Inc. and University of Phoenix today released a report examining the significant challenges facing America's higher education system and the fundamental transformations that must occur to meet President Obama's mandate that the US produce the highest percentage of college graduates of any developed nation by 2020.

Obama team kills college dreams Washington Times - Editorial August 23, 2010 The Obama administration's animosity for business profits threatens to deny educational opportunities for more than 300,000 poor, working or otherwise at-risk college students. The proposal would make for-profit colleges less attractive and probably would lead to many of the affected students being dumped into state-sponsored universities and community colleges.

A Reset for Higher Education Chronicle of Higher Education - Opinion Piece August 22, 2010 Joni Finney, professor and director of the Institute for Research in Higher Education at the University of Pennsylvania, advocates that an improved status of higher education depends upon a greater understanding of the changes pressuring higher education.

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