April 6-7, 2015
Apr 06 01:15 Higher education theft Apr 06 01:18 College credit, high school class Apr 06 10:51 Juan Williams' pro-Reid blinders Apr 06 22:27 Jazmyne McGill vs. Education Minnesota Apr 07 01:50 College credit, high school class, Part II Apr 07 03:08 Met Council, state agency?
Prior Years: 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
Higher education theft
This NY Times article highlights how universities are stealing money from students and parents while driving up student load debt:
According to the Department of Education data, administrative positions at colleges and universities grew by 60 percent between 1993 and 2009, which Bloomberg reported was 10 times the rate of growth of tenured faculty positions.
Even more strikingly, an analysis by a professor at California Polytechnic University, Pomona, found that, while the total number of full-time faculty members in the C.S.U. system grew from 11,614 to 12,019 between 1975 and 2008, the total number of administrators grew from 3,800 to 12,183, a 221 percent increase.
That's immoral. Increasing full-time faculty in the California state university system by 3.5% at a time when administrators grew by 221% isn't justifiable, especially considering the fact that many of those positions pay $1,000,000+:
On the other hand, there are no valid arguments to support the recent trend toward seven-figure salaries for high-ranking university administrators, unless one considers evidence-free assertions about 'the market' to be intellectually rigorous.
Unfortunately, that's just part of the problem:
As the baby boomers reached college age, state appropriations to higher education skyrocketed, increasing more than fourfold in today's dollars, from $11.1 billion in 1960 to $48.2 billion in 1975. By 1980, state funding for higher education had increased a mind-boggling 390 percent in real terms over the previous 20 years. This tsunami of public money did not reduce tuition: quite the contrary.
For example, when I was an undergraduate at the University of Michigan in 1980, my parents were paying more than double the resident tuition that undergraduates had been charged in 1960, again in inflation-adjusted terms. And of course tuition has kept rising far faster than inflation in the years since: Resident tuition at Michigan this year is, in today's dollars, nearly four times higher than it was in 1980.
In other words, increased state funding in Michigan led to higher tuition rates. It's impossible to deny these statistics. What's worse is that there's no justification for Michigan's dramatic tuition increase in light of higher state appropriations.
If I could reach every graduate across the country, I'd tell them that they shouldn't contribute a penny to their alma mater until their alma mater trims their administration. Further, I'd tell them that they shouldn't vote for legislators who don't pressure university presidents who don't trim the administrative fat from their budgets. Standing for the overinflated status quo isn't acceptable. Period.
University presidents shouldn't tolerate over bloated administrations. Saying that it's generational theft is 100% accurate. When Occupy Wall Street was the Totalitarian Left's latest disruption on campuses, OWS committed some crimes. In fact, they committed some felonies, which caused the police to arrest OWS activists on the U-Cal Berkeley campus. After the police arrested the criminals, students were upset.
To prevent a disruption on campus, U-Cal Berkeley sent out the "Vice-Chancellor of Diversity and Inclusion" to tell the students that the administration didn't call the police, that it must've been a student. At that time, the Vice-Chancellor of Diversity and Inclusion was paid a salary of $330,000 a year.
As money pours into universities, both from federal grants, from state legislative appropriations and other sources, tuition should stabilize. Rather than stabilizing tuitions, they're getting spent to increase the size of the administration.
That's the definition of higher education theft.
Posted Monday, April 6, 2015 1:15 AM
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College credit, high school class
College In The Schools At Central Lakes Community College
by Silence Dogood
If you look at Central Lakes College's (CLC) website , you will find a program called College in the Schools (CIS), whereby high schools partner with CLC to offer Concurrent Enrollment (CE) courses. In CE courses, high school students receive college credit for their high school courses taught by their high school teachers. According to their website:
"Concurrent enrollment partnerships differ from other models of dual enrollment because high school instructors teach the college courses."
On their website is a map showing the high schools that have partnered with CLC.
The distances from most of these high schools to either of their two campuses (Staples and Brainerd) are far less than most of the schools that partner with Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College but some are still significantly distant from the Staples and Brainerd campuses. Coleraine High School is 90 miles; Monticello High School is 91 miles, Belgrade-Brooten-Elrosa High School is 95.6 miles, and Nashwauk High School is 103 miles.
Thirty high schools are listed on their website as partner schools - although only 26 schools (i.e., 'dots') are shown on their map. Additionally, Nashwauk is 15 miles northeast of Coleraine so their map would flunk Minnesota geography. Hopefully, they are teaching world geography instead of Minnesota geography in the high schools.
For 2014-15, CLC lists 537 classes of high school CE. For a bit of context, St. Cloud State University (SCSU) after nearly twenty years of experience with CE has only 225 classes. In the 2013-14 academic year, only the University of Minnesota with 12,312 students and Southwest Minnesota State University with 9,051 students exceeded the 6,022 students in CE by Central Lakes College. Again, SCSU only had 5,564 CE students for comparison.
Central Lakes College lists 143 teachers of all types. Out of this group, ~33 teachers at CLC are the paid mentors for CE classes. For some teachers, this is by choice, but also because many courses at CLC would not be applicable for CE in the high schools.
Typically, teachers at CLC each have a 5-course load per semester as their regular work. This is a VERY heavy teaching load and frequently leads to compromises of energy/time. How many classes of high school students do these teachers each have for this year? Please note that a section = a class of CE at a high school. The following table shows the numbers of sections that individual teachers are listed as the instructor of record. Although the data is available, the names of the teachers have been omitted:
This data seems to clearly indicate that there are some exceptional teachers at CLC who, while they are teaching a full load of five classes each semester also have the time to mentor and supervise over 40 sections of high school courses. Given the distances involved, it is likely that there is little, if any, personal contact with the teachers or the students in these high school classes despite the expectation in theory from National Alliance of Concurrent Enrollment (NACEP) standards.
It is hard to understand how an instructor teaching 4 or 5 courses per semester can adequately mentor more than one or two teachers per semester. CLC must have some amazing teachers because, from this list, it shows that 28 teachers are mentoring 6 or more classes in a year. At one time, SCSU had a faculty member that mentored nineteen sections of CE in one year. However, for that faculty member that was their entire teaching load for the year - they taught no other classes!
Long distances from the partnering college/university to the high school and large numbers of classes mentored by an individual teacher makes it very hard to believe that these high school students are actually getting the equivalent education that they would have received had they actually attended the college/university. Unfortunately, in this debate, it seems that the only thing that matters is that high school students can earn their Associate of Arts Degree for free while still attending high school. Too bad many of these students will find out that they actually got just exactly what they paid for.
Posted Monday, April 6, 2015 1:18 AM
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Juan Williams' pro-Reid blinders
Juan Williams' pro-Harry Reid blinders are on full display in Williams' latest column :
Republicans campaigned last fall voicing a constant refrain that voters should free them from Reid's control of the Senate. McConnell promised that Republicans would prove they could govern once Reid's hold had been broken. As the cynics say, 'How did that work out for you?'
Frankly, I'll take Mitch McConnell's attempting to get things done over Reid's one-man legislative branch veto anytime and it isn't close. Harry Reid was and is a tyrant who should be in prison. He shouldn't be praised.
Reid is now in the minority. He has announced he will not run again. But the GOP's inability to get anything done in the Senate for three months and counting is leading to new appreciation for the much-maligned Reid. Compare Reid's record to the GOP's ongoing failure to pass legislation to stop sex trafficking, to approve highway trust-fund spending or to confirm an attorney general.
There's no place in America's heartland where people have a new-found appreciation of Harry Reid. Since when do celebrate a person who essentially stopped the deliberative process? Why shouldn't such a tyrant be vilified for essentially preventing red state senators from representing their constituents?
There's nothing virtuous about that type of tyranny.
As for not passing the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act, place that totally at the feet of the Democrats. I wrote this article to highlight the fact that the bill passed the Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously and was on its way to winning full approval in the Senate when Democrat-aligned special interest groups told the Democrats that having the Hyde Amendment, a provision that was in the bill from the start, in the bill was a deal-breaker. Dutifully like all puppets do, the Democrats who both co-sponsored the bill, and who voted for it in committee, voted to filibuster the bill.
There's nothing virtuous about a political party that's so wedded to its special interest supporters that it'll turn its backs on victims of sex trafficking in exchange for ideological purity and additional campaign contributions.
Selling one's soul for political expediency has a name but that name isn't virtue.
'The corrosion of the Senate took place over many years,' McConnell said in an e-mail to Jennifer Steinhauer of the Times. 'So restoring the institution to allow members of both parties and their constituents to have a voice in the legislative process will take longer than three months. But we're making progress.'
And who is responsible for that 'corrosion'? McConnell's 'progress' is slowed by the same political divisions among Republicans that gummed up the works when Democrats had the majority. Maybe Republicans will now acknowledge that Reid was never the problem. The real issue all along has been the GOP's antipathy to the president.
Let's be blunt. Harry Reid worked to protect President Obama and Democratic senators. Sen. Reid prevented legislation that got overwhelming support in the House from even getting debated in the Senate. Sen. Reid wasn't the Senate Majority Leader from 2007-2014. He was the self-appointed emperor of the Senate.
Sen. Reid didn't let Republicans represent their constituents. I won't appreciate a tyrant who won't let elected officials represent their constituents. That's who Juan Williams thinks we should find a new-found appreciation for.
The mission statement of contemporary Republican Senate politics was issued by McConnell himself in 2010. "The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president,' he proclaimed. In response, Reid limited votes on amendments to rein in the political circus and focus attention on legislation that could win passage. "All I want to do is legislate," a frustrated Reid told me and a small group of columnists last summer.
Harry Reid lied and Juan Williams was gullible enough to believe him. Listen to this sentence:
In response, Reid limited votes on amendments to rein in the political circus and focus attention on legislation that could win passage.
TRANSLATION: Reid shut down debate because he didn't want debate on issues that the American people disagreed with Democrats on. This wasn't about reining in "the political circus." That's pure spin. This has everything to do with a) preventing Republican from presenting their ideas and b) protecting hard-hearted Democrats who didn't want to listen to the American people.
Sen. Reid and President Obama are only part of the Senate's problem. The Democrats' special interests are another part of the problem as is Sen. Schumer, Dick Durbin and their shrinking band of puppets. It's long past time we exposed the real cancer in the Senate. We have a republic, not an autocracy.
Posted Monday, April 6, 2015 10:52 AM
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Jazmyne McGill vs. Education Minnesota
When I read this article , I was furious. This story should never be told, in Minnesota or elsewhere:
Despite meeting all of the requirements for a diploma, I had to take a class in college that covered material I had already passed in high school. Worse, this class wouldn't earn me any credit toward a degree, although I had to pay full tuition for it.
Coming from a low-income family, I did not have the extra money to take a class that wouldn't count toward my degree. Minnesota's college graduates already carry one of the nation's highest student debt loads and repay their loans at an above average rate. Yet remedial classes saddle students with additional debt, don't earn them degrees, and deter them from completed their degrees - at a time when an increasing number of Minnesota jobs require post-secondary education.
Jazmyne McGill is the face of educational theft in Minnesota. What's happened to her has happened to other students:
In fact, fewer than one in 10 students enrolled in remedial classes graduate from community college within three years. About a third complete a bachelor's degrees in six years. Thirty percent of students who complete their remedial courses don't even attempt entry-level college courses within 2 years, according to Complete College America.
Education Minnesota has been in the business of trapping students in failing schools for years. What they're doing is unforgiveable. The thought that these students have to pay a price because Education Minnesota's lobbyists are close friends with DFL politicians is infuriating.
What Education Minnesota and the DFL have stolen from Jazmyne McGill isn't just time:
Burden is financial and emotional
These classes not only place a financial burden on our students but an emotional one as well. I can attest to the self-doubt that comes along with hearing I needed to take a remedial course. I felt defeated and as though I did not belong.
The fact that Jazmyne McGill had to doubt her abilities is appalling. Any educational system that instills that type of doubt in students needs to be torn down. Reform isn't possible, at least not in the short term:
While many efforts are under way to strengthen the K-12 system long-term, there's a solution available that can give Minnesota's college students immediate relief: co-requisite classes. Co-requisites are an alternative approach to remedial education that alleviates the financial burden of remedial courses. Co-requisites are entry-level credit-bearing classes that provide supplemental academic instruction including individual assistance and on-line support, in areas where students have demonstrated skill gaps.
Co-requisite courses allow students to enter their desired programs of study within the first academic year and give them the opportunity to graduate on time. Rather than eliminate remedial instruction, they embed it into college-level, credit-bearing courses. They help students succeed, lead to higher graduation rates and show them the education system is on their side and wants them to graduate and become productive citizens and workers.
The first step in fixing this problem is to close failing schools. Any system that deprives students of the ability to learn is immoral. Leaving those schools open is immoral, too. Architects of an education system that tells students that they're trapped in failing schools without a viable option is a system that's corrupted. Those systems must be eliminated ASAP.
Finally, anyone caught defending the status quo should be fired, too. FYI- People who say all that's needed is more funding are defending the status quo. That isn't a solution. It's a con game that's played out too long.
Posted Monday, April 6, 2015 10:27 PM
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College credit, high school class, Part II
Is Southwest Minnesota State University Actually A High School?
by Silence Dogood
It has long been known that among the MnSCU universities, Southwest Minnesota State University is the leader by a wide margin in regards to participation in the Concurrent Enrollment (CE) program. CE is a program where students get both high school and college credit for their high school courses. The following figure shows the number of credits for which State aid was requested in the 2013-14 academic year. The MnSCU universities are highlighted in red .
The data shows that in FY14 a total of 208,629 credits were taken by 59,749 students. The growth in CE has been incredible and the rate of growth is increasing by as much as 10% per year as the two-year colleges are ramping up their CE programs.
If all of these credits were earned at one university and they were turned into Full Year Equivalent (FYE) enrollment, it would be the 4th largest university in the MnSCU system as shown in the following figure:
This new CE 'university' would have nearly twice as large an FYE enrollment as Southwest Minnesota State University and be larger than four of the MnSCU universities. Given the growth in the CE program, it will be no more than two years before this CE 'university' would become the third largest in the MnSCU system.
In FY14, there were a total of 1,023 FYE generated from CE at Southwest Minnesota State University and 2,656 FYE generated from on campus students. As a result, 27.8% of the FYE enrollment at Southwest Minnesota State University came from high school students - most of whom never set foot on the Marshall campus. In some ways, CE programs function much like online programs.
From the data for FY15, Southwest has a total undergraduate headcount of 7,606. Out of this number, 5,022 or 66.0% came from students who are receiving college credit for classes taken in their high school. Since most of the students in CE programs never visit the university campus, it turns out that only one-third of the students enrolled at Southwest are actually on the Marshall campus!
If you look at the headcount enrollment, with 66.0% of the students at Southwest Minnesota State University taking part in the CE program, a sizeable majority of the students are actually high school students. As a result, you might call Southwest a high school. Since the average CE student takes fewer credits than a regular on campus student, CE programs only generates 27.8% of the total FYE enrollment. As a result, Southwest may look more like a university. However, with the continuing growth of CE programs statewide, the number of freshmen and sophomore students will decline significantly in the coming years because many students will graduate from high school with their Associate of Arts degree. As the number of these 'traditional' students decrease and the number of CE students increase, the percentage of high school students will increase and the percentage of the FYE due to CE will also increase. At some point, it will be fair to question whether or not Southwest Minnesota State University is the state's smallest state university or the state's largest high school.
Posted Tuesday, April 7, 2015 1:50 AM
Comment 1 by David Pichaske at 16-Apr-15 01:08 PM
This "cash cow" program actually hurts SMSU in the long run because (a) smart kids do not go to college where they went to high school, and (b) if the smart kids take English 151 in high school from their high school teacher, who is left to be in my English 151 class at the university?
Met Council, state agency?
This Strib article is an excellent piece of reporting in that it explains what the Met Council is:
'It's not about simply griping about allocation of transportation or parks money or housing in any given particular funding cycle,' said Dakota County Commissioner Chris Gerlach.
'We look at it and say, there is a fundamental problem with the way the Met Council functions. You think it's one thing, but it's really not,' Gerlach said. 'You think that a Met Council is made up of 16 individuals and a chair appointed by various districts and therefore you have a diverse group that is going to advocate for the region. It's not that at all. What it is, it's a state agency .'
I can't disagree with Gerlach's statement. The Council is appointed by the governor. Political appointees don't work on the behalf of these counties. In this instance, they work for Gov. Dayton and the DFL's special interests. The Met Council either needs to be changed or gotten rid of.
Counties still aren't happy, though. Four years ago, they were angry enough to take their case to the Transportation Department, which eventually affirmed, via a letter, that the current makeup is legal. That 2011 letter is still used by the Met Council to justify its decisionmaking process.
Changing the Met Council's board would require a change in state statute; several proposals pending in the Legislature would examine the issue. The way the Met Council operates is extremely rare: A 2010 report paid for by the Federal Highway Administration found that 94 percent of organizations like the Met Council are made up of elected officials.
A government agency that doesn't answer to the people is unaccountable. I wouldn't trust them.
Of course, Gov. Dayton is upset because he didn't pay attention to what's happening:
Dayton 'appalled'
Quarrels between cities and suburbs about how to spend public dollars are as old as the cities and suburbs themselves. But the decision by the four counties to hire a federal lobbyist, before checking with the governor, is viewed by Dayton as a nuclear option.
'It's really, really reprehensible on their part to be sneaking off to Washington behind the back of, I don't know if the people on the Met Council were aware of it, but at least behind my back,' Dayton said. 'And then come to the state of Minnesota for funding for their projects and the like? If we have a disagreement within our family, then the place to resolve that is within our family. To go out to Washington behind our backs and trash our situation here in Minnesota, and denigrate Minnesota in front of federal authorities, and try to turn the federal government against Minnesota is really, really irresponsible. I'm appalled to just learn this.'
First off, this isn't just a fight "within our family":
WASHINGTON - Four suburban Twin Cities counties say they are agitated with the way the Metropolitan Council is making decisions and have hired a federal lobbyist in hopes of gutting the regional planning organization's appointed board of directors. The lobbyist, who represents Anoka, Carver, Scott and Dakota counties, will work to make the case to the U.S. Department of Transportation that the Met Council, the seven-county regional agency whose 17 members are appointees of Gov. Mark Dayton, is violating a federal rule by distributing more than $660 million a year without appropriate input from elected officials.
Secondly, it isn't these counties' fault that Gov. Dayton is frequently asleep at the switch. It's time to either restructure the Met Council or tear it all down.
Posted Tuesday, April 7, 2015 3:08 AM
Comment 1 by Rex Newman at 07-Apr-15 06:22 PM
Let's not forget that Legislative Auditor Nobles said much the same thing in 2011. And let's not forget that this body has been under near total liberal control for decades, including train happy Ventura, and RINO's Carlson, Pawlenty.
