Bookmarks 16-December-2009

That Old College Lie
Kevin Carey. Democracy: A Journal of Ideas. Issue #15, Winter 2010.
“If progressives really care about higher education, if they’re truly committed to getting the most vulnerable students not just in the door to college but out the other side in one piece, they’ll be the first to insist that higher education reveal far more information about its successes and failures.”
gml: While better information about higher education in the U.S. would benefit students, families, some faculty, and some institutions, it’s not clear to me that a frontal assault on entrenched interests is the most fruitful approach. Carey suggests tying federal financial aid dollars to more college & university transparency, particularly for what are now euphemistically called learning outcomes. My gut says that the more indirect, populist, networked, social route may provide greater impact than repeating the charge of the light brigade represented by the recent Spellings Commission.

What the Google Web will look like in 10 years
Devindra Hardawar. Royal Pingdom Blog. 09-December-2009.
“Internet access will be ubiquitous, free to many, and Google will help make it happen.”
gml: Some of the predictions are not surprising. However, on what basis the author predicts free Internet access is unclear. There are no supporting links, so I couldn’t tell if it was merely wishful thinking or had some basis in unattributable personal information. It’s interesting too that Hardawar plugged Google Wave, despite the pounding it’s taken recently … a fact the author acknowledges. But perhaps the most telling words appear in the title. A “Google Web” is not something I find comforting. There are too many tradeoffs with the public good to embrace such a concept enthusiastically. Thanks to Stephen Arnold for the link to this article.

Taking Aim at the Supply Side
Jennifer Epstein. Inside Higher Ed. 09-December-2009.
“The higher education world often attributes the last few decades’ decline in the U.S. college completion rate on high schools, arguing that students are unable to make it through college because they’re inadequately prepared to set foot on campus as freshmen. A new study, though, pins the bulk of the decline on the change in the types of institutions students are attending.”
gml: This article opened a Pandora’s box of comments about a research study (.pdf) published recently by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). The reaction generated in IHE seems a classic case where a skillful, technical and highly quantitative study that is addressed to one audience fails to make the transition to a wider audience during public discourse. It’s a shame too. Given President Obama’s current goals for higher education in the United States, the research study could hardly be more topical. But it fails at a profound level by limiting the kind of discussion possible. Surely there must be a better way to embrace research rigor and concurrently encourage communication. Disclaimer: I read 10 pages of the 64-page report before my queasiness-meter reached capacity. When accumulated assumptions needed to promulgate research exceed some nebulous point, I can no longer decide independently whether to trust the study. So I stop. Nonetheless, the larger point is that we desperately need opportunities for public discussion of important policy issues and, in this case, that opportunity doesn’t appear likely.