Higher education institutions and their lobbyists better keep a sharp eye on what is happening on the Hill in D.C. There is trouble brewing.
Politico.com published the following this morning:
SENATE HELP INQUIRES ON INNOVATION IN HIGHER ED: With No Child Left Behind behind them, Senate HELP Committee leaders return to Higher Education Act reauthorization today. The hearing focus: “Exploring barriers and opportunities within innovation.” Witnesses include Lumina Foundation President and CEO Jamie Merisotis, Higher Learning Commission President Barbara Gellman-Danley and Michael Horn, co-founder and executive director for education programs at the Clayton Christensen Institute. Also testifying is Southern New Hampshire University President Paul LeBlanc, who just wrapped a stint at the Education Department advising on innovation, competency-based education and accreditation. Watch live starting at 10 a.m. ET: http://1.usa.gov/1V7MAi2.
— Committee Chair Sen. Lamar Alexander will pose two big questions: How can Congress help colleges meet students’ changing needs and stop discouraging colleges and universities from innovating, and should the federal government consider a new definition for the college or university? “There are many new learning models that are entering the landscape, thanks to the Internet,” Alexander will say, according to prepared remarks. “We need to consider what role they play in our higher education system, and whether federal financial aid ought to be available to students who are learning outside our traditional institutions.”
— Ranking member Sen. Patty Murray wants to break down barriers that keep low-income and non-traditional students out of traditional colleges, she’ll say today. But she believes that to ensure institutions can’t mislead students, Congress should be wary of welcoming alternative providers and models without enacting strong accountability measures. “I know several of my Republican colleagues are interested in shaking up the current higher education system, the sooner the better. But I believe we should tread carefully,” Murray will say, according to prepared remarks. “Simply opening access to federal student aid, without accountability, for any company or institution that offers an alternative to traditional education would fail to protect consumers.”
As for the witnesses, the Lumina Foundation often teams up with Gates to redesign other people’s lives. Michael Horn is a big supporter of disruption theory (blow things up and see what happens next, as is Clayton Christensen, the Harvard business professor who made a virtue of chaos). And then there is that guy from Arne Duncan’s shop, whose university has one of the lowest graduation rates in New Hampshire.
What you can be sure of is that when government talks about “innovation” these days, what they really mean is opening up the sector for profit making, entrepreneurial ventures. You would think by now that the Congress would reflect on the meltdown at failed Corinthian Colleges, the for-profit (“innovative”) set of colleges that closed a few months ago, stranding tens of thousands of students. Our most “innovative” colleges and universities seem to be best at delivering instruction online, which opens up opportunities for selling product more than opportunities for higher education. No one stops higher education now from putting courses online, if they choose to. Why does Congress think that higher education is waiting to be told what to do by politicians? It may be asking too much to suggest that they stick to doing what they know, but….they should stick to doing what they know.
The biggest problem in higher education is that low-income and non-traditional students can’t afford to pay for it, and most traditional students leave burdened with debt. Why doesn’t the committee focus on that big obstacle and barrier to access? Affordability is what is needed, not new models designed by a Congressional committee.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Have you seen the NY Times article where cardio surgeons are complaining about being graded? Many similarities to our education evals.
Rick Coulter Rscoulter@aol.com
Sent from my iPad
>
LikeLike
Channeling Martin Niemoller right about now.
LikeLike
My fear is less prestigious schools will use online courses and we’ll end up with a cheap college certificate for the vast majority of people and a different “live” experience for the top 10%.
Let’s launch this ed reform experiment at the most prestigious schools. The huge group in the middle can be the followers, once the best and brightest have gotten the bugs out. Sound reasonable? Let us know how it works out!
LikeLike
This is already happening. My community college is offering ridiculously easy online courses. Some students only have to put in a few hours of work in a semester to complete an online course. The professors teach a lot of online courses as overloads in order to supplement terrible salaries. (This is in North Carolina.) Since they are teaching too many overloads, they simply make the online course as easy as possible with no actual teaching. Students will get credits, but they won’t learn anything.
LikeLike
I think federal higher education legislation will be reshaped to favor “innovation” from edtech companies. They have tons of money and want more to flow into various investment opportunities. Leading promoters are Michael Moe, who is connected at the hip with Michael Crow. Moe was the keynote speaker at the Arizona State University+Global Silicon Valley Summit, 2015 described as “the Knowledge Economy’s Mecca of conversation and activism devoted to accelerating learning innovation around the world.” http://asugsvsummit.com/2015
This annual ASU+GSV Summit for edutech entrepreneurs has a 46 member advisory committee co-chaired by Michael M. Crow, President of Arizona State University and Michael Moe co-founder and CEO of Chicago-based Global Silicon Valley Advisors and Asset Management Other advisors include Michael Horn of the Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation and representatives from the George Lucas Educational Foundation, Google, New Schools Venture Fund, Carnegie Foundation, Pearson, McGraw Hill, Scholastic, Microsoft, and others.
The 2015 Summit showcased over 275 vendors of “innovative” edtech products and services. The Summit had 32 “philanthropic partners” among these the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Bezos, MacArthur, Walton, and Woodrow Wilson and a batch of others philanthropic partners like Teach for America and The New Schools Venture Fund.
Among the 60 sponsors were the foundations of Bill and Melinda Gates, the Waltons, the Lumina and Kaufman foundations. Other sponsors included publishers Pearson, McGraw Hill, Centage, Scholastic, and Princeton Review; tech companies Dell, IBM, Microsoft, and Amazon Web Services. Add for-profit services & franchise schools Kaplan, Charter Schools USA, DeVry Education Group, the University of Phoenix, and many online providers of specialized courseware and services.
I was unable to find the fees for being a partner and being a sponsor, and for having a product or service featured at the summit. I am sure the summit is a money- maker and unparalleled venue for watching the inflow of money and political influence into “innovative” schemes for making profits from educational products and services.
Institutions of higher public education are now being branded a “cartel” by conservatives. Some claim there is a pattern of preference in federal funding that rewards students for pursuing “useless degrees and programs,” rather than programs that lead to jobs and help to grow the economy. An avowed preference for higher education as job-training often includes outright distain for studies in the humanities and the arts, and for basic research. These negative views may be coupled with a very selective devaluing of science, especially science bearing on human reproduction and welfare and the health of our shared habitat, planet earth.
Here are some of GSV ideas for subsidized but “market-based” higher education (edited from a prior post about GSV). The GSV report is filled charts, brand names, and growth curves selected to show investors the potential for profits from education, especially from technology and innovations spurred by entrepreneurs.
Strategic Moves for Investors.
1. Focus on marketing “innovation” and “product effectiveness.” “Make “Return on Education,” ROE, the objective measure of a good or bad education product.” Do not refer to “education reform.” Do not distinguish between “for-profit” and “not-for-profit” education.
2. Propose “innovation” as the solution to “our educational problem.”
B. Accountability.
1. Program outcomes. Require “Truth in Education” contracts. Students and parents (or financially responsible party) must read and sign before they enroll in a program. The contract will show “the percentage of students that graduates (sic), the number of years it takes to graduate, the percentage of graduates that find a job within 12 month (sic), the average starting salary, and the average student loan amount.”
2. Customer ratings. Encourage entrepreneurs to publicize consumer ratings of all schools, administrators, teachers, and ROE for educational products and services.
3. Credit for proficiency. Replace “seat time” in courses with credit for completing learning modules with “proficiency.”
4. Proof of Proficiency. Very citizen has a “virtual credentials wallet” with records of every competency-based module completed, other information on achievements, and “your knowledge score” in a form suitable for employers and academic institutions. College students take courses online, from anywhere, but can earn a “disaggregated” degree from a “home campus.”
C. Standards, Curriculum, National Economy
1. Incentives for STEM. Recruit the top 0.1% of global STEM students to American higher education with an endowed scholarship program, provided these recruits live in the U.S. for 5 years post-graduation.
2. Incentives for STEM. Change immigration policy to allow any master’s or Ph.D. graduate from a foreign but accredited STEM program to receive permanent residence status.
D. Teachers & Teaching
1. Pay. Must be “100% aligned with teacher effectiveness, performance of students, and market demand” for teachers in specific subjects.
2. Pedagogy. Teacher will as an individualized coach more than a lecturer.
3. Pedagogy. Use adaptive technology to facilitate individualized pacing for instruction.
E. Finance.
1. Every student. Government funds follow the student.
2. Every student. Create tax-deductible savings accounts. These earn tax-free interest while funds are invested. Students must spend these funds within 5 years. Otherwise the account balance and earned interest becomes taxable. Employers may offer education accounts similar their retirement and health savings accounts
3. Tax perks for individuals. Offer a tax deduction every April 15th for any dollars spent on out-of-pocket learning.
4. Tax perks for business. Give businesses tax credits for investing in employee training and development.
I have checked into some GSV’s portfolio recommendations from two years ago. One crashed from the inability of the edtech company to pass muster with a university accreditation system. I think all of those systems will be under attack. Another had over 200 really negative consumer ratings that were not removed, telling tales of unauthorized uses of students credit cards for accounts they had set up to get discounts on textbooks, on demand tutoring (over charged on rate and time and poor quality). In other words, Corinthian College workouts on student loans are likely to look like a minor glitch compared to any policies where money flows to the student or into a tax-deferred savings account.
LikeLike
Laura,
Again, an excellent analysis. You (and, of course Dr. Ravitch) should be making decisions at the Dept. of Education.
The highly publicized myth about K-12 teachers was focused on incompetence. The right-wing myth about higher ed. focuses on lack of innovation.
The threat from the federal Dept. of Education blindsides people. It’s difficult to accept and comprehend that a Democratic President would sell, America’s most important democratic public good, to corporations. Pres. Obama was elected because people wanted a voice against Washington’s plutocrats. His election was cheered and then, we found ourselves further exploited.
LikeLike
“SENATE HELP INQUIRES ON INNOVATION IN HIGHER ED: With No Child Left Behind behind them, Senate HELP Committee leaders return to Higher Education Act reauthorization today. The hearing focus: “Exploring barriers and opportunities within innovation”
Define innovation. Let’s keep it simple. Is it the students now entering colleges and universities who had common core introduced a few years ago, which threw their studies upside down and into turmoil? Senate leaders know nothing about it and could care less !
LikeLike
“How can Congress help colleges meet students’ changing needs and stop discouraging colleges and universities from innovating….”
So many assumptions here. Who says students’ needs are changing? Yes, technology is changing and there may be small adjustments to account for that, but technology is generally designed to make our lives easy and to be easy to use. And students have grown up with it since infancy, so it’s not like they need a lot of instruction.
But mostly students still need the same things they’ve always needed. They need to learn how to communicate effectively orally and in writing. They need to have different strategies to solve problems. They need to have the social skills to work with other people and resolve conflicts. They need to have experiences being confronted with new information and/or information they disagree with to challenge and expand their thinking and to develop skills to defend their point of view. They need to figure out who they are and what they want out of life (more than just “what do you want to be when you grow up”) and they need the guidance to figure out how to work toward such goals. They need to learn independence, the ability to stand on one’s own two feet and make one’s own way in the world. And they need information and skills relevant to their own chosen life pursuits (career and otherwise).
And who says that Congress is “discouraging” colleges and universities from innovating? How so? I’m not aware of any laws that say that colleges and universities can’t experiment and develop new programs and new methods of delivery.
And what is “innovation” anyway? To hear politicians talk, it seems like it all boils down to technology. But if they’d open their eyes and look, they’d see innovation happening in practically every class and every lab as students wrestle with ideas and experiment with different theories – in all fields, hardly limited to technology.
And who says that innovation is always a good thing? Shouldn’t we at least occasionally slow down and ask ourselves why things are the way they are, how did we get here, what’s good about the status quo before we blithely go upending everyone’s lives (or, rather, everyone *else’s* lives)?
LikeLike
Follow the $$$$$!
LikeLike
C’mon Lamar and Patty, sing along, “I’m so ICDC college, college”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2xYiJV668Y
Do we really need the federal government rating colleges? nooooo.
How about no federal funds for ‘for profit colleges’?
LikeLike
Looks like the name of the game is: Innovate. Sell. Fail. Take the money. Run. Repeat.
If you’re honest, have integrity, can’t be bought, don’t play games, loyal, and caring, you are a passe loser.
LikeLike
“can’t be bought”
Unfortunately, there’s a cottage industry of plutocratic-funded faculty at public and private universities, many in economics departments, who produce dubious reports, harming the public.
LikeLike
“Ranking member Sen. Patty Murray wants to break down barriers that keep low-income and non-traditional students out of traditional colleges, she’ll say today. But she believes that to ensure institutions can’t mislead students, Congress should be wary of welcoming alternative providers and models without enacting strong accountability measures. “I know several of my Republican colleagues are interested in shaking up the current higher education system, the sooner the better. But I believe we should tread carefully,” Murray will say, according to prepared remarks. “Simply opening access to federal student aid, without accountability, for any company or institution that offers an alternative to traditional education would fail to protect consumers.”
Remember- these are the same people who completely and utterly failed to regulate for-profit colleges.
As a result tens of millions of low income people and veterans now have huge loans they cannot discharge and will carry for the rest of their lives.
These are exactly the same people who pushed for-profit colleges and then refused to do anything about it for more than a decade although they had hearing after hearing and reams of information and they knew tens of millions were being blatantly (and sometimes criminally) ripped off. Murray is pretending they didn’t have “data” for “accountability” but they did- they had everything they needed to regulate. We know this because state AG’s eventually stepped in and filled the void and sued.
Will this be less corrupt and less gimmick-driven and are they less captured than they were last year? What changed?
LikeLike