by Reeve Hamilton | Texas Tribune
July 12, 2011
In 2003, Gov. Rick Perry signed off one of the most significant policy changes in the history of Texas higher education. With both the state and its public universities strapped for cash, the decision was made to grant universities the autonomy to set tuition rates, freeing them from government regulation that had artificially kept Texas public higher education affordable for generations.
As expected, college costs in Texas ticked upward — a trend that looks likely to persist as the state’s contribution continues to decline. Texas Tech University in Lubbock, for example, has seen the state-funded portion of its budget drop from 56 percent in 1990 to 36 percent in 2010. After taking another cut this year, the Texas Tech University System regents — all Perry appointees — just hiked the tuition at their main campus by 5.9 percent and at Angelo State University by 9.9 percent. At the state’s flagship institutions, the numbers are even worse: State contributions make up 24 percent of Texas A&M University’s budget and 14 percent of the University of Texas' budget, down from 52 percent 30 years ago
It’s not the sort of trend that Perry — who often notes in his stump speeches that he is an animal-science graduate from Texas A&M — wants to be associated with. More recently, he has ramped up a public push for lower tuition while shifting blame to the universities by urging them to reduce inefficiencies.
“There are serious improvements that need to be made to our higher education system,” Perry spokeswoman Catherine Frazier says. “We have a great higher education system, but there are steps that need to be taken to improve it, and we can’t ignore what those needs are."
In recent months, the various forces in Perry’s conflicted higher ed history have come to a head. The result: an overwrought public identity crisis in the state’s higher education community, the resolution of which will likely define the governor’s legacy on the topic and could be a factor in any potential bid for higher office.
Among the issues at hand: Can access to higher education be expanded and tuition lowered without sacrificing quality? What role should academic research play at public universities? Who should and shouldn’t be managing the state’s educational institutions — and how are the current leaders doing so far?
Even before taking the helm of the state in late 2000, Perry showed interest in higher education. In 1999, as lieutenant governor, he established a Special Commission on 21st Century Colleges and Universities “to take a long-term look at improving higher education — its mission, its role in the new economy, and its accessibility and its affordability.”
The next year, worried about the quality of Texas’ higher education system and that it was lagging too far behind the country’s leaders, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, which monitors the implementation of the state’s higher ed policy, launched a 15-year initiative to bring the state up to a level of parity. Encouraged by the governor, it has seen success in some areas. But headed into the final four-year homestretch, challenges remain.
“Texas has done a much better job on access,” observes Bill Hammond, president of the Texas Association of Business. “Now we need to turn the directions toward completions.”
While Texas students are heading to college in greater number (and Texas Higher Education Commissioner Raymund Paredes anticipates they will reach the 2015 enrollment goal), they still struggle to come out of the system with a degree or certificate. As Mark Miner, the governor’s spokesman, noted in a recent press release calling on universities to “join the reform efforts,” the statewide four-year graduation rate is about 28.6 percent compared to a national average closer to 40 percent. Degrees conferred in science, technology, engineering and math fields are particularly behind in reaching the state’s goals, as are teacher certifications.
Hammond says the long-term workforce implications of such success rates should be of more concern than rising tuition. “It’s higher than anyone would like it to be, and that’s a hindrance,” he said, “but I don’t think that’s the issue.” For one thing, Hammond points out, before the cuts made in the just-ended legislative session, funds going toward financial aid had been increasing. Also, tuition in Texas remains relatively low — in the case of community colleges, extremely so.
Average tuition at a public two-year institution in Texas is $1,796, which is 45th among all the states. With an average tuition cost of $5,623, Texas’ public four-year institutions rank 28th. According to recently released U.S. Department of Education statistics, South Texas College in McAllen and the University of Texas-Pan American in Edinburg are the two most affordable colleges in the country.
And not everyone is troubled by recent trends. Randy Diehl, the dean of the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Texas at Austin, concedes that tuition increases have outpaced inflation, but argues that the average yearly increase in tuition since deregulation is less than average yearly increases in the decade preceding it.
Also, he says, if tuition were lowered, in order to maintain access, the portion of tuition that is currently set aside for financial aid would have to be replaced with increased funding from regressive sales taxes. “So in terms of what’s fair, socially and economically,” he says, “I would trade a higher tuition for a lower state contribution any day.”
In his State of the State address this year and in subsequent public remarks, Perry called for three things for higher education: a funding system that rewards outcomes, a four-year tuition freeze and the creation of a $10,000 bachelor’s degree — books included. But the proposals that have ended up getting the most attention are “seven breakthrough solutions” for higher education that Perry has been promoting behind the scenes for the last three years.
The proposals — which focus on the widely agreed upon goals of emphasizing quality teaching, efficiency and productivity — were written by Jeff Sandefer, a wealthy oil investor and founder of a private business school in Austin. He was one of the initial members of Lt. Gov. Perry’s special commission. After Sandefer’s proposals were unveiled at a summit in 2008, Perry made it clear that regents would be judged by what they did with the suggestions, and his office later emphasized that the initiatives — which have been deeply unpopular in academic circles — should be “regent driven."
The chief source of influence the governor has at a university stems from his power to appoint the members of the boards of regents, who are charged with the oversight of university systems including matters such as tuition increases and the hiring and firing of administrators.
Perry’s appointees haven’t always voted his way, one famous example being the most recent selection of the chancellor for the University of Texas System in 2009. Perry wanted former state Sen. John Montford, but the regents went with Dr. Francisco Cigarroa, who holds the post to this day. Scott Caven, who was the chairman of the UT board at the time, said it was the only issue he ever heard from Perry about while he served in that role. And even then, Caven recalls, Perry only said he was disappointed in the outcome.
“There was never any direct retribution on me,” Caven says, though that may not be true for others. A public dressing-down of UT regent Bob Rowling, the wealthy founder of TRT Holdings, by members of the Senate Finance Committee at a 2009 hearing, ostensibly about bonuses paid to employees of the UT System’s investment management company of which Rowling was serving as chairman, was widely viewed as his comeuppance for either supporting Cigarroa, or U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, in what was then an upcoming run at Perry’s seat, or both.
Perry’s influence has been detected by many in other administrative moves, such as the ousting of Elsa Murano as Texas A&M University president in 2009 and — though the current regent leaders deny it — the recent departure of A&M System Chancellor Mike McKinney, a former chief of staff to Perry who, perhaps ironically, as chancellor played a significant role in pushing Murano out.
McKinney and the A&M board of regents were the most active in implementing Sandefer’s “solutions,” though the few steps they did make did not meet with Sandefer’s approval — or the approval of the academic community. A spreadsheet of all the system’s faculty members that illustrated which ones brought in money and which didn’t drew a rebuke from the American Association of Universities, a prestigious group of research institutions. A program that gave cash awards to professors based solely on evaluations met with disapproval, and its termination was announced earlier this month.
The Texas Tech University System, which has thus far remained largely untouched by the back-and-forth, drafted a report similar to A&M’s in response to the proposals, but it did not delve into the specifics of individual faculty. Under pressure, the UT System published a massive spreadsheet of its faculty “productivity” earlier this year. As the implementation has progressed, especially at UT, so has the controversy.
Other proposals, such as the separation of teaching and research budgets, have been called “anti-research,” though Perry staffers are quick to point out that he has encouraged the commercialization of research. Though academics point out that much research cannot and is not meant to be commercialized. In 2009, Perry signed a landmark bill by House Higher Education Chairman Dan Branch, R-Dallas, that dedicated money to the creation of more public tier-one research universities (of which Texas only has two) throughout the state.
Branch is now a co-chairman, along with Senate Higher Education Chairwoman Judith Zaffirini, D-Laredo, of a new Joint Oversight Committee on Higher Education Governance, Excellence, and Transparency, which was created by the legislative leadership out of concern for the direction recently appointed regents — which many view to be more proactive than the governor’s previous selections — might take with regard to the “solutions.”
Some former regents, including Caven, who was at the initial rollout of the “seven breakthrough solutions” (at the time, his impression was that they were optional), helped with the creation of a new Texas Coalition for Excellence in Higher Education, a bipartisan group of prominent Texans who oppose Sandefer’s “solutions" (as the group's detractors point out, a number of the members also opposed the governor in during his re-election bid).
How the governor and his appointed regents handle the new legislative committee, which was created against Perry’s will, and the debate between the various outside organizations that are now focusing on the issue remains to be seen. As rising student debt becomes a national issue, the push for belt-tightening and lower tuition may strike a chord, even while the specific steps taken may be questioned.
“I certainly don’t think Rick Perry is the anti-education governor,” Caven says. “I just think that the of the proposals he and some of his appointees are suggesting seem to be overly simplistic solutions to very complex issues.”
Frazier, Perry’s spokeswoman, says that while the governor supports the goals of the “seven solutions,” he believes universities should find approaches to those goals that work best for their respective institutions. “The governor has always worked with lawmakers on all these issues. His focus right now is working with all of these respective parties to promote the goals of accessibility, affordability and transparency to bring tuition down and improve graduation rates.”
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Latino Childhood Obesity Education Summit
Please click the fliers for information on the the Latino Childhood Obesity Education Summit hosted by La Fe Policy Research and Education Center and MALDEF. The event will be on July 14, 2011 at Methodist Healthcare Ministries, 4507 Medical Drive, San Antonio, Texas.
-Patricia
-Patricia
Monday, July 11, 2011
Higher ed critics target elusive 'lazy professor'
Reformers call for more teaching and less research
By MELISSA LUDWIG | STAFF WRITER
July 10, 2011,
Lazy professor, beware.
Your time delivering droning lectures and writing overwrought articles for obscure journals draws nigh. A posse of free-market thinkers led by a conservative Austin think tank wants to hold higher education accountable by weeding out bad teachers and unproductive researchers.
But how do you corner these elusive creatures? Their peers characterize the lazy professor as a rarity, quietly culled from the herd before earning tenure.
Critics, however, believe they are far more commonplace, and can be exposed by crunching numbers on teaching loads, research grants and student evaluations.
Some would like to do away with tenure, reasoning that professors would work harder if their contract came up every few years. Others, including Gov. Rick Perry, have suggested that professors should stick to research that "delivers real dollars."
Yet academics and a new coalition of higher education boosters say critics are on the wrong track if their goal is to improve Texas universities.
Those kinds of remarks about research, coupled with the release of reams of detailed salary and workload data for thousands of professors in the Texas A&M University and University of Texas Systems, have already bruised the national reputation of two well-regarded university systems, said John Curtis, director of research and public policy at the American Association of University Professors.
"People around the country are watching that and would be leery of taking a job at A&M or UT," Curtis said. "If it continues that way, it may be a detriment for all of public higher education."
Return on investment
Those who seek greater productivity insist the scrutiny is long overdue.
"All we've ever wanted to do with this issue is just have an open discussion about 'Are the taxpayers of the state of Texas getting a good return on their investment?' " Perry has said. "To be honest with you, we can't answer that unless we have openness and transparency in higher ed, and there's some that just block that."
In addition to the governor, the roster of change-seekers includes several university regents, some conservative lawmakers and wealthy Austin entrepreneur Jeff Sandefer. Many have ties to the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a conservative Austin think tank that has acted as the movement's brain trust.
David Guenthner, a TPPF spokesman, said the cost of higher education has spiraled out of control, and many students are questioning whether it's a worthy investment.
In his view, tuition and state dollars subsidize the time professors spend writing journal articles of questionable value to society.
The system, he said, is set up to reward research with higher pay, professional kudos and a job for life, while good teaching often goes unrecognized.
As a result, Guenthner declared, students who pay top dollar for a flagship education spend a good deal of their first two years in huge lecture halls being taught by adjuncts rather than by tenured professors.
"The pendulum has probably swung more in the direction of research in recent years, to the detriment of teaching," he said. "We think there needs to be a better balance for the sake of Texas students."
Defining 'research'
Most universities break down the job of a professor as 40 percent teaching, 40 percent research, and 20 percent service.
Service is a broad category, but typically involves sitting on governance committees, which give tenured and tenure-track faculty a voice in hiring and other decision-making at the university.
Most professors will say it's dreary work and there are too many committees. But no one seems to be fighting over the 20 percent of time professors spend on service.
The debate has centered squarely on teaching and research.
The term "research" conjures images of professors in white coats playing with beakers, but for most scholars it means publishing books or articles in academic journals.
Ideally, these writings illuminate new knowledge in the field, whether a theory about the origins of hominids or consumer behavior in modern Latin America.
But in the opinion of the change-seekers — and more quietly, some within the ranks of academia - much of this scholarly output is of questionable worth.
"I would say that 90 percent of it is a waste," said J. Ronald Carey, professor emeritus of marketing at Our Lady of the Lake University. "I am hesitant to call it research."
Carey received his doctorate from UT-Austin and taught at George Washington University, which has high research activity, before taking a job at the Pentagon and later at OLLU in San Antonio. For Carey and his colleagues, "research" was issuing questionnaires to sophomores and spinning their answers into multiple publications.
"We would get the data and say, 'How many line items do you think we can get out of this?' " he said.
Playing the research game has its benefits, Carey said.
"The people producing research have lower class sizes, more favorable schedules and they get teaching assistants," he noted. "And if they are doing really well, they get offers from other schools and can lobby for higher pay. Teachers do not have that leverage."
Few would argue with the premise that research is critical for promotion, but many disagree that most of it is fireplace fodder.
"No one thought the double helix would have any practical value," said William Powers, president of UT-Austin. "The value is not always recognizable at the time. It's a little like your stock portfolio; you don't know what the winners and losers are going to be."
Defending 'soft research'
Research, especially in the sciences, is also a huge enterprise for Texas institutions, generating nearly $1.7 billion annually. A portion goes directly to the university to cover overhead, fund laboratory infrastructure, pay faculty salaries and support fellowships for graduate students.
But few are picking on research that can be measured in dollars. It's the ones that can't be measured that troubles some.
Academics defend so-called "soft research," saying it advances knowledge. The act of getting out in the field, reading new material, attending conferences and exchanging ideas helps professors keep curriculum fresh and up-to-date, to the benefit of students.
"It is very easy to teach the same thing over and over," said Renee Rubin, a professor of education who retired this year from UT- Brownsville. "I would not want to see the research component go."
However, Rubin said she would welcome more flexibility about what counts as research.
UTB is primarily a teaching institution, yet her bosses raised the bar on publications in recent years, expecting two or more a year from professors who teach four classes per semester.
"Personally, I am more of a teacher. That is why I went into it," Rubin said.
In the University of Texas System, regents require an average faculty teaching load of three classes per semester, but that doesn't mean every professor teaches exactly three.
A scientist at a Tier One research institution - especially if backed by a large grant - may not teach at all, while a professor such as Rubin may teach four courses and do a little scholarly work. However, that scientist may supervise a dozen master's degree and doctoral students in a lab, a task that's hard to separate from "teaching."
Averaged across the UT System from 2007 to 2010, faculty members exceeded the minimum, spending from 29 to 39 actual weekly clock hours on instruction, including grading papers and preparing for class, according to the system's records.
Solutions spelled out
Critics still complain, however, that tenured and tenure-track professors prefer small, upper-level seminars, leaving the grunt work of teaching broad introductory classes to instructors, adjuncts and teaching assistants.
Statewide, 65 percent of full-time equivalent faculty were tenured or tenure-track in 2010, yet they taught only 39 percent of lower division credit hours, according to the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board.
That isn't how it should be, according to Naomi Schaefer Riley, a former editor at the Wall Street Journal and author of The Faculty Lounges … And Other Reasons Why You Won't Get the College Education You Pay For.
"You want the most experienced teachers in front of the introductory classes because that is where it is hardest to engage students," Riley said.
The ideas are spelled out in Seven Breakthrough Solutions, written by Sandefer, promoted by TPPF and embraced by Perry.
Emails obtained through open records laws show that Perry and Sandefer have been leaning on university regents to implement the solutions since 2008, when they were introduced at an Austin summit.
Bonuses panned, dropped
The Texas A&M University System implemented the teaching bonuses, but they were panned by faculty at the flagship campus as a popularity contest. Research has shown that evaluations correlate closely with the grade students received in the class, and most administrators also rely on peer review when evaluating a professor's teaching skills.
Last week, the new interim A&M chancellor discontinued the teaching awards.
UT-Austin has taken a more targeted approach to the problem.
To give freshmen and sophomores more contact with senior faculty, UT has created seminar classes and research opportunities for those students.
Also, many large introductory courses are being redesigned to promote more active learning and improve success rates.
"These reforms have been going on for the last five years. Our faculty are behind (them)," Powers said.
By MELISSA LUDWIG | STAFF WRITER
July 10, 2011,
Lazy professor, beware.
Your time delivering droning lectures and writing overwrought articles for obscure journals draws nigh. A posse of free-market thinkers led by a conservative Austin think tank wants to hold higher education accountable by weeding out bad teachers and unproductive researchers.
But how do you corner these elusive creatures? Their peers characterize the lazy professor as a rarity, quietly culled from the herd before earning tenure.
Critics, however, believe they are far more commonplace, and can be exposed by crunching numbers on teaching loads, research grants and student evaluations.
Some would like to do away with tenure, reasoning that professors would work harder if their contract came up every few years. Others, including Gov. Rick Perry, have suggested that professors should stick to research that "delivers real dollars."
Yet academics and a new coalition of higher education boosters say critics are on the wrong track if their goal is to improve Texas universities.
Those kinds of remarks about research, coupled with the release of reams of detailed salary and workload data for thousands of professors in the Texas A&M University and University of Texas Systems, have already bruised the national reputation of two well-regarded university systems, said John Curtis, director of research and public policy at the American Association of University Professors.
"People around the country are watching that and would be leery of taking a job at A&M or UT," Curtis said. "If it continues that way, it may be a detriment for all of public higher education."
Return on investment
Those who seek greater productivity insist the scrutiny is long overdue.
"All we've ever wanted to do with this issue is just have an open discussion about 'Are the taxpayers of the state of Texas getting a good return on their investment?' " Perry has said. "To be honest with you, we can't answer that unless we have openness and transparency in higher ed, and there's some that just block that."
In addition to the governor, the roster of change-seekers includes several university regents, some conservative lawmakers and wealthy Austin entrepreneur Jeff Sandefer. Many have ties to the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a conservative Austin think tank that has acted as the movement's brain trust.
David Guenthner, a TPPF spokesman, said the cost of higher education has spiraled out of control, and many students are questioning whether it's a worthy investment.
In his view, tuition and state dollars subsidize the time professors spend writing journal articles of questionable value to society.
The system, he said, is set up to reward research with higher pay, professional kudos and a job for life, while good teaching often goes unrecognized.
As a result, Guenthner declared, students who pay top dollar for a flagship education spend a good deal of their first two years in huge lecture halls being taught by adjuncts rather than by tenured professors.
"The pendulum has probably swung more in the direction of research in recent years, to the detriment of teaching," he said. "We think there needs to be a better balance for the sake of Texas students."
Defining 'research'
Most universities break down the job of a professor as 40 percent teaching, 40 percent research, and 20 percent service.
Service is a broad category, but typically involves sitting on governance committees, which give tenured and tenure-track faculty a voice in hiring and other decision-making at the university.
Most professors will say it's dreary work and there are too many committees. But no one seems to be fighting over the 20 percent of time professors spend on service.
The debate has centered squarely on teaching and research.
The term "research" conjures images of professors in white coats playing with beakers, but for most scholars it means publishing books or articles in academic journals.
Ideally, these writings illuminate new knowledge in the field, whether a theory about the origins of hominids or consumer behavior in modern Latin America.
But in the opinion of the change-seekers — and more quietly, some within the ranks of academia - much of this scholarly output is of questionable worth.
"I would say that 90 percent of it is a waste," said J. Ronald Carey, professor emeritus of marketing at Our Lady of the Lake University. "I am hesitant to call it research."
Carey received his doctorate from UT-Austin and taught at George Washington University, which has high research activity, before taking a job at the Pentagon and later at OLLU in San Antonio. For Carey and his colleagues, "research" was issuing questionnaires to sophomores and spinning their answers into multiple publications.
"We would get the data and say, 'How many line items do you think we can get out of this?' " he said.
Playing the research game has its benefits, Carey said.
"The people producing research have lower class sizes, more favorable schedules and they get teaching assistants," he noted. "And if they are doing really well, they get offers from other schools and can lobby for higher pay. Teachers do not have that leverage."
Few would argue with the premise that research is critical for promotion, but many disagree that most of it is fireplace fodder.
"No one thought the double helix would have any practical value," said William Powers, president of UT-Austin. "The value is not always recognizable at the time. It's a little like your stock portfolio; you don't know what the winners and losers are going to be."
Defending 'soft research'
Research, especially in the sciences, is also a huge enterprise for Texas institutions, generating nearly $1.7 billion annually. A portion goes directly to the university to cover overhead, fund laboratory infrastructure, pay faculty salaries and support fellowships for graduate students.
But few are picking on research that can be measured in dollars. It's the ones that can't be measured that troubles some.
Academics defend so-called "soft research," saying it advances knowledge. The act of getting out in the field, reading new material, attending conferences and exchanging ideas helps professors keep curriculum fresh and up-to-date, to the benefit of students.
"It is very easy to teach the same thing over and over," said Renee Rubin, a professor of education who retired this year from UT- Brownsville. "I would not want to see the research component go."
However, Rubin said she would welcome more flexibility about what counts as research.
UTB is primarily a teaching institution, yet her bosses raised the bar on publications in recent years, expecting two or more a year from professors who teach four classes per semester.
"Personally, I am more of a teacher. That is why I went into it," Rubin said.
In the University of Texas System, regents require an average faculty teaching load of three classes per semester, but that doesn't mean every professor teaches exactly three.
A scientist at a Tier One research institution - especially if backed by a large grant - may not teach at all, while a professor such as Rubin may teach four courses and do a little scholarly work. However, that scientist may supervise a dozen master's degree and doctoral students in a lab, a task that's hard to separate from "teaching."
Averaged across the UT System from 2007 to 2010, faculty members exceeded the minimum, spending from 29 to 39 actual weekly clock hours on instruction, including grading papers and preparing for class, according to the system's records.
Solutions spelled out
Critics still complain, however, that tenured and tenure-track professors prefer small, upper-level seminars, leaving the grunt work of teaching broad introductory classes to instructors, adjuncts and teaching assistants.
Statewide, 65 percent of full-time equivalent faculty were tenured or tenure-track in 2010, yet they taught only 39 percent of lower division credit hours, according to the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board.
That isn't how it should be, according to Naomi Schaefer Riley, a former editor at the Wall Street Journal and author of The Faculty Lounges … And Other Reasons Why You Won't Get the College Education You Pay For.
"You want the most experienced teachers in front of the introductory classes because that is where it is hardest to engage students," Riley said.
The ideas are spelled out in Seven Breakthrough Solutions, written by Sandefer, promoted by TPPF and embraced by Perry.
Emails obtained through open records laws show that Perry and Sandefer have been leaning on university regents to implement the solutions since 2008, when they were introduced at an Austin summit.
Bonuses panned, dropped
The Texas A&M University System implemented the teaching bonuses, but they were panned by faculty at the flagship campus as a popularity contest. Research has shown that evaluations correlate closely with the grade students received in the class, and most administrators also rely on peer review when evaluating a professor's teaching skills.
Last week, the new interim A&M chancellor discontinued the teaching awards.
UT-Austin has taken a more targeted approach to the problem.
To give freshmen and sophomores more contact with senior faculty, UT has created seminar classes and research opportunities for those students.
Also, many large introductory courses are being redesigned to promote more active learning and improve success rates.
"These reforms have been going on for the last five years. Our faculty are behind (them)," Powers said.
Houston ISD's Teach for America teachers stronger in some test areas, weaker in reading, than counterparts: Study
By Lynn Walsh | Texas Watchdog
Monday, Jul 11, 2011
Teachers from the nonprofit “Teach for America” program leave the Houston Independent School District at higher rates than their non-TFA counterparts, and their students’ performance record is mixed when compared to their counterparts, a district study shows.
While TFA teachers make up twice the share of HISD’s new teachers than they did a few years ago -- nearly 1 in 3 new HISD teachers was a TFA’er in 2009-10, the study says -- the TFA teachers are also leaving at faster rates than their counterparts, the internal study found.
“Forty-four percent of the 2005−2006 non-TFA new hires returned to HISD in 2010−2011 for their sixth year of service in HISD, while only 9 percent of the 2005−2006 TFA new hires returned to the district in October 2010,” the report says.
At the same time, however, for the first time in five years, retention rates for TFA teachers was greater than non-TFA teachers for those beginning their second year of teaching in HISD.
HISD has hired more than 600 teachers from TFA, a national education nonprofit that helps urban and rural school districts meet their teaching needs, in the last five years.
The hiring of TFA teachers by HISD has increased 15% since 2005, while the overall number of new-teacher hires in the district has decreased during that same time period, the March memorandum shows.
Students taught by TFA teachers in 2009 and 2010 performed better on the state Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills test in both math and writing than those taught by non-TFA members, the memo says. In 2010, students taught by TFA teachers also scored better on state tests in science and social studies.
The report goes on to say that in 2009, “the difference was not significant … Both groups had comparable passing rates on the reading and science tests.” The report says the difference between the scores of students taught by TFA teachers and non-TFA teachers earned in 2010 was “statistically significant” in math, science and social studies, with students taught by TFA teachers performing better.
However, in reading, students taught by non-TFA teachers performed better, a difference that was “significant,” the report says.
The findings of the study aren't “surprising or alarming” based on what TFA aims to do, HISD spokesman Jason Spencer said in an e-mail. He also said it is “not surprising that TFA teachers outperform non-TFA teachers in some areas and that non-TFA teachers do better in other areas. This is why HISD is committed to staffing schools with a mix of great teachers of various backgrounds and experience levels.”
This month HISD trustees approved $600,000 to be used next school year for the district’s Teach for America program.
The partnership between HISD and TFA began in 1991 and in recent years has expanded to include more teachers, including a push for math teachers to work in the schools in the district’s turnaround program, called Apollo 20.
Local and state leaders have questioned the benefits and cost of the program while others sing the organization’s praises. A recent state study on the Texas investment into the program showed similar results to HISD’s: TFA teachers leave earlier but show better student achievement results in math.
Monday, Jul 11, 2011
Teachers from the nonprofit “Teach for America” program leave the Houston Independent School District at higher rates than their non-TFA counterparts, and their students’ performance record is mixed when compared to their counterparts, a district study shows.
While TFA teachers make up twice the share of HISD’s new teachers than they did a few years ago -- nearly 1 in 3 new HISD teachers was a TFA’er in 2009-10, the study says -- the TFA teachers are also leaving at faster rates than their counterparts, the internal study found.
“Forty-four percent of the 2005−2006 non-TFA new hires returned to HISD in 2010−2011 for their sixth year of service in HISD, while only 9 percent of the 2005−2006 TFA new hires returned to the district in October 2010,” the report says.
At the same time, however, for the first time in five years, retention rates for TFA teachers was greater than non-TFA teachers for those beginning their second year of teaching in HISD.
HISD has hired more than 600 teachers from TFA, a national education nonprofit that helps urban and rural school districts meet their teaching needs, in the last five years.
The hiring of TFA teachers by HISD has increased 15% since 2005, while the overall number of new-teacher hires in the district has decreased during that same time period, the March memorandum shows.
Students taught by TFA teachers in 2009 and 2010 performed better on the state Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills test in both math and writing than those taught by non-TFA members, the memo says. In 2010, students taught by TFA teachers also scored better on state tests in science and social studies.
The report goes on to say that in 2009, “the difference was not significant … Both groups had comparable passing rates on the reading and science tests.” The report says the difference between the scores of students taught by TFA teachers and non-TFA teachers earned in 2010 was “statistically significant” in math, science and social studies, with students taught by TFA teachers performing better.
However, in reading, students taught by non-TFA teachers performed better, a difference that was “significant,” the report says.
The findings of the study aren't “surprising or alarming” based on what TFA aims to do, HISD spokesman Jason Spencer said in an e-mail. He also said it is “not surprising that TFA teachers outperform non-TFA teachers in some areas and that non-TFA teachers do better in other areas. This is why HISD is committed to staffing schools with a mix of great teachers of various backgrounds and experience levels.”
This month HISD trustees approved $600,000 to be used next school year for the district’s Teach for America program.
The partnership between HISD and TFA began in 1991 and in recent years has expanded to include more teachers, including a push for math teachers to work in the schools in the district’s turnaround program, called Apollo 20.
Local and state leaders have questioned the benefits and cost of the program while others sing the organization’s praises. A recent state study on the Texas investment into the program showed similar results to HISD’s: TFA teachers leave earlier but show better student achievement results in math.
STAAR Rollout May Bring More Duties for Counselors
by Morgan Smith | Texas Tribune
July 11, 2011
In the fall, the anticipated consequences of a $4 billion reduction in state financing to school districts will begin to become apparent to Texas students and their parents: fewer teachers, bigger classes and sparse extracurricular programs.
For some, though, the most drastic change will come in the spring, when the state’s approximately 350,000 new ninth graders will be the first to take the end-of-course exams that are part of the new standardized testing system known as STARR, the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness.
The new assessment program, which is so complex that the superintendent of the Perrin-Whitt school district nicknamed it the Franken-STAAR, was established during the 2009 legislative session. Some educators welcome the program, a significant overhaul of the current system, but others view it with trepidation.
Outside the classroom, the burden of rolling out the new exams will fall primarily on counselors, who help students meet graduation requirements, and on curriculum specialists, who make sure what students are being taught matches with what they are being tested on. Some districts also employ testing coordinators, who handle scheduling and the actual administration of the exams.
But predicting reduced state aid, many districts have already eliminated many nonclassroom positions for the coming school year. That means remaining employees will have far more responsibilities, a particular concern for school counselors, who have long worked to define their role as separate from that of testing coordinators.
“With finances like they are, there’s not going to be extra people to help,” said Sherry Sunderman, the coordinator of guidance and counseling at Conroe Independent School District in Montgomery County, north of Houston.
Many counselors worry they will be given more duties on the testing side and that instead of advising students, their jobs will become “more clerical,” said Sylvia Lopez, the director of Dallas ISD’s counseling services. Resources traditionally devoted to counseling students on career and college plans may now be used to explain and administer the new testing system, which includes complicated new graduation requirements.
Counselors “are going to have to be really monitoring students’ graduation programs to make sure they are taking the right courses and passing the right exams,” said Casey McCreary, an assistant executive director at the Texas Association of School Administrators who advises districts on accountability issues.
Students adjusting to the new exams face a “triple jeopardy,” McCreary said. With STAAR, high school students will have to perform better on harder tests and take more of them. Under the current system, standardized tests do not count toward final grades, and students must pass four exit-level exams to graduate. Now, for the first time, students will have to achieve a cumulative score across 12 end-of-course exams to graduate. And their scores on the exams will count toward 15 percent of their final grade, with the option to retake the exam three times if they do not pass. (They are required to retake it if they do not achieve a certain minimum score.)
That could have students playing a game of risk with their scores — opting not to retake one test with the hope of scoring higher on a future one. Setting up a process to guide students through these decisions, one that involves parents and a “team effort” between curriculum specialists and counselors, is crucial in preparing for the new tests, said Sara McAndrew, the executive director of curriculum and instruction at Northside ISD, the state’s fourth-largest district, in San Antonio.
As the new school year draws closer, McAndrew said, schools are still missing details about how the rollout will work. Though the Texas Education Agency will unveil sample questions in August, it will not publicly release full-length primary test forms until 2014. “We are still a little in the dark about exactly what these tests are going to look like,” she said.
Lopez said she also has questions about the new system, like “who is going to keep track of the kids and where they are and how many exams they’ve taken.”
But she said that she expected growing pains. “Anytime there is a change like this, there is going to be a struggle,” Lopez said. “There is always a transitional period. STAAR is going to be a lot more rigorous, but hopefully this will help our kids.”
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Thank You Letter to Funders: Be Kind After Rejection
It hurts (a little and sometimes a lot) when you spend time on a worthy proposal just to have it sent down the tube. Rejection is painful, but writers must keep mind that your proposal was rejected--you weren’t.
Saying thank you is important and I believe it should be done even when you are sent a denial letter. It sounds easy, but how do you say “thank you” to someone who just told you "no"? What impression do you want to leave them with after you've said thanks (for nothin')?
Connecting with the funder via phone or in person is the best and more informative method for learning about why your proposal was rejected. At the big nonprofit shops, it is the role of the gift officer or development director to pursue this meeting. If you can't set a meeting, a letter is a good next option. In the smaller shops, where most Savvy Readers work, you have to wear lots of hats and letters are often the most efficient route. Finally, sometimes phone calls are not “allowed” and writing a letter or email is your only option.
Always try to follow-up after you write a thank you letter--especially if you don't get a response within a few weeks. If you still don't get a response, it's time to move on to next year. Keep the funder in your stewardship strategy file and find ways to incorporate them with your organization in other ways. You might be surprised by the impromptu conversations that come up at events or over coffee. When I write a "thank you for your rejection" letter, this is what I like to say:
Sample Thank You Letter to Funder
Always try to follow-up after you write a thank you letter--especially if you don't get a response within a few weeks. If you still don't get a response, it's time to move on to next year. Keep the funder in your stewardship strategy file and find ways to incorporate them with your organization in other ways. You might be surprised by the impromptu conversations that come up at events or over coffee. When I write a "thank you for your rejection" letter, this is what I like to say:
Sample Thank You Letter to Funder
Dear Mr. Doe:
On behalf of ABC Nonprofit Organization, I want to thank you and the XYZ Foundation for taking the time to review our recent grant proposal for the Community Action Arts Program. We appreciate your consideration of our request and value the work that you do for arts education and at-risk youth.
The Community Action Arts Program is an integral part of ABC Nonprofit Organization’s ability to reach children from underserved and low-income communities. We are actively seeking funding from other partners to support and sustain our efforts in the coming year. In the meantime, we welcome your suggestions as to how we could strengthen our program and our proposal.
While we could not partner with you at this time, we invite you to visit our facilities and see firsthand the difference that philanthropy can make for children and arts education in our community. Our program staff provide tours on a regular basis and would welcome you and your colleagues at your convenience.
Thank you again for your consideration. I will plan to follow up with you soon to explore ways ABC Nonprofit Organization can improve our proposal in the future. Should you require any further information, please feel free to contact me at 212-555-1234 or DevelopmentDirector@ABCNonprofit.org.
Warm regards,
Frank Lee Speakin
Development Director
Whatever the case, I advise you to be thoughtful and remember that your fact-finding thank you mission is designed to achieve two things: 1) Learn how and if you can improve your proposal and correct any mistakes and 2) Continue to have a positive relationship with the funder. Don’t do or say anything that would jeopardize your future opportunities or the reputation of your organization—even if you do feel like stealing their Swingline stapler and taking a baseball bat to their CPUs.
~Cheers!
Monday, July 4, 2011
Attacking the Cost of College, From the Outside
In response to this article, check out this March 2011 article from the Daily Texan, "Program to redesign entry-level courses" that shows some of the teaching and curricular efforts UT is making. It parallels with what Dr. Ritter mentions below.
-Patricia
by Reeve Hamilton | Texas Tribune
July 4, 2011
If there was a theme to the just-concluded 82nd legislative session it was do more with less, and Rep. Dan Branch, Dallas Republican and chairman of the House Higher Education Committee, embraced it by attacking the cost of college from multiple angles. He pushed through legislation to try to lower what students spend on textbooks and to encourage that undergraduate students file — and stick to — degree plans.
Four miles away, on the second floor of a South Austin office building, Michael Crosno is working on the same issues by applying pressure from the outside. He is not a policy wonk. He is a businessman who has built and sold a string of successful software companies.
Not long ago, Crosno, 59, thought he would make the move into the education arena as a college instructor in business. But he did not have the influence he had hoped he would have.
“What I learned through teaching and being associated with educational institutions,” he said, “is you need more. A bunch of good teachers is wonderful, but it’s not going to solve the problems in higher ed.”
Crosno’s newest venture could make him a national player in efforts to reduce the time it takes a student to graduate — perhaps the most effective cost-savings method there is. Slightly more than half of all college students nationally graduate — if they graduate at all — in six years, not four.
“That’s one statistic that just drove me bozo,” Crosno said. “My goal is very simple: get more kids to go to college.”
In 2008, Crosno teamed with Chris Chilek and John Cunningham, two Texas A&M University graduates running Pick- a-Prof, a Web site best known for allowing students to rate their professors. The following year, the company was rebranded MyEdu, and its mission became more comprehensive.
“Just rating a professor is meaningless to me,” Crosno said. “It’s not going to help my daughter graduate. At the end of the day, what’s really important is how do you balance semester by semester, course by course, the workload over four or five years.”
The company’s revamped site still allows for professor ratings, but students can also customize a degree plan that matches their desired workload in each semester and, if they choose, can help them devise the quickest path to graduation. The company, which was recently featured in a United States Chamber of Commerce re- port on the future of higher education, claims that 70 percent of users graduate on time, nearly double the national average.
MyEdu now includes 775 colleges and universities, up from about 60 when Crosno joined. In the first five months of this year, he said, the site logged about 2.5 million users.
MyEdu also lets students compare textbook costs. Part of the money from sales made through the site comes back to the company, one revenue stream alongside contextual advertising and sponsored content. Crosno said early efforts to charge for MyEdu services fell flat.
But he is not convinced that shaving textbook costs will create the most meaningful savings for a student. For example, he said, more savings can be gained by taking advanced placement classes to reduce the courses that need to be taken on a degree plan.
The Austin office includes dozens of computer-science-minded 20-somethings engaged in constant, widespread data collection. Crosno said that of about 60 staff members, half focused on data collection — by scraping in- formation from public Web sites, submitting open-records re- quests, perusing course catalogs and gathering student comments — and the other half focused on turning that data into user- friendly applications.
“It’s a gold mine of data,” said Margaret Spellings, a former United States secretary of education, who is considering a formal business relationship with MyEdu.
“I don’t think Michael even knows what a powerful policy tool that thing can be, not only for consumers but for policy makers and for institutions themselves.” Spellings said.
About a year ago, Gretchen Ritter, a vice provost at the University of Texas at Austin, suggested to the registrar’s office that it pay attention to MyEdu with the hope of imitating some of its services. The university is currently revising its degree audit system, and Ritter hopes to include degree-planning features in the final product.
MyEdu “tells us where there is a felt need by our students for help or services,” she said.
She would not rule out using outside vendors, but said, “Most large universities tend to have a culture of ‘grow your own,’ when it comes to technology tools.”
Ritter said such technology could let advisers, swamped with students as enrollments increase and funding decreases, devote less time to paperwork and more to working with students on a developmental level.
Crosno said he anticipated that with resources likely to re- main scarce, public universities would be looking for more out- side partners. He also said he believes that the pressure from out- side private technology companies will have a more vivid impact on cost reduction than will legislation.
“Show me an industry where technology has not disrupted or made it more efficient,” he said, “and I’ll show you an archaic industry.”
-Patricia
by Reeve Hamilton | Texas Tribune
July 4, 2011
If there was a theme to the just-concluded 82nd legislative session it was do more with less, and Rep. Dan Branch, Dallas Republican and chairman of the House Higher Education Committee, embraced it by attacking the cost of college from multiple angles. He pushed through legislation to try to lower what students spend on textbooks and to encourage that undergraduate students file — and stick to — degree plans.
Four miles away, on the second floor of a South Austin office building, Michael Crosno is working on the same issues by applying pressure from the outside. He is not a policy wonk. He is a businessman who has built and sold a string of successful software companies.
Not long ago, Crosno, 59, thought he would make the move into the education arena as a college instructor in business. But he did not have the influence he had hoped he would have.
“What I learned through teaching and being associated with educational institutions,” he said, “is you need more. A bunch of good teachers is wonderful, but it’s not going to solve the problems in higher ed.”
Crosno’s newest venture could make him a national player in efforts to reduce the time it takes a student to graduate — perhaps the most effective cost-savings method there is. Slightly more than half of all college students nationally graduate — if they graduate at all — in six years, not four.
“That’s one statistic that just drove me bozo,” Crosno said. “My goal is very simple: get more kids to go to college.”
In 2008, Crosno teamed with Chris Chilek and John Cunningham, two Texas A&M University graduates running Pick- a-Prof, a Web site best known for allowing students to rate their professors. The following year, the company was rebranded MyEdu, and its mission became more comprehensive.
“Just rating a professor is meaningless to me,” Crosno said. “It’s not going to help my daughter graduate. At the end of the day, what’s really important is how do you balance semester by semester, course by course, the workload over four or five years.”
The company’s revamped site still allows for professor ratings, but students can also customize a degree plan that matches their desired workload in each semester and, if they choose, can help them devise the quickest path to graduation. The company, which was recently featured in a United States Chamber of Commerce re- port on the future of higher education, claims that 70 percent of users graduate on time, nearly double the national average.
MyEdu now includes 775 colleges and universities, up from about 60 when Crosno joined. In the first five months of this year, he said, the site logged about 2.5 million users.
MyEdu also lets students compare textbook costs. Part of the money from sales made through the site comes back to the company, one revenue stream alongside contextual advertising and sponsored content. Crosno said early efforts to charge for MyEdu services fell flat.
But he is not convinced that shaving textbook costs will create the most meaningful savings for a student. For example, he said, more savings can be gained by taking advanced placement classes to reduce the courses that need to be taken on a degree plan.
The Austin office includes dozens of computer-science-minded 20-somethings engaged in constant, widespread data collection. Crosno said that of about 60 staff members, half focused on data collection — by scraping in- formation from public Web sites, submitting open-records re- quests, perusing course catalogs and gathering student comments — and the other half focused on turning that data into user- friendly applications.
“It’s a gold mine of data,” said Margaret Spellings, a former United States secretary of education, who is considering a formal business relationship with MyEdu.
“I don’t think Michael even knows what a powerful policy tool that thing can be, not only for consumers but for policy makers and for institutions themselves.” Spellings said.
About a year ago, Gretchen Ritter, a vice provost at the University of Texas at Austin, suggested to the registrar’s office that it pay attention to MyEdu with the hope of imitating some of its services. The university is currently revising its degree audit system, and Ritter hopes to include degree-planning features in the final product.
MyEdu “tells us where there is a felt need by our students for help or services,” she said.
She would not rule out using outside vendors, but said, “Most large universities tend to have a culture of ‘grow your own,’ when it comes to technology tools.”
Ritter said such technology could let advisers, swamped with students as enrollments increase and funding decreases, devote less time to paperwork and more to working with students on a developmental level.
Crosno said he anticipated that with resources likely to re- main scarce, public universities would be looking for more out- side partners. He also said he believes that the pressure from out- side private technology companies will have a more vivid impact on cost reduction than will legislation.
“Show me an industry where technology has not disrupted or made it more efficient,” he said, “and I’ll show you an archaic industry.”
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