New measure allows Michigan students to get free college tuition

This is an interesting Raw Story article:

Students in Michigan could receive free college tuition in exchange for a fixed percentage of their future income under a new proposal under consideration by lawmakers.

More than 20 states are studying similar proposals, reported the Detroit Free Press, but the Michigan bill would set up a pilot program.

Under the measure, students would agree to pay a fixed percentage of their post-college income for a specified number of years into a special fund to help pay tuition for other students.

The measure calls for a rate of 2 percent for community college students and 4 percent for university students, and each would be required to pay into the fund for five years for each year they attend school under the program.

So, for example, a student who attended the University of Michigan for four years would be asked to pay 4 percent of her income back for 20 years after graduation.

That would work out to $100 a month for graduates who earned $30,000 a year.

“The goal is to remove every financial barrier to high education,” said state Rep. David Knezek (D-Dearborn Heights). “We’ve increasingly place the financial burden of college on the backs of the students. This is a no-interest plan that allows you to pay back as you go and as you can afford it. It takes the monkey off the student’s back.”

The Michigan bill would establish a $2 million fund for a pilot program that involved 200 students, and the state’s treasury department would track the money and verify income.

The interest rates on federal student loans currently range from 3.86 percent for newer loans to 6.8 percent on older loans.

Susan Dynarksi, a University of Michigan professor and expert on higher education finances, said spreading payments out over 20 to 25 years and linking them to income “ensures borrowers against hard times.”

But, she said, borrowers who expect to earn high salaries after college have a disincentive to participate.

“If the future starving artists flood into pay it forward and the future engineers shun it, the program will spiral into insolvency,” she said.

But Dynarski said this flaw could be easily fixed by denominating the debt in dollars, instead of years, so borrowers could stop paying into the system once they’ve paid back their loans.
The measure has not yet been scheduled for a legislative hearing.

It is a step in the right direction, but there are some big problems with this program.  First and foremost, this program seems to be a voluntary program.   Students who already have the means to pay for college would not want to enter this program.  Such students who opt out of the program may have much higher salaries that would not be paid into this fun--unlike the "future starving artists," who may or may not make the $30,000 a year salary.  What if the students move out-of-state, after they graduate?  They are not using their skills, or spending their salary to help contribute to Michigan's economy in the long term?  Finally, while this appears to be a pilot program, what if a greater number of students request applying for this program than the amount of funds the state has to pay for such education?  Will the state turn away students from getting their education?  What if the students actually get their degree, but still can't find a decent paying job, and end up working in the minimum wage McDonald's crap jobs?

Ironically, in the 1950s and 60s, there used to be a program to help students pay for a low-cost, college education.  It was called taxation, where everyone paid their fair share of taxes.  The state taxed its citizens to provide funds to help invest in college students' education, and help make them productive members of society within the state. 

Employers now requiring SATs scores from job hunters!

I found this Wall Street Journal story through the Washington Monthly.  From Wall Street Journal:

Proving the adage that all of life is like high school, plenty of employers still care about a job candidate's SAT score. Consulting firms such as Bain & Co. and McKinsey & Co. and banks like Goldman Sachs Group Inc. ask new college recruits for their scores, while other companies request them even for senior sales and management hires, eliciting scores from job candidates in their 40s and 50s.

The SAT, originally known as the Scholastic Aptitude Test and taken during junior or senior year of high school, is a common element of college applications. The exam is scored on a scale of 2400, with up to 800 points each for critical reading, math and writing sections. The average SAT score last year was a combined 1498. (Before March 2005, the test had just two sections and was scored on a 1600-point scale.)

A low score doesn't necessarily kill a person's chances, hiring managers say; instead, they say they believe SATs and other college entrance exams like the ACT help when comparing candidates with differing backgrounds or figuring out whether someone has the raw brainpower required for the job.

But some companies do set targets, particularly on the math section. Mark Rich, managing director of consulting-industry recruiting firm Whitehouse Pimms, says clients often tell him to screen for candidates whose SAT scores placed them in or above the 95th percentile. Investment firm D.E. Shaw Group asks candidates to break out their math and verbal results.

Boston Consulting Group Inc. has long used SAT scores as a factor in its hiring process. The firm doesn't set a minimum score for applicants, said Jennifer Comparoni, head of Americas recruiting. But candidates with weak math results would need to demonstrate other strengths, such as subject-matter expertise or leadership ability, she added.

BCG managers won't say that SAT results predict job performance, but Ms. Comparoni said the company uses the test as a standard measure of "the basic building blocks of success," such as critical thinking, problem-solving skills and quantitative abilities.

What???  The SAT score does not predict job performance, but is a 'standard measure of "the basic building blocks of success," such as critical thinking, problem-solving skills and quantitative abilities?' 

So what does a bachelors degree in college measure?  Obviously a bachelors degree in college doesn't measure any sort of critical thinking skills, or problem-solving skills, or even any life experience lessons one learns in college that an employer will need in making hiring decisions, more than a single test score taken by a high school junior or senior?

Then, there is this final ironic quote from the Journal:

One former McKinsey analyst who conducted recruiting for the firm was content to share his own scores. "For me, it was great," he said. "I test much better than I am intelligent."

For the record, I did not take the SAT test in high school, but went through West Valley Community College and San Jose State for my bachelors degree in political science.  

Tennessee Governor calls for 2 years of free community college

I found this story off the New York Times, and I'm pretty floored by the concept:

 Public colleges have sharply raised their prices since the 1990s in the face of declining state support, but a plan by Tennessee’s governor to make two years of community college and technical school free for all students represents a striking reversal of that trend.

Tennessee would be the only state in the country to charge no tuition or fees to incoming students under the proposal by Gov. Bill Haslam, a Republican, which policy analysts called a big step toward a better-educated work force.

 I will admit, I find it rather surprising for a Republican governor to be offering such a bold, policy idea.  Is Governor Haslam serious?  Or is this just a GOP talking point?

 Continuing with the NY Times story:

 "This is the best idea to boost participation in higher education in a generation,” said Terry W. Hartle, senior vice president of the American Council on Education, a major association of public and private colleges.

Mr. Haslam made it the centerpiece of his State of the State address on Monday, calling for two years of free schooling for state residents with high school diplomas or equivalency degrees, without regard to academic credentials or financial need. The change requires approval by the state legislature, whose leaders reacted favorably to the idea.

“We just needed to change the culture of expectations in our state,” the governor said Tuesday in a telephone interview. “College is not for everybody, but it has to be for a lot more people than it’s been in the past if we’re going to have a competitive work force.”

Community college is fairly inexpensive; a full year’s tuition and fees in Tennessee are about $3,800, and the national average is $3,300. Federal Pell grants and other scholarships make the net price zero, or a very small sum, for most students.

I will admit that the devil here is in the details.  What are the eligibility requirements for the students?  Residency requirements?  What about older workers who may already have a college degree, but need to go back to school for professional certification?  Will they be included in this free education?   What colleges and technical schools will be participating in this program?  Are private colleges allowed to be participating in this program....Can you say College Voucher?  What will be paid in this "free education?"  Tuition?  Room and Board?  Books and supplies?

Governor Haslam estimates that the cost for this program will be around $34 million a year, which will be paid by diverting surplus revenue from the state lottery.  He also said that the state will work with private foundations to provide mentors to students on "navigating college."  This brings up two more interesting questions.  The first is, if the state lottery "surplus revenues" drop below $34 million to where the program can not pay the free tuition to students, who will make up the shortfall?  The state's general revenue fund?  The taxpayers?  The students?

The second question I would have is this entire idea of "private foundations" to provide these mentors to students?  Who or what are these private foundations, and what type of mentoring information will they be providing the students?  Will the students be required to see these private foundation mentors in order to get this free college aid?  What about older students who are returning to college, and will know all the hoops they must jump through for attending college?  Is this another scam for the governor to divert public taxpayer money to conservative companies providing either these mentoring services, or conservative colleges?

A quick, final thought here.  Tennessee is a small state, where the NY Times reports there are 13 degree-granting community colleges, and 27 Colleges of Applied Technology.  Will this program become a template for bigger states with a greater number of colleges and students....say California?  I don't know.  I do know that something needs to be done to stop the growing inequality between the rich, and everyone else.  I know that something needs to be done to revive the job market, increase worker wages, and improve employee skills and training to gain better jobs.  This is not the perfect, catch-all policy program that will solve the serious problems this country faces.  However, I would never have expected a Republican governor to advocate such a policy.  So I'll keep an open mind.

And wait for the details.

Tea Party Creates a Summer Camp

I found this story through the Washington Monthly, and I just can't believe it. The original source story is through TampaBay.com:

TAMPA — Here's another option now that the kids are out of school: a weeklong seminar about our nation's founding principles, courtesy of the Tampa 912 Project.

The organization, which falls under the tea party umbrella, hopes to introduce kids ages 8 to 12 to principles that include "America is good," "I believe in God," and "I work hard for what I have and I will share it with who I want to. Government cannot force me to be charitable."

Organized by conservative writer Jeff Lukens and staffed by volunteers from the 912 Project, Tampa Liberty School will meet every morning July 11-15 in borrowed space at the Paideia Christian school in Temple Terrace.

"We want to impart to our children what our nation is about, and what they may or may not be told," Lukens said.

A Tea Party summer camp? Is this for real? To me, this camp feels like a way for Lukens to shove his ideology down young children's' throats, rather than allow the children to find their own way, and develop their own political philosophy. I mean, Government cannot force me to be charitable? I can assure you that when I was around 8 to 12, I was more interested in playing "Cops and Robbers," or "Army men," rather than spouting how government is forcing me to be more charitable.

But wait, there is more:

Tampa Liberty is modeled after vacation Bible schools, which use fun, hands-on activities to deliver Christian messages.

One example at Liberty: Children will win hard, wrapped candies to use as currency for a store, symbolizing the gold standard. On the second day, the "banker" will issue paper money instead. Over time, students will realize their paper money buys less and less, while the candies retain their value.

"Some of the kids will fall for it," Lukens said. "Others kids will wise up."

Another example: Starting in an austere room where they are made to sit quietly, symbolizing Europe, the children will pass through an obstacle course to arrive at a brightly decorated party room (the New World).

Red-white-and-blue confetti will be thrown. But afterward the kidshttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif will have to clean up the confetti, learning that with freedom comes responsibility.

Still another example: Children will blow bubbles from a single container of soapy solution, and then pop each other's bubbles with squirt guns in an arrangement that mimics socialism. They are to count how many bubbles they pop. Then they will work with individual bottles of solution and pop their own bubbles.

"What they will find out is that you can do a lot more with individual freedom," Lukens said.

The more I read this, the more I'm starting to think about another "political" summer camp that was started in the 1930s:



Are the conservatives starting to get that crazy?

Student's Don't Know Much About History

This is really depressing. From MSNBC News:

U.S. students don't know much about American history, according to results of a national test released Tuesday.

Just 13 percent of high school seniors who took the 2010 National Assessment of Educational Progress — called the Nation's Report Card — showed solid academic performance in American history. The two other grade levels tested didn't perform much better, which just 22 percent of fourth-grade students and 18 percent of eighth-graders scoring proficient or better.

The test quizzed students on such topics as colonization, the American Revolution, the Civil War and the contemporary United States. For example, one question asks fourth-graders why it was important for the United States to build canals in the 1800s.

"The history scores released today show that student performance is still too low," said Education Secretary Arne Duncan in a prepared statement. "These results tell us that, as a country, we are failing to provide children with a high-quality, well-rounded education."

Education experts say a heavy focus on reading and math under thehttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif federal No Child Left Behind law in the last decade has led to lagging performance in other subjects such as history and science.

"We need to make sure other subject like history, science and the arts are not forgotten in our pursuit of the basic skills," said Diane Ravitch, a research professor at New York University and former U.S. assistant education secretary.

I love history. My interest is mainly recent U.S. history, from the Second World War to today. One of the advantages of learning history is that it teaches you critical thinking skills. Why was it important for the U.S. to build canals in the 1800s? In that test, only 44 percent knew that it was increased trade among states. That was for the fourth graders. You've got to wonder how the high school seniors would have answered questions on the reasons the United States to have entered into the Civil War, or the Second World War. Or even to look at the issues and events that defined the Cold War, the Civil Rights struggle in the 1950s and 60s, or even how Watergate may have shaped the political arena to this day. Unfortunately, our public schools seem to spend more time cramming facts into students' heads, in preparation for standardized tests. I can never remember all the facts, or dates, or who said what in history--I can look that stuff up on the internet. But I can look at the issues, causes, results of historical events and determine their relevancy or why they occurred, or even if history will end up repeating itself.

The Handwriting Is on the Wall

This is off The Washington Post:

The computer keyboard helped kill shorthand, and now it's threatening to finish off longhand.

When handwritten essays were introduced on the SAT exams for the class of 2006, just 15 percent of the almost 1.5 million students wrote their answers in cursive. The rest? They printed. Block letters.

And those college hopefuls are just the first edge of a wave of U.S. students who no longer get much handwriting instruction in the primary grades, frequently 10 minutes a day or less. As a result, more and more students struggle to read and write cursive.

It is amazing what the computer keyboard can kill. Cursive writing is an interesting form of writing. It is certainly very stylistic, reflecting an individual's personality and even emotional being at the particular moment of writing the cursive letters. It can certainly be a bitch to read. My own penmanship style is actually a combination of cursive and block letters. And now we have the demise of cursive writing here. Continuing with the Post article:

At Keene Mill Elementary l in Springfield, Debbie Mattocks teaches cursive once a week to her gifted-and-talented group of third-graders -- mainly so they can read it. All their poems and stories are all typed. Children in Fairfax County schools are taught keyboarding beginning in kindergarten.

"I can't think of any other place you need cursive as an adult other than to sign your name," she said. "Cursive -- that is so low on the priority list, we really could care less. We are much more concerned that these kids pass their SOLs [standardized tests], and that doesn't require a bit of cursive."

Older students who never mastered handwriting say it doesn't affect their grades. "A lot of kids have just awful handwriting. . . . Teachers don't take off points for poor handwriting," said Matt Paragamian, a 10th-grader at St. Albans School in Northwest Washington. Many of his classmates take notes in class on their own laptops and do homework on computers.

Until the 1970s, penmanship was a separate daily lesson through sixth grade, said Dennis Williams, national product manager for Zaner-Bloser Handwriting, the most widely used penmanship curriculum. At its peak in the 1940s and '50s, most teachers insisted on as much as two hours a week, but a 2003 Vanderbilt University survey of primary-grade teachers found that most now spend 10 minutes a day or less on the subject. To adapt to this new reality, the Zaner-Bloser method has been changed to a 15-minute daily plan.

If I have to do any type of brainstorming, outlining, or even writing a rough draft of an essay, I have to write it out in longhand. It may be a little slower, but it also gives me time to compose my own thoughts on the issues. I even take notes in longhand for classes--it is far easier for me than typing on a computer keyboard. While I am a fairly decent typist, I'm also a little more exacting in my typing skills. Not only would I be typing out my thoughts, but I would also be editing the very words I've typed for spelling and grammatical errors. For my blog, I type everything out. And for your information, I learned how to touch-type in high school.

In some ways, longhand writing even helps in thinking. According to the Post:

The loss of handwriting also may be a cognitive opportunity missed. The neurological process that directs thought, through fingers, into written symbols is a highly sophisticated one. Several academic studies have found that good handwriting skills at a young age can help children express their thoughts better -- a lifelong benefit. Children who don't learn correct technique find it harder to write by hand, so they avoid it. Schools that do teach handwriting often stop after third grade -- right after kids learn cursive. By the time computers are more widely used in classrooms for writing, perhaps in fourth or fifth grade, many children already have decided they don't like to write.

In one of the studies, Vanderbilt University professor Steve Graham, who studies the acquisition of writing, experimented with a group of first-graders in Prince George's County who could write only 10 to 12 letters per minute. The kids were given 15 minutes of handwriting instruction three times a week. After nine weeks, they had doubled their writing speed and their expressed thoughts were more complex. He also found corresponding increases in their sentence construction skills.

But Graham worries that students who remain printers, rather than writing in cursive, need more time to take notes or write essays for the SAT. Teachers may say they don't deduct for bad handwriting in class, but research tells another story, he said.

When adults are given the same composition written in good handwriting and poor handwriting, "they still give lower grades for ideation and quality of writing if the text is less legible," he said.

Indeed, the SAT essays written in cursive had slightly higher average scores than those written in print, according to the College Board.

The best thing to do here is to keep instructing a combination of longhand writing and typing skills to the children until after the sixth grade. Allow those kids who wish to write in longhand to continue writing in longhand. Allow the kids who wish to use the keyboard to use the keyboard. If there is research showing that kids will improve their thinking skills through longhand writing, and then continue the longhand writing until sixth grade. It is better to have a child who can think and express complex thoughts, rather than regurgitate something through the printer and possibly the Internet.

But our educational system is not a system to produce thinkers here, but rather to regurgitate standardized answers to standardized test scores.

Study: Geography Greek to young Americans

This is off CNN.Com:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- After more than three years of combat and nearly 2,400 U.S. military deaths in Iraq, nearly two-thirds of Americans aged 18 to 24 still cannot find Iraq on a map, a study released Tuesday showed.

The study found that less than six months after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, 33 percent could not point out Louisiana on a U.S. map.

Two-thirds of Americans 18-24 couldn't find Iraq on a map? I'm speechless. These kids are prime cannon-fodder for the Pentagon to ship out, fighting a war in a country they can't even find on a map. And you can bet that if these kids can't even find Iraq on a map, they certainly wouldn't be able to understand complex historical, social, economic and political issues surrounding the U.S. involvement in Iraq. And it is not just Iraq here--One third of these Americans couldn't even find where Louisiana is on a U.S. map.

How much do you want to bet they couldn't find New Orleans on a map--even with all the Katrina stories being published?

Now I'll admit that I'm not completely up on geography myself. I know I couldn't identify where all the "stan" countries are located--Kazakhstan or Uzbekistan as examples. I'd probably have some trouble pointing out the obscure African nations on the map. But I know enough geography to it down to the general area within the world, and locate a certain country on a map. These kids couldn't even identify where the most prominent nations are located that dominate the news media each night. What are we teaching these kids? Continuing on:

The National Geographic-Roper Public Affairs 2006 Geographic Literacy Study paints a dismal picture of the geographic knowledge of the most recent graduates of the U.S. education system.

"Taken together, these results suggest that young people in the United States ... are unprepared for an increasingly global future," said the study's final report.

"Far too many lack even the most basic skills for navigating the international economy or understanding the relationships among people and places that provide critical context for world events."

The study, which surveyed 510 young Americans from December 17 to January 20, showed that 88 percent of those questioned could not find Afghanistan on a map of Asia despite widespread coverage of the U.S.-led overthrow of the Taliban in 2001 and the political rebirth of the country.

In the Middle East, 63 percent could not find Iraq or Saudi Arabia on a map, and 75 percent could not point out Iran or Israel. Forty-four percent couldn't find any one of those four countries.

Inside the United States, "half or fewer of young men and women 18-24 can identify the states of New York or Ohio on a map [50 percent and 43 percent, respectively]," the study said.

On the positive side, the study noted, seven in 10 young Americans correctly located China on a map, even though they had a number of misconceptions about that country. Forty-five percent said China's population is only twice that of the United States. It's actually four times larger than the U.S. population.

When the poll was conducted in 2002, "Americans scored second to last on overall geographic knowledge, trailing Canada, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Japan and Sweden," the report said.

I really don't know what to say. It is incredible.

To test your own knowledge of geography, CNN provided this fun little geography quiz. I got a score of 6 out of 6 questions.

Santorum: Don't put intelligent design in classroom

I found this little story off of Shakespeare's Sister's website. It is a story from the Beaver County Times Online:

BEAVER FALLS - U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum said Saturday that he doesn't believe that intelligent design belongs in the science classroom.

Santorum's comments to The Times are a shift from his position of several years ago, when he wrote in a Washington Times editorial that intelligent design is a "legitimate scientific theory that should be taught in the classroom."

But on Saturday, the Republican said that, "Science leads you where it leads you."

Santorum was in Beaver Falls to present Geneva College President Kenneth A. Smith with a $1.345 million check from federal funds for renovations that include the straightening and relocation of Route 18 through campus.

Santorum's comments about intelligent design come at a time when the belief that the universe is so complex that it must have been created by a higher power, an alternative to the theory of evolution, has come under fire on several fronts.

A federal trial just wrapped up in which eight families sued Dover Area School District in eastern Pennsylvania. The district's school board members tried to introduce teaching intelligent design into the classroom, but the families said the policy violated the constitutional separation of church and state.

Talk about ducking for political cover. Santorum is the number three man in the Republican Part, and is one of the more conservative members of the Senate. He has been one of the more loyal partisans for the Bush White House. And because of this loyalty, and his extreme conservative views, Santorum has been watching his poll numbers slip during his re-election bid. He is out of touch with the mainstream voters. So what's an embattled senator suppose to do? Well, let's just completely change our opinion of intelligent design, and hope the voters will forgive and forget.

Let's hope the voters see through this charade.