Being their own boss. Beginning next school year, Los Angeles schools will have more autonomy over hiring teachers, selecting teaching materials, and setting class schedules, thanks to an agreement approved by the district and teachers union. It’s subject to approval by union members. Education Sector’s Erin Dillon explored this strategy and how it’s translated into practice in other districts Continue Reading »

US college completion rates are low. This is not news. Do we really need another report telling us this? If it’s the just-released report by Complete College America (CCA), then yes we do.

While I have recently bemoaned the lack of public national data on critical student outcomes, Complete College America is actually doing something about it. They are (brace yourselves) collecting and uContinue Reading »

Diane Auer Jones charges me with “name calling.” I think she is confused about what this term means. “Name calling” refers to derogatory names. The only names I called her in my post were “Ms. Jones” and “lobbyist.” Does she think that “lobbyist” is a derogatory name? If so, why does she write “Yes, I am a lobbyist”? If thaContinue Reading »

That’s a question that Kevin Carey and I have gotten a lot since releasing our Debt to Degree report last week. The report describes a new measure of college success, the ‘borrowing to credential ratio’ (let’s call it the BCR for short). The BCR seeks to combine measures of two chronic problems in higher education: dropouts and debt.

But when you create a statistiContinue Reading »

It’s unsurprising that Diane Auer Jones would object to the findings in Debt to Degree, a recent report authored by my colleague Erin Dillon and myself about student borrowing and degree production in higher education. Ms. Jones is an in-house lobbyist for a large for-profit higher education corporation and so her job is to attack anything negative written about her industry, just like toContinue Reading »

On Wednesday, Kevin Carey introduced a new measure of how well colleges are doing in both producing graduates and keeping student loan debts low: the borrowing to credential ratio.

In response to many requests for the data we used to create the ratio, we’re introducing the borrowing to credential ratio data file (.xls). It’s available now on our website for anyone to downloadContinue Reading »

Rising student debt and high student dropout rates are major problems facing American higher education. Most colleges are judged on these issues by two federally-calculated numbers: six-year graduation rates and student loan default rates. Each number provides important information, but neither shows the complete picture. A college could, for example, achieve a stellar graduation rate by passinContinue Reading »

One of UMass president Robert Caret’s proposals for improving graduation rates and creating a more skilled workforce: “Work closely with the community colleges to provide alternate pathways for access to our four-year institutions; facilitate and streamline the transfer pipeline and work to expand it so that more can enter our doors ready to be successful.” (College Inc.)Continue Reading »

The Los Angeles Times reporting on L.A. Unified’s decision to publicly release schools’ ‘value-added’ scores: “In a dramatic turn for the country’s second-largest school district, Los Angeles Unified released school ratings based on a new approach that measures a school’s success at raising student performance — the first in a series of high-stakes moveContinue Reading »

What happens when you hold colleges accountable for graduating students:

The state of Tennessee gave colleges their marching orders: Raise your graduation rates, or else.

If graduation rates decline, so does state support for that institution. So state colleges and universities are getting creative in their efforts to make sure the students they enroll leave with diplomas in hand.Continue Reading »