Skip to main content

Ranking Colleges - Truth Behind the Scoop - US News & World Report vs. Washington Monthly vs the U.S. Dept of Education

By Ellen Dannin, with Richard Lempert Employment Policy Research Network (EPRN)
The Department of Education is creating its own college ranking system based on access, affordability and performance. US News and World Report has long been aware that it uses a deeply flawed system for assessing colleges' educational quality. In 1997, the National Opinion Research Center. The NORC study found, '...the current approach is that the weights used to combine the various measures into an overall rating lack any defensible empirical or theoretical basis.'

The Case of the Black Professors Who Vanished from Brooklyn College

Ronald Howell Brooklyn Ron
The film Selma and the murders in Ferguson and New York have re-focused much discussion on civil rights and equality or lack of. Affirmative action programs - a victory from the civil rights movement - have largely been dismantled by judicial rulings. Today there is the attempt to de-fund the historically Black Colleges. In Brooklyn, the largest African American community in the country, there are new reports of 'vanishing African American professors' at Brooklyn College

More than Half of US Public School Students Live in Poverty, Report Finds

Jana Kasperkevic The Guardian
Low income students are now a majority of the schoolchildren attending the nation's public schools, according to this research bulletin. The latest data collected from the states by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), show that 51 percent of the students across the nation's public schools were low income in 2013.

labor

Cuomo Escalates Fghts with Teacher, Public Employee Unions

Yancey Roy Newsday
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, battled organized labor regularly during his first term over contracts and pensions. Now, just weeks after his re-election, he's roiled the Public Employees Federation, the white-collar state employees union, by attempting to turn more than 2,500 union jobs into nonunion posts.

The True Cost of Teach For America's Impact on Urban Schools

Rachel M. Cohen The American Prospect
Why are school districts paying millions in "finder's fees" to an organization that places people without education degrees to teach in urban schools—even where applications from veteran teachers abound?

Tidbits - December 18, 2014

Portside
Reader Comments: Congress Plots to Undermine Retiree Pensions; Is It Bad Enough Yet?; Angela Davis: the unbroken line of police violence; James Baldwin on Racism; LAWCHA's Teacher/Public Sector Initiative; #BlackLivesMatter Takes the Field; They Fear and The Kill; Thousands March to Protest Police Brutality; Torture - Senate Report, Lessons from Latin America; Trade; Chanukah 2014; CELEBRATING CHARLIE HADEN memorial and celebration of his life - New York - Jan. 13

labor

Union Fights 'Teacher Jail'

Samantha Winslow Labor Notes
Hundreds of Los Angeles teachers have been put on leave and in limbo. It’s been called “teacher jail,” and it’s not far off from the “rubber rooms” New York City tabloids have made famous. In both places, the tactic is used to scapegoat teachers and unions.

Friday Nite Videos -- November 28, 2014

Portside
Redemption Song: Playing for Change. #BlackoutBlackFriday. Michael Brown Protesters Urge Black Friday Boycott. Free Education Demo: London. Walmart Workers' Flash Mob.
Subscribe to Education