The Education Sector

Updates, Analysis, and Commentary on Today's Education Issues

In the EduBlogs

Farewell Eduwonk…

Eduwonk’s got your links and commentary on RTT, Central Falls, ESEA, charter schools and even filibusters! And, Education Sector bids bon voyage to Eduwonk this week. Best wishes at your new home at Bellwether Education.

Get Your Wagers In!

Our bloggers weigh in on RTT finalists. From “bracketology” to why the West was shunned, we have all the commentary. We also open the default rate black box. What did we find? You’ll just have to visit The Quick and the Ed to find out.

This Week

Five Principles for Smarter Data Systems

In the past decade, school districts and states have spent more than a billion dollars to build and implement data systems. Data about student learning—and the systems that collect, organize, and report on this data—are what U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan calls “the driving force [behind education] reform.”

In the next five years, our nation will likely spend a billion dollars more. Influential persons and institutions, from legislators to governors to the Gates Foundation, extol the virtues of better data. Data systems are a key criterion for Race to the Top fund applications. And the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act—the stimulus package—injects an additional $250 million federal investment into longitudinal databases and requires states to assure that they are building these data systems as a condition for receiving stimulus funds.

The rhetoric around educational data is compelling: With better data, policymakers can identify effective schools and educators, expose problems, make better decisions about the allocation of resources, and build political will for reform. At the classroom level, better data will inform instruction—enabling teachers to better understand what approaches work for specific students—and lead to better teaching and improved learning.

We’re now entering the next phase in our nation’s thrust to use data to improve educational outcomes. The challenge is no longer whether or how to build institutional data systems, but to use better information about teaching and learning to improve outcomes for every student. A focus on the actual use of data must drive our next billion-dollar investment. And this focus has clear implications for how we think about, design, and implement data initiatives. Going forward, five principles should inform these initiatives. …

Read more from this exclusive Education Sector op-ed and Managing Director Bill Tucker’s big ideas for data reform.

Smart Data Week on Quick and Ed!

Join us this week on The Quick and the Ed as we discuss the big ideas behind "Five Principles for Smarter Data Systems," including building data systems that use better information about teaching and learning to improve outcomes for every student. Managing Director Bill Tucker and experts from the school district and state levels, as well as technology, family, and out-of-school time fields will weigh in.

Also From Education Sector

Voluntary Accountability, a False Front?

America’s higher education system is consistently cited as one of the economic engines that will help drive the nation’s economic recovery. President Obama has challenged the country to regain its status as the worldwide leader in postsecondary attainment, laying down a goal that by 2020, the United States will again have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world.

Yet achieving that goal will require greater accountability and transparency for colleges and universities. In False Fronts: Behind Higher Education’s Voluntary Accountability Systems, a new report from Education Sector and the American Enterprise Institute, authors Andrew P. Kelly of AEI and Education Sector’s Chad Aldeman examine current voluntary accountability systems—the University and College Accountability Network (U-CAN) and the Voluntary System of Accountability (VSA)—and argue that these systems are not measuring up.

“If existing flaws are not resolved,” the authors note, “the nation runs the risk of ending up in the worst of all worlds: the appearance of higher education accountability without the reality.”

Asleep at the Seal

In the March/April 2010 issue of The Washington Monthly, Policy Director Kevin Carey asks, "Just how bad does a college have to be to lose accreditation?" Carey chronicles Southeastern University’s decades-long saga of dysfunction and ultimate demise: losing its accreditation due to serious financial mismanagement, dismal graduation rates, and high student loan defaults. But Southeastern’s story exposes a bigger problem in higher education, argues Carey. “The government exercises remarkably little oversight over the colleges and universities into which hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars are poured every year, relying instead on a tissue-thin layer of regulation at the hands of accreditors that are funded and operated by the colleges themselves. The result is chronic failure. The accreditation system is most egregiously failing the students who most need a watchdog looking out for their interests. The case of Southeastern shows how.”

The Takeaway on HBCUs and Loan Defaults

On "The Takeaway" radio show last week, Senior Policy Analyst Erin Dillon discussed the growing problem of student loan defaults and other findings from Education Sector's recently released report Lowering Student Loan Default Rates: What One Consortium of Historically Black Institutions Did to Succeed. The show also featured Bronte Jones, who, 10 years ago, coordinated the emergency effort among a consortium of Texas HBCUs to lower their student loan defaults and set up "default aversion" strategies for ongoing success.

Cash-Strapped California and Tuition Hikes

California public universities are seeing a tuition hike of 32 percent this fall—that’s three times what students paid for their college education 10 years ago. Arizona could see a 31 percent hike; Florida 15 percent. “State budgets have been rocked by the recession; it’ll be another couple of years before budgets bounce back,” explained Policy Director Kevin Carey on CNN last week. “In many ways, the worst is yet to come for many of these students.”

Upcoming Events

Event This Week! College and Career Ready

Recently, President Obama unveiled a proposal to make Title I funding contingent on a state's adoption of reading and math standards that prepare students for college or a career. But what will "college- and career-ready" mean? How would such a mandate look in federal law and how would it be implemented by local educators?

Join Education Sector and College Summit this Thursday, March 11 for “College- and Career-Ready Students: How Can We Tell?” Confirmed speakers include: Jamie Pueschel Fasteau, senior education policy advisor to Committee on Education and Labor Chairman George Miller; David Coleman, founder and CEO of Student Achievement Partners; Nina Lopez, special assistant to the commissioner, Colorado Department of Education; Angelique Simpson Marcus, principal of Largo High School, Prince George's County, Maryland; Chad Aldeman, Education Sector policy analyst; and J.B. Schramm, founder and CEO of College Summit. Linda Perlstein, public editor of Education Writers Association will serve as moderator.

C’mon, there’s still time: Register today!

Announcements

Job Opening! Senior Writer/Editor

At its best, Education Sector's work helps to change the way that policymakers, educators, the media, and the public at large view educational issues. Powerful, accessible writing and communications are essential to this work.

Education Sector is looking for an experienced, multi-talented writer/editor with a demonstrated competency to understand and accurately synthesize and communicate complex public policy issues and research. He/she will engage in a variety of roles, working directly with our editor, policy analysts, and communications team. Apply today!

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