The state Department of Education has now set Monday morning to release the list of 187 or so “persistently lowest performing schools” that the federal government insists must be restructured. That will allow districts and  independent analysts only two days to review the list – and pehaps lobby for changes – before the State Board of Education votes on the final list at its March 10 meeting.

The Legislature set the criteria for determining the list in the bill it passed in January to improve the chances of winning a Race to the Top grant. There are  enough quirks, however, that it’s possible that some of the worst performing schools will escape the list, while better performers will face sanctions.

(Read more and comment on this post)

By John Fensterwald on March 4th, 2010

Comments on Failing schools list on Monday

The Legislative Analyst is proposing that the Legislature raise fees at community colleges by $14 per credit – more than 50 percent from the current $26 per credit (which, in turn was raised last year from $20). It sounds like a whopper, but many  students wouldn’t pay it because of fee waivers for low-income families and new federal income tax credits for the middle class. However, the increase would provide $150 million to the system at a time when enrollments statewide have been falling because many colleges have significantly cut the number of sections they’ve been offering, shutting students out of courses that they need.

Even at $40 – $1,200 for a student taking a fulltime load of 30 credits – fees would remain the lowest in America.

(Read more and comment on this post)

By John Fensterwald on February 28th, 2010

Comments on LAO: raise community college fees

If baby boomers need another persuasive reason  why it’s critically important to invest more now in higher education in California, they should consider this: They’ll need more workers with college degrees,  if they want to make  money selling their homes in the next 20 years.

University of Southern California demography professor Dowell Myers made this pitch to self-interest Tuesday during the second hearing of the Joint Legislative Committee on the Master Plan for Higher Education. He and others  have warned about the coming threat to the state’s economy from a shortage of workers with college degrees.  Thirty-five percent of workers 55 to 59 years old have at least a bachelor’s degree, compared with 26 percent of workers aged 25 to 39.  Workers with a college degree earn on average 90 percent more than workers with a high school degree in California.

(Read more and comment on this post)

By John Fensterwald on February 2nd, 2010

Comments on Protect higher ed for you own sake, boomers

The California State University System has set an ambitious  goal of raising student graduation rate 8 percentage points, including 10 percentage points for low-income and minority students, over the next six years. Currently, only 46 percent of students overall and 40 percent of  minorities – Hispanics and African Americans primarily — attain a degree after six years. By 2016, CSU wants grad rates to rise to 54 percent overall and 50 percent for underserved minorities.

That average combines separate goals for each of the 23 CSU campuses.  Schools like Cal State-Monterey Bay (overall 14 percentage point increase), San Jose State (12 percentage points for minority students) and Cal State-Chico (14 percentage points for minorities) face an even more daunting goal. (See  CSU graduation initiative for each campus’s target graduation rate.)

(Read more and comment on this post)

By John Fensterwald on January 30th, 2010

Comments on Tough graduation goals for CSU campuses

Toddlers of America are counting on U.S. senators to take a cue from the president – and the rest of pissed-off America — and stick it to bankers.  They’re hoping that Congress restructures the federal college student loan program.

Here’s why: President Obama has asked Congress to end the Federal Family Education Loan program, in which the government has subsidized banks’ loans to college students. Instead, Obama wants the U.S. Treasury  to issue the loans directly.

The federal government has been underwriting loans for 45 years in order to encourage banks to make  loans they’d consider risky. But the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimates the federal government could save $87 billion over a decade if it took over the program. Other experts say that’s too high while acknowledging there would be some savings. (Read more and comment on this post)

By John Fensterwald on January 29th, 2010

Comments on Obama: Cut banks out of college loans

The Legislative Analyst’s Office has given thumbs down to Gov. Schwarzenegger’s idea of a constitutional amendment to permanently reverse prison and unversity spending – and did so with strong language. The proposal is “an unnecessary, ill–conceived measure that would do serious harm to the budget process,” the LAO concluded.

A University of California vice president immediately criticized the LAO report, while mischaracterizing it as an endorsement of fee increases in lieu  of state support. (Read more and comment on this post)

By John Fensterwald on January 26th, 2010

Comments on LAO blasts “ill-conceived” amendment

Gov. Schwarzenegger’s proposed constitutional amendment to protect higher education budgets and slash prison spending is the fiscal equivalent of a death-row conversion. Better late than never to see the light – but look at the mess he created.

“Spending 45 percent more on prisons than universities is no way to proceed into the future,” he said in the State of the State address. “What does it say about a state that focuses more on prison uniforms than caps and gowns? It simply is not healthy.”

University of California President Mark Yudof couldn’t have said it better.

(Read more and comment on this post)

By John Fensterwald on January 6th, 2010

Comments on An aha moment on higher ed

(The Mercury News published this column on  Sunday’s editorial page.)

Two voices called out when I heard that dozens of students on University of California campuses had been arrested for occupying college buildings in protest of the 32 percent fee increase that UC regents had passed.

One was that of the indignant college sophomore who was hauled off to the city jail in Boston in 1970 after refusing to leave the plaza at Government Center during a Vietnam War protest. The other was that of my disbelieving father who asked, “You were taken where for doing what?”

I am the age my dad was then and closer in sensibility to him now than to the youth I once was. I also have a daughter who’s a freshman at UC-Davis and, much to my relief, was busy studying calculus when others took over Mrak Hall.

(Read more and comment on this post)

By John Fensterwald on November 30th, 2009

Comments on UC students need a teach-in on California’s budget mess