Moscow Education (Idaho)

According to Kevin Carey with Education Sector, computer-based learning at universities improves instruction, lowers costs, and moves students in the direction of outcome-based assessment. These are all good things.

But instead of passing the cost savings along to the customer (the students and tax-payers), universities are pocketing the savings and raising tuitions at the same rate as always.

Via the Washington Monthly:

Colleges are perfectly capable of becoming more efficient and productive, in the same way that countless other industries have: through technology. And increasingly, they are. One of the untold stories in higher education is that the cost of teaching is starting to decline, but virtually none of those savings are being passed along to students and parents in the form of lower prices. Instead, colleges are pocketing the difference, even as they continue to jack up tuition bills.

This is a classic unsustainable trend. Higher education prices cannot grow faster than inflation and family income forever. If colleges use productivity gains from technology to restrain prices, they’ll continue to thrive in a world that values their product more than ever. If they don’t, they’ll be hammered simultaneously by a frustrated public and new competitors eager to steal their customers. To avoid that fate, colleges will need to do more than just teach better for less. They’ll also need to compete in a whole new way.

…

Long-prosperous colleges risk finding themselves in the perilous state of the newspaper, with competitors using the Internet to drive down prices in businesses that were once profit leaders. That would be a mixed blessing, at best. The Web is a boon for those who need to access higher education at a distance. For colleges that have grown complacent and inefficient—and there are many—a dose of fiscal reality would do them good. But the financial cross-subsidization at the heart of the modern university also sustains much of what makes it a uniquely valuable institution, more than a mere conveyer of credits and degrees. Much as newspapers use classified advertising to support money-losing foreign bureaus, subsidized scholarship makes huge contributions to the scientific, cultural, and civic lives of the nation. The University of Phoenix does not.

My buddy, Gary, sent this photo from Mojave, Calif., today. This is from the “Elementary School Supplies” aisle.

He says that one thing on this aisle doesn’t belong there.

I’m assuming he means the reinforcement of gender and cultural stereotypes due to all white, female characters…

As reported in Wednesday’s edition of the Moscow-Pullman Daily News.

The Palouse Prairie Charter School recently received a $671,949 grant from the Idaho State Department of Education, and will use the money to train the school principal, board and teachers.

The school has been in the works for several years and is slated to open for business next fall.

The school also may use some of the grant money for computers, furniture and library books, or certain remodeling projects, said Nils Peterson, chairman of the Palouse Prairie board of directors.

"This is hugely helpful," Peterson said. "We applied for $650,000. You need all that sort of stuff to start up a school."

Palouse Prairie will receive $200,000 of the grant this year, and will receive two more payments later on if it meets its yearly goals.

The Idaho Department of Education applied for federal funding to provide grants for schools developing innovative programming, Department of Education School Choice Coordinator Shirley Rau said.

…

Peterson said the board of directors would like to have the principal involved in the search for teachers and student recruitment.

Palouse Prairie Charter School is a free public school, and is open to anyone. There are spots available for 87 children in kindergarten through fifth grade. Enrollment will be open from February to March.

"Things are really revving up, and we need as many people as possible to help us do our start-up work," Ater-Kranov said, adding that there are two open positions on the board of directors. Job descriptions are posted on the school's Web site, along with contact and application information.

Palouse Prairie also received $100,000 from the J.A. & Kathryn Albertson Foundation in August. That donation was unrestricted, so the school may use it for salaries, remodeling and operational expenses, Peterson said.

Let’s do the math: $672k + $100k = $772k

Divide that by 87 kids and the cost is about $8,870 per child before it even starts teaching.

From the Spokesman Review.

Officials at the University of Idaho and Boise State University are preparing to cut their budgets up to 5 percent in anticipation of reduced state spending.

The schools are expecting Gov. Butch Otter to announce the decrease, attributed to falling tax revenues, sometime after the Thanksgiving weekend.

Otter has already ordered a 1 percent budget holdback statewide, saving $27 million.

He has also warned he will likely ask agencies to cut an additional 1.5 percent to save $41 million.

University of Idaho President Steven B. Daley-Laursen recently put out a memo stating he expects cuts up to 5 percent.

"We are awaiting word, which may come from the governor this Tuesday, as to whether that expected percentage will increase," Daley-Laursen said in a memo posted on the university's Web site.

…

Money collected in the state's overall general fund was $12.8 million below what was predicted for October. School officials said the current economic conditions could persist.

"We also believe that, given the turbulent economic conditions, holdbacks will continue and possibly increase in near-future years," Daley-Laursen said.

The school is imposing travel restrictions, he said, eliminating some face-to-face meetings when a phone call or video conference will work.

But he said traveling for meetings that could create new revenue sources will generally be allowed.\

As reported in today’s edition of the Moscow-Pullman Daily News.

Washington State University President Elson S. Floyd said the university has been asked to cut an additional $4.4 million from its budget for the current fiscal year.

The reduction is part of an new round of emergency statewide budget cuts ordered by Gov. Chris Gregoire on Tuesday, and comes on top of a $6 million budget cut ordered in early October.

As reported in today’s edition of the Moscow-Pullman Daily News.

University of Idaho President Steven Daley-Laursen is taking two additional steps to reducing spending.

Effective Dec. 1, Daley-Laursen will convert the university’s hiring “pause” to a hiring “freeze,” and all nonessential state-funded travel will be frozen as well.

Daley-Laursen announced the moves via a memo to faculty and staff Monday. He also addressed various scenarios for university budget reductions over the next several years.

The university already has reduced spending by $960,000 in response to Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter’s mandated 1-percent budget holdback for state agencies. Of that amount, $200,000 came from cutting UI travel budgets. The UI and other state agencies received a memo earlier this month hinting at an additional 1.5-percent cut.

Otter is expected to address the total holdback during a Dec. 1 news conference, and UI officials believe he could ask for up to 5 percent in cuts.

From Local News 8:

University of Idaho President Steven Daley-Laursen says he believes Idaho Governor Butch Otter may ask state agencies to hold back 5 percent from their budgets this fiscal year, including educational institutions.

President Dayley-Laursen also believes the budget holdbacks will continue for the near-future years.

In a letter addressed to university faculty and staff, the president warns that the cuts could come as soon as Monday.

In response to the potential holdback increase, beginning December 1, Daley-Laursen will institute a hiring freeze, and a hold on all non-essential travel.

Here’s President Daley-Laursen’s letter:

Dear University of Idaho Faculty and Staff,

The continuing volatility in the economy, together with questions from our faculty and staff regarding budget holdbacks and the program prioritization process, compel me to provide greater clarity and take additional action regarding the University of Idaho's budget situation.

As I wrote recently, the Idaho Division of Financial Management has indicated that state agencies should prepare for the Governor's 1 percent holdback of state-appropriated funds for this fiscal year (FY09) to increase to 2.5 percent. We are awaiting word, which may come from the governor this Tuesday, as to whether that expected percentage will increase. We believe it may possibly be as much as 5 percent. We also believe that, given the turbulent economic conditions, holdbacks will continue and possibly increase in near-future years.

For the University of Idaho, a 5 percent holdback of state-appropriated general education funds would consist of approximately $5 million from our $96 million General Education account and $1.5 million from our $30 million in state-appropriated special program accounts (i.e., Agricultural Research and Extension, Forest Utilization Research and Idaho Geological Survey). This combined base for these reduction calculations is approximately $126 million, while the University budget totals more than $432 million. This larger figure includes funds from a wide variety of other sources, including grants, contracts, student fees, auxiliary services and fundraising.

The economy in the coming year is uncertain, so we also need to plan for the probability that this year's state holdback will recur in the coming 2010 fiscal year, potentially requiring an additional 2.5 to 5 percent reduction in spending on state-appropriated funds.

The other factors influencing our budget, which I understand have caused some confusion as they relate to the holdback, are strategic investments and reallocations. We entered the current 2009 fiscal year following through on the internal reallocation we had committed to - a strategic prioritization of $6.2 million toward areas identified as critical for investment, including those expected to increase revenue over time: graduate and undergraduate recruitment and retention, research, and advancement. Some of these investments have already borne fiscal results (e.g., enrollment and fundraising increases). I will talk about those returns in a future Progress Report.

A portion of that $6.2 million reallocation was also used to cover increased operating costs such as energy, liability insurance and city services, and a lower state allocation because of cumulative lower enrollments over the last three years. Costs will continue to increase in the coming fiscal year for things like utilities, and we must continue to sustain strategic investments to increase revenue over time. As such, we project the need to internally cover an additional $2 to 5 million in fiscal year 2010.

In short, we are looking at a scenario in which we must anticipate 5 to 10 percent in state-mandated holdbacks over two fiscal years, resulting in a permanent budget reduction. In addition, we will need to cover increased costs. Of course, gains in revenue from sources such as increased enrollments (which lead to increased state appropriations over time), fees, private giving and/or state or federal assistance to higher education will help mitigate budget reductions. While we anticipate revenue increases over time, it is prudent to plan assuming no short-term revenue enhancements. As such we are developing fiscal models to deal with these budget reductions that minimize the impact on our teaching/learning, scholarly/creative activity, outreach/engagement, and organization/culture/climate.

To further address the state's request, I will place into effect, on December 1, two requirements to reduce spending:

• A freeze on non-essential state-funded travel: travel to conferences; to face-to-face meetings that could instead be convened by phone or videoconference; travel not essential to maintaining donor/alumni/legislative relations or that does not have high potential to cultivate new revenue sources; and the like. All travel scheduled after December 1 must be approved by unit deans or vice presidents.
• The current hiring pause on state-funded positions will convert to a freeze. Employment offers for state-funded positions being prepared on or after December 1 must be submitted to unit deans or vice presidents. If they concur that those hires are critical, final approval must be sought from the provost and me.

Parallel to these actions, the deans are continuing the critically important process of analyzing program investments, disinvestments and reconfigurations that could occur this year to benefit both the short-term budget situation and the long-term University transformation process. We are also examining all University accounts, including state-appropriated and local service accounts, for potential "bridge" sources of funds to meet immediate needs.

To continue our University transformation process, the deans and vice presidents, along with faculty, staff and student partners, are pressing forward swiftly on the major strategic planning activities of this fall:

• academic program prioritization for our long-term viability and impact;
• process reengineering pilot projects to increase our efficiencies, collaborations and internal customer satisfaction;
• and a Request for Innovations (RFI) process to envision how the University of Idaho should be shaped and focused for the 21st century.

These activities are an extension, enhancement and acceleration of the Strategic Action Plan we began implementing more than two years ago. And while they are influenced by new realities in our fiscal situation, they are not driven by it. They are part and parcel of the proactive, innovative, and practical strategic planning that we and all institutions must do to provide the greatest impact in a changing world. As I said to you earlier this year, thanks to these good efforts, we are well-prepared and continue to make good progress toward making the critical choices we will face in the months ahead.

I encourage your interest, energy and engagement as we take the next steps together in transforming our University of Idaho. We will keep you informed as we receive additional information regarding fiscal requirements from the state. As always, I welcome your questions and feedback.

Sincerely,
Steven B. Daley-Laursen, President

By Terry Moe, Professor of Political Science at Stanford University, (and himself an early Obama supporter) in the Wall Street Journal:

Democrats are fervent supporters of public education, and the party genuinely wants to help disadvantaged kids stuck in bad schools. But it resists bold action. The explanation lies in its longstanding alliance with the teachers' unions -- which, with more than three million members, tons of money and legions of activists, are among the most powerful groups in American politics. The Democrats benefit enormously from all this firepower, and they know what they need to do to keep it. They need to stay inside the box.

And they have done just that. Democrats favor educational "change" -- as long as it doesn't affect anyone's job, reallocate resources, or otherwise threaten the occupational interests of the adults running the system. Most changes of real consequence are therefore off the table. The party specializes instead in proposals that involve spending more money and hiring more teachers -- such as reductions in class size, across-the-board raises and huge new programs like universal preschool. These efforts probably have some benefits for kids. But they come at an exorbitant price, both in dollars and opportunities foregone, and purposely ignore the fundamentals that need to be addressed.

Democrats have to get serious about school choice. The unions oppose it because they don't want one student or one dollar to leave the regular public schools, where their members teach. So the Democrats have been timid and weak in putting choice to productive use -- even though their constituents are the ones trapped in deplorably bad urban schools, whose futures are being ruined, and who are desperate for new educational opportunities.

If children were their sole concern, Democrats would be the champions of school choice. They would help parents put their kids into whatever good schools are out there, including private schools. They would vastly increase the number of charter schools. They would see competition as healthy and necessary for the regular public schools, which should never be allowed to take kids and money for granted.

It all boils down to a simple question. Will President Obama have the courage to unite with the rebels inside his party, champion the interests of children over the interests of adults, and be a true leader who really means it when he talks about change? We can only stay tuned. And have the audacity of hope. 

Nope. The Dems know who butters their bread. They’d rather keep the money flowing in and allow generation after generation of kids receive a pricey, failing education.

HT: Mark J. Perry

If you are rich and powerful, choice is good.

For the peons, the rich and powerful know better what you need.

From the Wall Street Journal:

Michelle and Barack Obama have settled on a Washington, D.C., school for their daughters, and you will not be surprised to learn it is not a public institution. Malia, age 10, and seven-year-old Sasha will attend the Sidwell Friends School, the private academy that educates the children of much of Washington's elite at a cost of almost $30,000 per year for tuition.

A number of great schools were considered," said Katie McCormick Lelyveld, a spokeswoman for Mrs. Obama. "In the end, the Obamas selected the school that was the best fit for what their daughters need right now."

Note the word "selected," as in made a choice. The Obamas are fortunate to have the means to send their daughters to private school, and no one begrudges them that choice given that Washington's public schools are among the worst in America.

Most D.C. parents would also love to be able to choose a better school for their child, but they lack the financial means to do so. The Washington Opportunity Scholarship Program each year offers up to $7,500 to some 1,900 kids to attend private schools, but Democrats in Congress want to kill it. Average family income for kids in the voucher program is about $22,000.

Mr. Obama says he opposes such vouchers, because "although it might benefit some kids at the top, what you're going to do is leave a lot of kids at the bottom." The example of his own children refutes that: The current system offers plenty of choice to kids "at the top" while abandoning those at the bottom. 

And this argument is totally lost on the left.

The injustice of it all! Holding schools accountable to actually teach the material. And all they get for it is $10,000+ per head.

As reported in today’s edition of the Moscow-Pullman Daily News.

Moscow School District officials are not happy about the possibility of next year's sophomores having to pass the science portion of the Idaho Standards Achievement Test in order to graduate.

Superintendent Candis Donicht said rolling out the science ISAT requirement for the class of 2012 is too soon, and leaves districts ill-prepared to deal with the consequences of adding a high-stakes test as a graduation requirement.

"The bottom line being this is not fair to kids," Donicht said. "There's some discussion going on among some of my colleagues about whether a science ISAT should be on our plates at all."

Until several weeks ago, district officials believed the science ISAT requirement wouldn't be on tap until the class of 2013. They became alarmed when the Idaho State Board of Education's November agenda included taking action on the year for implementation - something everyone had thought was already decided.

The board of education determined in 2004 that every Idaho sophomore will be required to pass the 10th-grade ISAT in reading, math and language usage, said Lucy Willits, chief of staff for Idaho public schools chief Tom Luna.

"At that time there were only three tests," Willits said. "Since then, the state added science in fifth, seventh and 10th" grades.

Tenth-graders currently take the science ISAT, but passing it is not a graduation requirement.

Now there’s a lot of incentive!

Moscow Director of Curriculum and Instruction Cindy Bechinski said 33.1 percent of Idaho sophomores didn't pass the science portion of the ISAT last year.

Amazing. Simply amazing.

There’s no telling what $10,000 can buy you these days.

Brilliant.

From EIA:

The Obamas have chosen the elite Sidwell Friends School for their two daughters to attend, and if you think that is of little interest to Americans, you haven't been to The Huffington Post, where the story announcing the decision has 772 comments, and counting.

Predictably, there are arguments about whether President-elect Obama should have chosen a public school instead, with the sensible rejoinder about security and private decisions. I find these arguments to be beside the point. The Obamas enjoy the same freedom as everyone else, to choose a school within the limits of their ability to pay.

A better question is why the Obamas would choose Sidwell Friends, a school sorely lacking in many of the elements we are told are required for educational excellence. It would be a shame if the Obama kids were to miss out on all these benefits, so we humbly submit these additions and subtractions to make Sidwell Friends the type of school the experts want all schools to become:

• Add a unionized workforce and a collective bargaining agreement. NEA asserts "that the attainment and exercise of collective bargaining rights are essential to the promotion of education employee and student needs in society." How can the Obama kids have their education needs filled without agency fee, release time, grievances, binding arbitration and strikes?
• Add geographic enrollment boundaries. The Obamas will reside 3.5 miles from one Sidwell campus and 8 miles from the other, located in the state of Maryland. What's next, flying in the next generation of Kennedy kids via helicopter from Massachusetts? Limit enrollment to those in the immediate neighborhood.
• Subtract weak teacher benefits. According to the Sidwell web site, teachers pay 10-40% of their health insurance premiums, pay into a defined contribution retirement plan, and receive only two personal days a year.
• Add diversity. The Obama kids will become part of the 39% of Sidwell students who are racial/ethnic minorities. But the DC Public Schools are 95% racial/ethnic minorities. How can the Obama children be denied so much of the rich cultural mix our nation's capital provides?
• Subtract religion. The Quaker tradition is part of daily life at Sidwell Friends, including weekly worship meetings for all students, Quaker or not. This isn't very inclusive of the Catholics, Muslims, Hindus, Wiccans and animists among the student body. Religious beliefs should only be studied from an academic standpoint and never practiced within a school's walls.
• Add to the curriculum. Grades PreK-4 emphasize things like phonics, handwriting, vocabulary, comprehension, grammar, fractions, algorithms, geometry, and American history. Upper grades are heavy with English literature, advanced math, history, science, foreign languages and the arts. There isn't much "getting information from television, film, Internet, or videos" or "Represent multiplication as repeated addition" for lower grades, or "Identify the countries, such as Italy, Poland, China, Korea, and Japan, where large numbers of people left to move to the United States at the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries" for upper grades. We don't want to saddle a 21st century President with an 18th century curriculum.

Even without these changes, we can expect the Obama kids to do well in school, since the level of parental education is a positive influence on student achievement, even if it might lead to inferior choices in where those students go to school.

From Bryan Fischer, Executive Director of the Idaho Values Alliance:

As I wrote you on Friday, Rep. Steven Thayn intends to bring legislation this coming year that will authorize paying parents who bring their children to first-grade ready to learn without running them through government-run kindergarten programs.

Parents would receive $2,250 for each child who can pass the kindergarten test, one-half of what it currently costs taxpayers to have the government do this for them.

This proposal rewards our best early educators - parents - and will reduce the demand for and cost of public education services.

Interesting thought. Reward for doing good, but don’t punish for doing bad.

This is similar to my idea of giving parents a $3,000 tax break per kid in school. They use it to buy whatever education they want. Or they can put their kids in government school.

Win-win for everyone.

From the Idaho Statesman:

Idaho is one of the fastest-growing states in virtual learning for K-12 students and was rated No. 3 in the nation for policy and practice by e.Republic's Center for Digital Education. About 5 percent of all K-12 students, around 14,000, are taking classes online full or part time.

However, it is not without challenges, as educators and lawmakers figure out how to manage funding and oversight, and tackle concerns from those who have yet to grasp the ever-evolving virtual world.

Superintendent of education Tom Luna said the current education model follows Henry Ford's mass production methods. But online learning offers great opportunities for students with different learning styles and abilities by providing cost-effective, targeted programs for tutoring, make-up classes, and concurrent and advanced credit.

Actually, the US schools are fashioned after the German School Models of the 1800’s.

At some point in the future (when I can catch my breath), I’ll write a post about the problems with the German School Model that we’ve uncritically adopted.

"We have to move away from the business model we've adopted," Luna said. "One thing to remember is it will only be hard on the adults."

Luna and speaker John Watson, founder of Evergreen Consulting Associates, which advises on virtual/online education policy, said virtual education is vital in bolstering economic development, engaging students in education and preparing them for a changing jobscape.

Watson said about one in four high school students don't graduate, and that wasn't a problem decades ago when high-paying manufacturing jobs were plentiful. But with those jobs moving to other countries and technical and informational skills more in demand, higher learning is even more important, he said.

Virtual learning also allows small and rural districts to access classes and educators they couldn't afford, Watson said.

Sen. Russ Fulcher, R-Meridian, said he agrees online learning is critical, but legislators have been wary of virtual systems. Educators, parents and students will have to prove the system works and show how much students are really learning to expand support, he said.

"We're living in a different world than we were 10, 20, 30, 40 years ago," he said. "It's not for everyone. But it is for a significant population." 

And virtual education really turns into a digital co-op for less traditional homeschoolers.

If this were a large business, they would be in serious trouble.

But since it is the government schools, the bosses will get off without penalty — and probably cheered for their visionary tactics.

From the New York Times:

Eager to hire teachers for bilingual education programs, the Dallas public school system assigned fake Social Security numbers to newly hired foreigners so it could get them on the payroll quickly, an internal investigation found.

The district continued the practice for years, the investigation found, even after it was admonished by a state agency. It was only halted this summer.

“The inappropriate procedure of assigning false SSNs has been systemic,” investigators with the school district’s Office of Professional Responsibility wrote in a report on the matter dated Sept. 25.

The Dallas Morning News ran an article on Friday after obtaining the report, marked “highly confidential,” through a records request.

A state education official said an investigation of the practice was under way and that the Social Security Administration and district attorney’s office were likely to be involved.

Jon Dahlander, a Dallas schools spokesman, said Friday that the practice “was obviously inappropriate.” He added: “I think the intention was good — they wanted to help the employees get paid. But you cannot use inappropriate procedures to do that.”

The investigation identified 26 foreign citizens in an alternative teacher-certification program who were given fake Social Security numbers, contrary to district and state procedure, which called for other identification measures.

HT: Dave G.

Now for something completely different: a UI student reaching out to tribes in the Ivory Coast — not just giving them a fish, but teaching them to fish.  

From the University of Idaho’s Argonaut

Benjamin Nieuwsma may have attended the University of Idaho to learn about business, but the best skill he garnered for his future came from Africa while trying to teach a small tribe to be more entrepreneurial.

A successful entrepreneur himself, Nieuwsma helped create ZK Pro Video Production Service while still in high school. With its high-quality productions and personable customer service, the Moscow-based company has a solid customer base.

"I was running my own business and wanted to know more about business operations, which is why I came to the University of Idaho," said Nieuwsma. "I am studying business production and operations management, which helps me evaluate processes to make our business more efficient with a higher through-put."

During two academic breaks, he headed to Africa; during his second trip, he set up an audio recording studio, where he taught a seminar on business feasibility and analysis to help the local people learn the business process.

"I wanted to help the people learn things that were not natural to their culture, such as basic accounting of money and scheduling time," said Nieuwsma. "In many instances, they have local products that they view as worthless, which they actually can trade to the local or even international market and become successful."

Update from one of my readers:

The article you posted on Nov. 22, 2008 titled "Teacher Scams: Rushing to Beat Closing Loophole" was from a 2004 NYT's article. That so-called loophole has been closed for four years now.

You also neglected to say that spouses that have never worked a day in their lives DO receive the Social Security spousal benefit of 1/2 of their spouses Social Security benefit, but Texas teachers do not.

When a citizen earns their Social Security benefit part of that benefit is having a spousal benefit--except for teachers in Texas, California, Colorado, Ohio, Missouri and many other states. These teachers did not even have a choice in participating in the Social Security program and I am sure the school districts did not tell them that they would get screwed when they turned 65.

What a country. Pay into a state retirement fund, work one day as a janitor and then get social security also. 

From the New York Times:

Thousands of Texas teachers are rushing to retire before a lucrative loophole in Social Security law closes, but there is one catch: They must first spend a day washing windows or scrubbing floors.

Most Texas teachers do not pay into Social Security and instead participate in a state pension fund. But the loophole allows them to receive Social Security benefits if their last day of work before retirement is in a job covered by the federal program.

School districts around the state helped teachers out by hiring them to work janitorial or maintenance jobs for just a day. The loophole closes on Wednesday.

Margie Nancarrow, a junior high school principal, said she wanted to spend at least two more years at her school in a suburb of Dallas, but the benefits were too tempting at a time of soaring costs for health insurance and prescription drugs.

'I'm not wanting to do anything extravagant,' said Ms. Nancarrow, 54, who spent her last day before retirement moving furniture. 'I just want to live a modest lifestyle and take care of myself and not be a burden on anyone else.'

By doing the janitor work, retirees become eligible to receive Social Security spousal benefits equal to one-half of their spouse's monthly Social Security check.

What a country.

HT: Dave G.

Since the largest budget item is salaries, perhaps the well-paid faculty members should take a leaf from the WSU president’s playbook.

As reported in today’s edition of the Moscow-Pullman Daily News.

It began with a hypothetical dollar figure at a University of Idaho faculty meeting Monday afternoon.

By the end of the week it had grown to a $20 million anxiety attack, with President Steven Daley-Laursen planning an explanatory letter to faculty and staff for next week.

Daley-Laursen told university faculty at their Monday meeting that state holdbacks and internal reallocations could total $20 million over the next two years.

Faculty members left the meeting with no idea where the number had come from, or where the cuts will be made.

…

Baker said the $20 million figure is made up of four different budgetary aspects:

• Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter ordered state agencies to reduce state-appropriated spending by 1 percent in September, and hold an additional 1.5 percent in reserves. University officials believe Otter will require the full 2.5 percent reduction, which would shrink the UI's budget for this year by about $2.4 million.
• The governor is expected to ask for an even larger holdback. Otter has a news conference planned for Tuesday, and UI officials are preparing for a potential holdback of up to 5 percent, which would amount to a little less than $5 million. Nobody expects the economy to right itself between this year and next, so UI's number-crunchers are running figures for the next two years. The theoretical two-year 5 percent holdback would cost the university about $10 million.
• The university reallocated $6.2 billion at the beginning of this fiscal year (July 2008-June 2009) to boost new student recruitment, research, and fundraising. The reallocation is seen as an investment, as all three areas are expected to increase revenues. The $6.2 million is still in the university's budget, just in different places.
• The UI experiences inflationary costs every year that aren't factored into state allocations. Baker said the university is expecting to need about $4 million for increases in university liability insurance, utility costs and the enrollment workload adjustment.

Enrollment figures for the UI are averaged on a three-year basis. The university receives money when the three-year average is up, and owes money when it's down.

Which isn’t good news since enrollment has been down all but this year (and it had only marginally increased).

A $10 million biennial holdback, plus the $6.2 reallocation and the $4 million in anticipated inflationary costs add up to about $20 million over two years.

From The Olympian:

Over the years police have responded to the University of Idaho Arboretum to investigate complaints of disturbing sounds, sounds like moaning, screaming and growling.

One day this fall the sounds begin again with a bark, then a howl, then snarls. In the shadows of the trees a man and woman on all fours circle each other warily. The man, with the swinging gait of a gorilla, sweeps leaves from before him and grunts. With the throaty feline growl of a panther, the woman screams, "Ow, ohttp://wwww Ohttp://wwww, Ohttp://wwww!!!"

The sound is human, yet inhuman, leading to how this came to be the only UI class to repeatedly evoke a police response. Among UI theater students, the animals acting class is legendary.

Senior James Napoleon Stone lopes through the trees, cackling like a hyena. He lifts his head to sniff the air, then drops and rolls in the dirt. Stone steps out of character to describe what is going through his mind as a hyena in the arboretum.

"I check in and ask, 'Am I safe? What's my proximity to danger? What decisions do I make to come out on top?' It's hard to talk about without sounding crazy," says Stone, who is barefoot, out of breath and coated in sweat and dirt.

There's no Shakespeare or sonnets for animals, he says. This is the chance as an actor to experience the most basic modes of survival.

And this is what they get for their $2,205 per year tuition fees. Brilliant.

Cal Thomas speaks out on the civic illiteracy in the US.

Here is the civics test he speaks about: http://www.americancivicliteracy.org/resources/quiz.aspx

For the third straight year, the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI) has found that a large number of Americans cannot pass a basic 33-question civic literacy test on their country’s history and institutions. The multiple-choice questions ask about the inalienable rights mentioned in the Declaration of Independence (life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness), the name of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s 1933 series of government programs (The New Deal) and the three branches of government (executive, legislative, judicial). No, I didn’t peek at the answers. I received a good education.

The random sample of 2,508 American adults, ranging from those without high school diplomas, to people with advanced degrees, revealed a minimal difference in civic literacy between the uneducated and the highly educated. Fifty-six percent of those surveyed could identify Paula Abdul as one of the judges on “American Idol,” but only 21 percent were able to recognize a phrase from Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. I had to memorize that speech in high school. What are they memorizing now?

Not much of any use, it appears. Ignorance of America’s history and heritage is a setup for politicians and others who want to manipulate us into a way of thinking that allows them to make decisions that are unconstitutional and unwise. More than repeating phrases and figures, knowledge of the past prepares us for a future based on unchanging principles. That’s why knowledge matters and ignorance endangers our government and threatens our way of life even more than terrorism.

Civic illiteracy in the United States crosses all educational lines, including the vaunted Harvard where, according to the ISI survey, seniors scored 69.56 on the test, or a D-plus. And they were the best. The survey found that up to three-fourths of Americans believe teaching America’s heritage is fundamental to a good education and to producing good citizens. So why is it not being done?

Part of it, I think, has to do with the continued embarrassment by the liberal education establishment over America and what it means to be an American. From their guilt about prosperity and our freedoms, to their opposition to “dead white males,” college professors, especially since the ’60s, have favored the trendy and quaint over the established and proven.

Exactly.

HT: Dave G.

A new multi-national study released by Education Next shows that competition from private schools improves achievement for both public and private school students and decreases the amount spent per pupil.

From the Hoover Institute: 

“West and Woessmann’s innovative approach to measuring the impact of competition between private and public schools capitalized on the historical fact that the amount of competition in education today has in large part been influenced by the Catholic Church’s decision in the 19th century to build an alternative system of education wherever the state religion was not Catholic. The researchers estimated the statistical relationship between the size of the Catholic population in 1900 and the extent of private schooling today and used the estimate to isolate the causal effect of private school competition on the achievement of individual students. Countries with larger shares of Catholics but without an official Catholic state religion in 1900 have significantly larger shares of privately operated schools in 2003 and their students perform significantly better on the PISA test.”

Now this is leadership by example.

As reported in today’s edition of the Moscow-Pullman Daily News.

Washington State University President Elson S. Floyd asked the university's Board of Regents today to cut $100,000 from his pay given the looming budget problems faced by the university.

"These are exceedingly tough times for my students, faculty and staff," Floyd said in a prepared statement released by the university. "We will be asking them to think more creatively and work harder with less as we deal with budgetary restraints. It is incumbent upon me to lead by example."

The WSU Regents accepted Floyd's request. His salary will be reduced from $725,000 to $625,000 on Jan. 1.

Personally, I think that the majority of professors at UI would rather see the school sink rather than take a pay cut to make ends meet.

MOSCOW, ID - The belt tightening that’s been brought on by the downturn in the economy means tough budget decisions are being made at institutions of higher education.

This could have economic ramifications on Moscow. It depends upon whether UI reduces expenses by cutbacks in labor (not likely) or in postponing maintenance and capital expenses.

From Northwest Public Radio:

At the University of Idaho, administrators, faculty, and staff are preparing for what will likely be a total cut of about $2.4 million dollars. The bottom line for UI President Stephen Daley - Laursen.

Daley - Laursen: “In this environment, which has been building around us, frankly, for quite some time, there is an increasing gap between our vision and our ability to fund it.”

Daley - Laursen, in a campus wide address last week, said just about everyone in the public realm is going through the same thing.Even Harvard and Stanford need to find savings in their budgets.

Daley - Laursen said the challenge at the UI is to reduce the university’s scope, to focus on things that matter most to students, the state, and the greater world, and to establish a sustainable fiscal model.  

Peter D. Salins is professor of political science at SUNY and was provost there from 1997–2006.

He writes the following in the New York Times:

For some years now, many elite American colleges have been downgrading the role of standardized tests like the SAT in deciding which applicants are admitted, or have even discarded their use altogether. While some institutions justify this move primarily as a way to enroll a more diverse group of students, an increasing number claim that the SAT is a poor predictor of academic success in college, especially compared with high school grade-point averages.

Are they correct? To get an answer, we need to first decide on a good measure of “academic success.” Given inconsistent grading standards for college courses, the most easily comparable metric is the graduation rate. Students’ families and society both want college entrants to graduate, and we all know that having a college degree translates into higher income. Further, graduation rates among students and institutions vary much more widely than do college grades, making them a clearer indicator of how students are faring.

So, here is the question: do SATs predict graduation rates more accurately than high school grade-point averages? The short answer is: yes.

In the 1990s, several SUNY campuses chose to raise their admissions standards by requiring higher SAT scores, while others opted to keep them unchanged. With respect to high school grades, all SUNY campuses consider applicants’ grade-point averages in decisions, but among the total pool of applicants across the state system, those averages have remained fairly consistent over time.

Thus, by comparing graduation rates at SUNY campuses that raised the SAT admissions bar with those that didn’t, we have a controlled experiment of sorts that can fairly conclusively tell us whether SAT scores were accurate predictors of whether a student would get a degree.

Conclusion: Among a group of SUNY campuses with very different missions and admissions standards, and at which the high school grade-point averages of enrolling freshmen improved by the same modest amount (about 2% to 4%), only those campuses whose incoming students’ SAT scores improved substantially saw gains in graduation rates.

Demeaning the SAT has become fashionable at campuses across the country. But college administrators who really seek to understand the value of the test based on good empirical evidence would do well to learn from the varied experiences of New York’s state university campuses.

It’s hard to deny the correlation.

According to Pearson Education’s My Voice survey:

• A majority of students in grades 6 through 12 say their teachers don’t care about their problems and feelings
• 43 percent of girls agreed that school is boring,
• 52 percent of boys said school is boring. 
• Ninety-one percent of girls agreed that going to college is important
• 82 percent of boys said going to college is important
• Good grades are important to 84 percent of students.
• 18 percent say they give up when they encounter difficult schoolwork.

Texas A&M International University Professor Loye Young was fired for publishing the names of six students plagiarizing in his management information systems class. 

He’d warned in his syllabus that he would “promptly and publicly fail and humiliate anyone caught lying, cheating, or stealing.”

“Plagiarism is manifestly unfair and disrespectful to your classmates,” Young wrote on his blog. “There are students taking the course who are working very, very hard to learn a subject that in many cases is foreign to them. A plagiarizer is implicitly treating the honest, hard-working student as a dupe.”

…

“People here are told that students should be babied and that we need to keep ‘em in to get enrollment and state funding,” he said. “Well, I want students — when they complete my course — to actually know something, and they can’t if they plagiarize everything.”

I wonder how much of what we experience today in shoddy results of education are the direct fault of not dealing swiftly and firmly with cheaters?

Via Joanne Jacobs

Remember, these are “fees” not “tuition”.

It’s OK to raise fees all you want…

As reported in today’s edition of the Moscow-Pullman Daily News.

University of Idaho officials say they are considering raising student fees to offset looming state budget cuts.

UI Provost Doug Baker says student fees could help generate money to replace a 1% budget cut that Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter ordered for all state agencies in September.

He says he expects another directive to cut an additional 1.5%.

If the school decides to go ahead with a fee increase, it would have to give initial notice to the Board of Regents, the student body president and students at least six weeks prior to the board meeting.

Full-time, in-state UI students now pay $2,316 in fees per semester.

Out-of-state student fees are $5,040 per semester. 

As reported in today’s edition of the Moscow-Pullman Daily News.

Washington State University President Elson S. Floyd said the university is bracing for major budget cuts in the next biennial budget.

"I suspect there will be additional cuts," he said Monday. "It may be 10 percent" less than the amount WSU plans to request from the state Legislature.

Floyd said he does not know how additional cuts might affect the university at this point or where those cuts would be applied.

"We have to take it one step at a time," he said, adding that the university will continue its freeze on administrative hiring and nonessential spending.

Floyd said university officials know and understand that the state is in an economic crisis. WSU was asked to cut $6 million from its 2008-09 academic year budget early last month. The move was part of a statewide effort ordered by the Washington State Office of Financial Management to trim $240 million from the state budget for the current fiscal year.

The cut represents a 2.4-percent reduction from WSU's $254 million state allocation for the current fiscal year.

Last Saturday, BSU defeated UI 45–10.

The radio announcer said that this was the loudest he had heard the Kibbie Dome since a game in 1988/89.

One of my sons asked: “dad, was that the last time the University of Idaho won a game?”

Ouch.

Coldwell Banker Ranks Major College Football Town's Home Affordability:

Moscow is listed with the average home price of $280,000

In the Western Athletic Conference, Moscow is listed as one of the most expensive markets, right behind

• Utah State University Logan, Utah $199,850
• Louisiana Tech University Ruston, La. $228,750
• Boise State University Boise, Idaho $232,750
• New Mexico State University Las Cruces, N.M. $237,000
• University of Idaho Moscow, Idaho $280,000
• University of Nevada Reno, Nev. $302,625
• Fresno State University Fresno, Calif. $331,000
• University of Hawaii Honolulu, Hawaii $780,000
• San Jose State University San Jose, Calif. $1,077,575

Yet again, BSU comes out on top — it’s cheaper to live in Boise than in Moscow. Go figure.  

A press release from Bob Hieronymus, Executive Vice President of Administration and Advancement at New Saint Andrews College:

Thomas C. Folsom, an Associate Professor at Regent University School of Law in Virginia Beach, Virginia, will be the featured speaker at New Saint Andrews College's weekly Disputatio on Friday, November 21. The 3 p.m. forum at the Nuart Theatre in downtown Moscow is open to the public.

The title of Professor Folsom's presentation is "Evaluating Supernatural Law: An Inquiry into the Health of Nations." Prof. Folsom has worked both in and out of the academy, serving in his current capacity at Regent University School of Law since 2002. There, he principally teaches Business Associations and related courses, Intellectual Property, and Payment Systems. He is also a board member on the Board of Governors for the Virginia State Bar Anti-Trust, Franchise and Trade Regulation Section. He earned his J.D. in 1978 from Georgetown University Law Center.