So what do you do with $35 billion dollars?

Texas Ed Spectator » Blog Archive » So what do you do with $35 billion dollars?

Very interesting article on Harvard’s new accessibility to the middle class. Families making less than $120,000 won’t pay any tuition. The author, Steven Roy Goodman, argues that by providing additional aid, Harvard and others with generous endowments, are hoping to head off legislation by Congress that would mandate schools to spend 5% of it’s endowment as required by other private foundations.

Goodman reports that Harvard claims the tuition initiative could cost it $22 million a year. However, if it heads off the Congressional mandate, the school saves $245 million dollars a year for the endowment.

Complete post is at my new site www.texasedspectator.com

Technorati Tags: Steven Roy Goodman, Harvard, College Endowments, college costs, tuition

Legislative Support for Higher Education

Texas Ed Spectator » Blog Archive » Legislative Support for Higher Education

Last spring, the legislature passed a law that restricts public college students in Texas to drop only a maximum of six classes as an undergraduate. The idea was that this will help students graduate faster.

I see it as the perfect example of what passes for legislative support for higher education in Texas

Complete post is at my new site www.texasedspectator.com.

Technorati Tags: Texas Legislature, Higher Education, Funding, Fred Brown, capping dropped classes

Texas SBOE does not support teaching of evolution

Texas Ed Spectator » Texas SBOE does not support teaching of evolution

In case you haven’t heard, the Texas Education Agency has fired the agency’s director of science, Christine Castillo Comer, for forwarding an email about a talk on evolution. It also looks like the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board is seriously considering approving a program that offers a Masters Degree in Creation Science. And if you don’t think our State Board of Education lead by Creationist Advocate, Dr. Don McLeroy, is getting ready to push for eliminating the teaching of evolution from the state’s biology textbooks, consider the following:

Technorati Tags: Texas Education Agency, Christine Comer, teaching evolution, Texas, Don McLeroy, State Board of Education, Lizzette Reynolds, Creation science, intelligent design

West Campus Wonderland

The story till now: South San ISD wants to shut down low performing, low enrollment school. Parents protest and attempt to get a court injunction which is denied. The school district retaliates by suing the parents for court costs. The parents’ lawyer, David Van Os, has a press conference and reads a blog posting supposedly by the school district’s attorney.

Fake Blog Post Riles West Campus Community – Yahoo! News

The blog posting — littered with grammatical and spelling errors — read:

“Save West Campus has cause alot of inconvience for the community … ,so when the district files a lawsuit against the parents of Save West Campus,each of them individualy,that’s the only way to recover the legal fee’s the taxpayers had to pay,so if they claim they have no money,we will file to seize their property,assets & have thier wages garnish,when we win the lawsuit. And hope this will put all this to and end.”

Now is anyone actually surprised that the school district’s attorney said that he did not write the post or have anything to do with it? So what are the possibilities here?

• Someone, presumably on the parent side, planted the post. Does the person really think lawyers write like and is that a reflection of the education quality provided by South San Antonio?

• David Van Os actually writes like that which is why he thought it was the real thing? If true, that would explain why they lost their injunction.

• The school district planted the post knowing that David Van Os would jump on it before verifying it’s authenticity. What does that say about Van Os’ reputation? What does that say about the administration’s respect for the parents?

It’s a sorry situation when the district sues the parents who were pursuing their right to be heard in court. It’s a sorry situation when the parents go to court to solve their problems when there was a school board election that occurred at the same time. It’s a sorry situation when you can’t figure out who to feel sorry for.

Technorati Tags: South San ISD, West Campus, San Antonio, David Van Os, Mark Anthony Sanchez

NISD Oympic Natatorium

Will someone please explain to me how this improves education in Northside?

MySA.com: Metro | State

Acknowledging that some projects offered partial funding would not be able to move forward, the group agreed — this time in an almost evenly divided vote — to move any money that might be freed up first to fully fund the Olympic natatorium proposed by Northside Independent School District, which received $7 million of the $10 million it sought;

Technorati Tags: Northside, NISD, Olympic Natatorium