Cato Gets It Wrong

Cato is a putative free market think tank, and one of its "scholars" (from the greek, leisurely) advises we have free trade in education worldwide:

One way to promote free trade in higher education is with international trade agreements. 

But not really.  Free trade agreements are never about free trade, they are always bogus.  The only free trade possible is unilaterally pursued.  Anything negotiated is always constrained, not free.

So Cato uses the right words, but means nothing of the sort.  Only Seattle Teachers' College pursues free trade in education worldwide.

Student's Work Owned By School

Prince George County Schools wants to make it so...  who knows, some public school kid, sometime, somewhere, might actually produce something worthwhile, even profitable, at which point the school wants it.  It is possible somebody in a government school might produce something.

“Works created by employees and/or students specifically for use by the Prince George’s County Public Schools or a specific school or department within PGCPS, are properties of the Board of Education even if created on the employee’s or student’s time and with the use of their materials,” the policy reads. “Further, works created during school/work hours, with the use of school system materials, and within the scope of an employee’s position or student’s classroom work assignment(s) are the properties of the Board of Education.”

What happened to grateful students making donations?

The measure has some worried that by the system claiming ownership to the work of others, creativity could be stifled and there would be little incentive to come up with innovative ways to educate students. Some have questioned the legality of the proposal as it relates to students.

Once we have the idea of intellectual property rights, and the supremacy of the state, ther eis no logical limit to state power.  It is all ours.

No. 5 on the Seattle Hit Parade

A Seattle band called the Refusers musically review State Education.

Reviewing Lynda.com

I have submitted a course to Lynda.com with a view to reviewing how it works.  I continuously survey the opportunities for teachers to teach, what I call student-employed college instructors, or the German call privatdozents, or is it privatdozenten?  I filled out the form on this their "call for teachers" page.

Here a week later and no reply.  Every time I look at one of these sites I check out their "press" or media link and my heart sinks when I see "round two financing" or whatever because it can be accurately translated "screw the instructors."  When education becomes a business, someone has to get screwed, and the easiest target is the instructors, because they are the only ones who care, so they will compromise on money.

Lynda.com is not unique in this, it is baked into capitalism.  Education is like medicine, it is not quite a market event.  It is certainly an economic event, but not adaptable to a profit model.  Education works best on the cooperative model, like medicine.

There are various versions of lynda.com out there, straighterline, etc... made possible because the present alternatives are so bad.  But things are changing.

But in USA we have the false dilemma of "business model" vs "socialisr model" in both education and medicine.  And that is why education and medicine is so backwards in USA, very expensive and poor results.

If you disagree regarding expensive and poor results, then you are unaware what both can be, if freed from state intervention.

In the meantime, I'd love to see an "education" website answer a potential instructor within 24 hours.  But then, why bother?  It's about the money.

Feel free to forward this to three friends.

Synchronous vs Asynchronous

Here is a list of myths on online education...  some are debatable, and one in particular struck me...

Unmotivated students fail whether a teacher is watching him/her or not. While eLearning does not require a student to be in a certain place at a certain time, it still offers them access to the teacher and other classmates for help and support.

The old saying, “You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink,” is applicable to this myth. Students lacking the desire to succeed will fail no matter how robust the program or the teacher. Placing the blame on eLearning is foolish. eLearning is simply the catalyst for delivering information, it cannot be responsible for a student’s work habits.

Course completion is an issue.  This presumes the courses are asynchronous, which I think is something of an error in delivery.   I think course completion is best addressed by offering synchronous courses.  The idea that a big benefit of online education is that is can be asynchronous is one idea that should be challenged.  I believe something like 99% of online courses are asynchronous.   I believe when 99% are snchronoous, we'll see most of his 30 problems solved.

Brown v Accreditation

Former senator Hank Brown demonstrates how USA education has been in decline as accreditation has been ascendant. With all of the accredited risible schools out there, the accreditors are going after UV:

The American Council of Trustees and Alumni recently filed a complaint with the Department of Education decrying SACS's interference with the University of Virginia governance powers and processes established by Thomas Jefferson himself. Anyone who knows American history, and regrettably few students do, would realize that Jefferson would be mighty upset to learn that a bunch of federally empowered bureaucrats are overstepping their authority and interfering with the internal governance of his university.

And this is very odd.  At City College of San Francisco, serving people since 1900, is under attack for not having enough administrators, according to the accreditors. How would they know?  By what metric do they measure this?

It is time for the University of Virginia and presidents and boards across the country to say no to this meddling, and it is time Congress recognizes what a failure the system of accreditation has been. Over the years, accreditation has increased costs without protecting quality. A new, transparent system of quality assurance is needed to protect the public—before it's too late.

The solution is to return to the system in which the students pay the instructors directly, and rate their instructors online for all to view.  There is ratemyprofessor.com but that is the wrong approach with confidential reviews which are too often poison pen letters.  A rating system would have to be by adults who sign their names to the review and verified they actually took the course.

55 and Older 100% of Net New Job Growth

So People are preferring hirees in my age group?  Better yet, get self-employed as an instructor...

Note that 100% of the job growth since the recession is in age group 55 and over.
Read more at http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/#im8BHg2JcULPxcug.99