Duncan It Is

The Chicago Sun-Times reports that President-Elect Barack Obama will announce Chicago Public Schools Superintendent Arne Duncan as his Education Secretary tomorrow.

UW-Madison: Researchers launch landmark study of financial aid

Sara has been busy. Don't believe me?

Check out this press release that went out earlier this week from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. And check out the study's web site.

A team of University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers is conducting a groundbreaking study of the long-term effects of financial aid on college students. Christopher Jencks, professor of social policy at Harvard University, calls the Wisconsin Scholars Longitudinal Study (WSLS) a "landmark study of financial aid."

Participants include nearly 6,000 Wisconsin residents receiving a federal Pell grant while enrolled at each of the 42 public colleges statewide. Many are also grantees of the Fund for Wisconsin Scholars (FFWS), a foundation established by UW-Madison alumni John and Tashia Morgridge. FFWS uses random assignment to select recipients.

"It's often very difficult to isolate effects of aid, since low-income students are at the greatest risk of not finishing college, and they get the most aid. By studying a program that chooses its recipients at random, we have the chance to learn exactly how and why financial aid matters," says Sara Goldrick-Rab, assistant professor of educational policy studies and sociology. "In these economic times, producing this kind of information is more essential than ever."

The researchers expect to have preliminary results within the next year on how and why aid affects college coursework and persistence. But they have designed the WSLS to go even further, tracking participants for a decade or more. As a result, they will be able to examine effects on college completion, employment, earnings, and later outcomes. They are also conducting interviews with students to learn more about how money is affecting their college experiences.

"This study is very important because it will inform both potential private donors and government agencies about the role of financial assistance in college and how aid policies can be improved to expand degree completion," says FFWS Executive Director Mary Gulbrandsen.

Goldrick-Rab is co-directing the study with Douglas N. Harris, an economist and assistant professor of educational policy studies. In addition, Christopher Taber, professor of economics, and Aaron Brower, vice provost for teaching and learning and professor of social work, are co-investigators.

The WSLS is a collaborative effort among the University of Wisconsin System, the Wisconsin Technical College System, and the Wisconsin Higher Educational Aids Board. The study is also supported by UW-Madison's Wisconsin Center for Educational Research, Wisconsin Center for the Advancement of Postsecondary Education, and Institute for Research on Poverty.

Nearly $800,000 in financial support has been provided by three foundations, including the Spencer Foundation and the William T. Grant Foundation.

Musical Elective of the Week

The Musical Elective of the Week is ... not a musician or band as usual. It is a primer of cool sources of music on the web.

We're spotlighting musical sources in three categories: (1) traditional radio stations, (2) web-based radio, and (3) and music-focused web sites. As regular readers know, our musical taste tends toward bands and singer/songwriters in a rock/folk/altcountry vein and music heard on some of the nation's finest Triple A radio stations.

Traditional Radio

We all have our favorite local radio stations. And some of us, fortunately, live in cities and towns where there is a station we can call home. Currently, I'll take Madison, Wisconsin's WMMM-FM over anything the Washington, DC area used to offer when I lived there. However, "Triple M" is not one of my favorites as it's far too repetitive, programmed and narrow.

Check these out instead:
KCRW (Santa Monica, California) - Especially its Morning Becomes Eclectic program hosted by Nic Harcourt
KFOG (San Francisco, California) - Check out the Acoustic Sunrise and Acoustic Sunset programs
KGSR (Austin, Texas)
WNCS/'The Point' (Montpelier, Vermont) - Small-Market Triple A Station of The Year 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008
WXPN (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) - Featuring World Cafe with David Dye
WXRT (Chicago, Illinois)
WXRV/'The River' (Boston, Massachusetts)
WYEP (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) - Check out Music Lab
CKPK (Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada)

Web-Based Radio

My favorite online radio source, by far, is Pandora Radio, which allows you to create a customized station (like mine) as well as play from existing ones. Also worth checking out is Radio Paradise.

Cutting-Edge Music

My bud, Kate Bradley, a Triple-A radio programming veteran (who I used to listen to on The Point in Vermont on those long Burlington-Montpelier round-trips), recently launched Outlandos Music. Taking its name from a storied Police album, Outlandos Music is a new-music discovery service and aggregator for grown-ups. As Kate has impeccable musical taste, her site is well worth your time. For example, she's currently big on New York City-based Indie rockers The Damnwells and Aussie singer/songwriter Shane Nicholson (who is married to Kasey Chambers).

Also, check out the Association of Music Podcasting.


So, readers, what's out there that we're missing, from the coolest overlooked musical web site to the smallest or most obscure small-town radio station that readers should check out? We certainly don't have a monopoly on good ideas or good taste. So, share 'em...

Have a great weekend!

Louisiana: Accountability for Teacher Preparation

An unexpected but welcomed editorial ('What Louisiana Can Teach') appears in this morning's New York Times. It focuses on Louisiana's reform of and accountability for its teacher preparation programs.

For students to learn, they need well-trained teachers. Unfortunately, far too many teacher-preparation programs in this country are little more than diploma mills. As states and the federal government consider ways to fix this problem, they should look to Louisiana’s accountability-based reform efforts.

Louisiana already has required public- and private-teacher-education programs to offer more rigorous course work, and teachers must pass licensing exams in more subject areas than before.

The most striking innovation is an evaluation system that judges teacher-preparation programs based on how much their graduates improve student performances in important areas, including reading, math and science.

For those of you who want more information on this initiative, check out the Louisiana Board of Regents web site (including the latest statewide and institutional reports), this summary from the Center for Teaching Quality, and this Southern Regional Education Board policy brief.

Reaction:
Quick and the Ed
Eduwonk
Daily Howler

Ed Secretary Watch

Does Fordham's Flypaper blog have it right: Chicago Public Schools Superintendent Arne Duncan is the leading candidate to be Obama's Education Secretary? I'd hate to see a wish of David Brooks fulfilled -- not because I have anything against Duncan -- it's more about Brooks. According to some Chicago sources, Duncan may well be in the driver's seat at this point. We'll see if they are right -- and if I'm talking to people "in the know."

Personally, I don't have a strong preference between some of the oft-named candidates. At many levels, I don't think it lives up to all the hype. However, I think an important criteria that hasn't been written about in most of the new stories and blog posts is that the next Education Secretary must have strong communications skills. Because, let's face it, while he or she will be involved in policy decisions, one of the most important roles they will play is to communicate the President's vision and make the case for those education reforms to policymakers. Not all are equal at that task. Just look at the recent Rod Paige experience.

Using that "communications" criteria, I don't know Duncan intimately enough to say whether he floats to the top. One could make the case that many current and former governors might be somewhat more adept with the bully pulpit.

What do you all think? Chicagoans, if you can pull yourself away from the Blagojevich circus, what is your perspective?

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DECEMBER 13th Update: Ed Week's David Hoff reports that both Duncan and Denver Superintendent Michael Bennet have undergone FBI background checks.

College Support Programs in Beantown

Today's Boston Globe ran a terrific story ('College Counselors Fill Role Of Parent') by James Vaznis about Boston-based nonprofits that support area students in applying to, enrolling in, and graduating from college. Most of these students are low-income and first-generation college go-ers, a population much less likely to attend and achieve a degree. One of these nonprofits is the 11-year-old Bottom Line, located in Jamacia Plain ("JP").

As part of a bold effort to boost dismal college graduation rates for Boston public school alumni, city leaders and philanthropists are banking on a heavy expansion of Bottom Line and other nonprofits to get more college degrees into the hands of city residents.

Many of the nonprofits cater to low-income students who often are the first members of their family to attend college. While a few programs are devoted to the city's elite college preparatory exam schools, Bottom Line and others also serve a large number of students from the city's less prestigious high schools, where many graduates enter college ill-prepared.

In a way, the counselors in these groups equip Boston students with a powerful force taken for granted by many of their affluent peers: They fill the role of parents who closely monitor their children's progress in college and have the knowhow or the connections to cut through bureaucratic red tape when problems arise.

Here's a shout-out to my pal Elizabeth Pauley (quoted in the Globe story) at the Boston Foundation, one of the groups funding this and related work to boost the city's high school graduation rates. Nice work. Go Celtics!

Blagojevich, Day Two

Alyson Klein of Education Week's Campaign K-12 blog offers up a post reporting that the Illinois Education Association -- the state's NEA affiliate -- is calling for Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich's resignation, following his arrest on corruption charges yesterday ('Illinois Governor Arrested on Corruption Charges'). Join the club.

Alyson's blog post underscores the education-related point I made in my post yesterday: that Blagojevich was decent with respect to providing funding for education, but not tackling vexing reform issues.

If Blagojevich is ousted from his post because of the allegations, it doesn't sound like education organizations in the state will miss him much.

"According to our members it would not be a huge blow," said Ben Schwarm, an associate executive director for the Illinois Association of School Boards. He said some districts had been angry with Blagojevich for his refusal to support a dedicated funding mechanism for education, although he did acknowledge that schools had gotten spending increases during the governor's tenure.

Ken Swanson, the president of the IEA, agreed that Blagojevich had been "a roadblock" to educators' push to get a designated revenue source for schools. The union endorsed neither the governor nor his opponent during Blagojevich's 2006 re-election bid.

Here's the IEA statement.

Oh, by the way, happy birthday, Rod!