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FCAT writing SNAFU–there’s another shoe somewhere
I don’t have much to say about the FCAT writing SNAFU that’s followed the release of dramatically lower scores in this year’s exercises. Testing in general is a technical subject where sudden changes should prompt caution about drawing conclusions other than “Hmmn, that warrants some close examination.” Moreso with the type of “holistic” (i.e., one-dimensional) […]
University of Florida faculty union head: Why the giant provost’s raise in the midst of budget cuts?
From John Biro, University of Florida chapter president of the United Faculty of Florida: Dear Colleague, Before the Administration imposes the draconian budget cuts it claims are unavoidable, it owes the faculty answers to these questions: 1. Why, instead of imposing a hiring freeze, is it continuing with extensive hiring? Today’s Chronicle of Higher Education […]
Bernie Machen #fail
Steven Salzberg says it better than I could, on Forbes. Since 2008, President Bernie Machen and Provost Joe Glover have repeatedly taken bad news from the legislature and made it palpably worse for UF. ((Reminder: This is my opinion as an individual faculty member and does not necessarily represent the views of my department colleagues […]
Reports on college student learning leave out passion
Thursday’s David Brooks column talks simple-mindedly about wanting colleges to be held accountable for student learning, somewhat misstates a key claim of Academically Adrift, and writes in a generally David Brooksish style, which should only be alarming if you were expecting a Krugman column. From my position deep in the territory controlled by the Southern Association […]
Florida third-grade retention study
A new study by Marcus Winters on Florida’s third-grade retention policy was distributed last week by the Manhattan Institute. I’ve had only a chance to browse it, but it uses regression discontinuity, which is one of the ways to try to adjust for incomparability of intervention and non-intervention group. That’s good, and given the messiness of […]