Should artists know something about money?
It’s cringing time for this union activist: Teaching is an art, not a business wrote Hans, commenting this evening on a story about a judicial mandate prohibiting a UTLA one-day strike this Friday. That statement is irrelevant in the specific context (teacher layoffs), is a false dichotomy, and is wrong-headed in other ways. Let’s start […]
Elsevier and qui tam lawsuits?
Is there anyone else horrified by the Elsevier journal scam waiting not just for academic righteousness but legal action in the U.S. based on the False Claims Act? If federal money was entangled at all in any of the journal nonsense, statements made by any of the fraudulent Elsevier journals could conceivably implicate the publisher […]
“Governance reform” is not reform
While New York rages over mayoral control, which is all the rage, schools in Pinellas County are headed towards The New Site Based Management, which was the rage in the late 1980s and early 1990s and which Bill Ouchi hopes will be the rage again. While there are plenty of ways that governance can affect […]
No holy grail, just inexpensive texts, please
I love the inspiration of the Student PIRG Open Textbook campaign as well as the Hewlett Foundation Open Educational Resources initiative, not to mention the excitement over H.R. 1464 over at iterating towards openness (relevant entries one, two, three, and four). I think I’ll take the latter’s subtitle as my theme on this topic: “pragmatism […]
“My university administration has asked me not to speak to the press”
Fellow education policy blogger Sara Goldrick-Rab wrote a painful entry earlier this week about how her administration treats her speaking up on a policy issue in her area of expertise (in this case, her opposition to UW-Madison’s tuition hike), and I’m sorry I haven’t followed up before now, because if she is reporting correctly (see […]