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In the spotlight

Welcome to Community College Spotlight, a new blog devoted to news, analysis and discussion about the most important and most neglected part of our higher education, the community colleges.

The blog is part of The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit source of national education news published by the Hechinger Institute on Education and the Media, Teachers College, Columbia University. The funders for The Hechinger Report include Lumina Foundation for Education, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Foundation for Child Development and the Joyce Foundation.

The Report produces news, commentary and analysis about education and publishes it online and through collaborations with a variety of news organizations. Pieces have appeared in the Washington Post, Philadelphia Inquirer, Washington Monthly on line, U.S. News and World Report on line and Education Week.

After more than eight years at joannejacobs.com (which is still running), I’ve signed on as CC Spotlight’s blogger. Please help me by adding your comments.

POSTED BY Joanne Jacobs ON April 21, 2010

Your email is never published nor shared.

Community College Spotlight is written by Joanne Jacobs. It provides a forum for discussion and debate about America’s community colleges, which are home to nearly half of all college students in the U.S. Views expressed on the blog are those of Joanne Jacobs and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of The Hechinger Report or the Hechinger Institute.
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‘Inbred’ Bergen CC allowed grade tampering

A faculty union president at Bergen Community College got his granddaughter’s failing grades changed because “the BCC community is far too inbred,” wrote Ross Anzaldi, a retired judge who was hired by the board to investigate the case. The administrative culture is unprofessional, Anzaldi wrote in his report: “Too many people do too many favors for [...]

Women need a push to choose STEM majors

Recruiting community college women into STEM majors isn’t rocket science, according to Donna Milgram, who’s studied the issue at eight California community colleges. Personal encouragement from instructors or counselors is needed to get women to consider predominantly male science, technology, engineering and mathematics programs, Milgram, executive director of the Institute for Women in Trades, Technology and Science (IWITTS), [...]

Colleges compete for vets — and benefits

Uncle Sam wants veterans to sign up for college! And colleges and universities are vying to create “veteran friendly” programs, classes, and centers to attract the ex-G.I.’s—and the billions of U.S. dollars provided by the post-9/11 G.I. Bill. Onondaga Community College, in Syracuse, N.Y., uses veterans to help new G.I. Bill enrollees. “I’ve seen almost instant [...]

Too many credits

Many community college students earn more credits than they need on the way to an associate degree, concludes a Community College Research Center study by Matthew Zeidenberg. Excess credits cost about $6 million a year, counting only courses students passed. New students often don’t know what they want to study, he writes. They may try [...]

California transfer plan helps, but not much

California community college students still have trouble transferring credits to state universities, despite a plan to streamline transfers, concludes an analysis by the Legislative Analyst’s Office. Under the new law, community colleges are supposed to create associate degrees designed for transfer to the California State University system. Students who earn these degrees should be able [...]

Tough love (but it’s really frustration)

Siobhan Curious, who teaches at Quebec’s version of community college, was having a lousy day even before a failing student walked in to make it worse. Kalia had failed the same class in the autumn because she didn’t come to class. After skipping the first two weeks of her second try, she came to the office [...]
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Q&A with Dan Chambliss: A successful college education can come down to a single conversation

How does someone succeed in college? It’s the $64,000 question—or, these days, more like the $150,000 question—whose answer has been sought by countless policymakers, researchers and universities over the years. In a new attempt to provide insight into the discussion, sociologists Dan Chambliss of Hamilton College and Christopher Takacs of the University of Chicago took [...]

Q&A with Allan Goodman: The rising tide of international students

Increasing higher education attainment is becoming a global goal. From the United States to the European Union to China, places around the world are setting goals for how many college and university graduates they want to have. And as the numbers of students enrolling in higher education are going up, so are the numbers who [...]

What value-added models can—and can’t—tell us about teaching and learning

Getting your middle-schooler in front of a high-quality teacher for even one year will improve his or her chances of going to college and earning a good salary later in life, according to a recent study. The study’s authors used value-added modeling—predicting how well a given student will do on a standardized test, controlling for [...]

The worst eighth-grade math teacher in New York City

For 10 months, Carolyn Abbott waited for the other shoe to drop. In April 2011, Abbott, who teaches mathematics to seventh- and eighth-graders at the Anderson School, a citywide gifted-and-talented school on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, received some startling news. Her score on the Teacher Data Report, the New York City Department of [...]

Getting teacher evaluation right

In Los Angeles, where I teach seventh-grade math, our current teacher evaluation system is undeniably broken. Initially designed to be a robust observation protocol and rubric, our system has degenerated into a 10-minute checklist. A well-intentioned but often overspent administrator comes into my room, fills out the requisite paperwork and signs on the dotted line. [...]

Student surveys to be used to rate teachers in pilot program — even in kindergarten classes

Kindergartners in Georgia — many of whom don’t yet read — could soon play an important role in deciding which teachers get raises or get fired. Under a new pilot program, 5-year-olds will be guided through a survey that includes such statements as “My teacher knows a lot about what he or she teaches” and [...]
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