Dec 10

Why Is the White House Ignoring For-Profit Colleges?

Spurred on by the need to court a waning youth vote, the Obama Administration addressed a concern that has been on many students’ and recent graduates’ minds: The cost of education in America. Calling college presidents from across the country into the Oval Office, President Obama chastised university leaders for their high prices and lack of leadership in the area of cost control and admonished them to rethink the “cost equation” that accompanies higher education.
The take-away message from President Obama’s private meeting with higher-education leaders on Monday was threefold: There needs to be a new sense of urgency on college affordability, there won’t be a one-size-fits-all solution as policies will have to affect all sectors of higher education, and the country needs innovations and cost-management from colleges and leadership from state legislatures.
That’s according to Thomas J. Snyder, President of Ivy Tech Community College, who participated in the meeting. President Obama and Arne Duncan, the Secretary of Education, are now in what Mr. Snyder described as listening mode, “but I suspect some pretty substantial proposals will evolve in the next few months,” he said.

Read the rest at Big Government

Nov 19

Angry Union President Spews Insults, then Blames Us for Backlash

CHICAGO – If well-known people want to avoid controversy, they should avoid making ugly comments about respected citizens and public officials, particularly in public.
That’s a lesson Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis has yet to learn.
Last week, while researching footage of Lewis for a documentary project, we at Education Action Group came across a YouTube video of Lewis giving the keynote address at the recent Northwest Teaching for Social Justice Conference in Seattle.
During the course of her remarks, Lewis attempted to draw a few laughs by making fun of U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s speech impediment.
“Now you know he went to private school ’cause if he had gone to public school he would have had that lisp fixed,” she said.
Lewis went on to laughingly talk about her former marijuana use during her college days.

Read the rest at Big Government