Legal Education Is A Disaster

An expose on the Charleston School of Law:

These 2 Law Schools Show Why Legal Education Is A Disaster - Business Insider: "...Follow the money -- What was the source of Charleston’s now-distributed profits? The answer appears on the school’s website:

“Most students will depend on federal student loans to pay for tuition, books and living expenses while in law school. During the 2012-2013 academic year, 88% of our students borrowed student loans to finance their legal education. At graduation, the average student loan debt incurred for those borrowers while attending the Charleston School of Law was $146,595.”

"Nine months after graduation, 53 percent of the school’s class of 2013 had found full-time long-term jobs requiring a JD. More than half of those were working in firms of 10 or fewer attorneys. So at Charleston, student debtors finance profit distributions to law school owners who have no accountability for poor graduate outcomes. When the school later hits the financial skids, only InfiLaw, another for-profit organization, can rescue it. Wealth redistribution takes many forms, but none produces results more perverse than the current system for financing — and profiting from — legal education."

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A Shortage of Skilled Workers?

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis: Is There a Shortage of Skilled Workers? My Own Personal Experiences: "...The idea that a "middle-skilled" person can go back to school at age 40, take a few classes and become a java programmer, an engineer, or a chef, and land a meaningful job in that field is nothing but hope-filled hype. Perhaps 1 out of 100 make some use of their training. The rest just end up deeper in debt. Fed-induced boom-bust cycles that benefit the already wealthy at the expense of everyone else, and debt-overhang, including student debt that exceeds $1 trillion, are the major problems today, not the alleged shortage of skills..."

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School Reform in Newark

A must read for anyone interested in school reform at link below (excerpt follows):

Dale Russakoff: A Test for School Reform in Newark : The New Yorker: " . . . In Newark, the solutions may be closer than either side acknowledges. They begin with getting public-education revenue to the children who need it most, so that district teachers can provide the same level of support that spark does. And charter schools, given their rapid expansion, need to serve all students equally. Anderson understood this, but she, Cerf, Booker, and the venture philanthropists—despite millions of dollars spent on community engagement—have yet to hold tough, open conversations with the people of Newark about exactly how much money the district has, where it is going, and what students aren’t getting as a result. Nor have they acknowledged how much of the philanthropy went to consultants who came from the inner circle of the education-reform movement. Shavar Jeffries believes that the Newark backlash could have been avoided. Too often, he said, “education reform . . . comes across as colonial to people who’ve been here for decades. It’s very missionary, imposed, done to people rather than in coöperation with people.” Some reformers have told him that unions and machine politicians will always dominate turnout in school-board elections and thus control the public schools. He disagrees: “This is a democracy. A majority of people support these ideas. You have to build coalitions and educate and advocate.” As he put it to me at the outset of the reform initiative, “This remains the United States. At some time, you have to persuade people.”

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Common Core Standards, Education, Things Students Should Know

What’s actually in the Common Core? - Everything you need to know about the Common Core - Vox: "The Common Core is a list of things students should know and know how to do at each grade level in math and language arts. The language arts standards include expectations for writing, speaking, and reading both fiction and nonfiction. Many of the standards show up over and over at every grade level: writing age-appropriate opinion pieces that back up arguments with evidence, for one. ..."

more info: http://www.corestandards.org/

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Previewing a new Classroom by Google (video)

Previewing a new Classroom by Google -"
Classroom is a new, free tool coming to Google Apps for Education that helps teachers easily and quickly create and organize assignments, provide feedback, and communicate with their classes. This video highlights the experiences of some of the teachers and students who gave us feedback to help develop Classroom. Learn more: http://google.com/edu/classroom  - published May 6, 2014

Official Google Blog: Previewing a new Classroom: a preview of Classroom, a new, free tool in the Google Apps for Education suite. It helps teachers create and organize assignments quickly, provide feedback efficiently, and communicate with their classes with ease. Classroom is based on the principle that educational tools should be simple and easy to use, and is designed to give teachers more time to teach and students more time to learn....

Google Classroom Helps Teachers Create, Organize Assignments | News & Opinion | PCMag.com: "Google is already working with more than a dozen pilot schools and universities test out Classroom. Those interested in using the tool can apply now, and Google will open it up to a "limited number" of educators next month. By September, the tool will be available to all schools using Google Apps for Education."

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