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* This AP lede is more than a bit misleading…

With four out of five students in Illinois community colleges failing to get a degree on time, Lt. Gov. Sheila Simon is calling for better math education in high schools and tying colleges’ funding to student success rates.

You have to read way down into the story to find out why…

Michael Monaghan, executive director of the Illinois Community College Trustee Association, said Simon’s plan to link colleges’ state aid to student performance is a good idea, if it is done right. It’s not as simple as looking at graduation rates, he said, because some students never intend to get a degree. Instead, they want to improve job skills or transfer to a different school.

Exactly. And, just as importantly, lots of community college students work full time. They simply can’t graduate in two years. Chicago State gets a lot of the same criticisms for its on-time graduation rates, but it also enrolls a lot of people who have jobs and kids and other things going on in their lives.

There are legit criticisms of community colleges. But their two-year graduation rates shouldn’t be one of them.

* This, however, is quite disturbing…

Todd Brown, 24, of Bolingbrook, thought he was doing everything right to land a job as a state trooper.

He graduated in 2009 with a criminal justice degree from the DuPage campus of Westwood College. He passed the written and physical tests to join the Illinois State Police. They even began background checks on him, interviewing his former bosses and neighbors.

But Brown’s path to becoming a trooper was abruptly halted when he received a call telling him he didn’t qualify for employment because Westwood didn’t have the proper accreditation. His degree didn’t count. Today, he is $55,000 in debt because of the degree. He works for an armored truck firm.

Attorney General Lisa Madigan announced a lawsuit against the private, for-profit college yesterday…

“Westwood officials lied to potential students about almost every aspect of its criminal justice program, from its exorbitant costs to a graduate’s slim career prospects,” said Madigan, whose office conducted a yearlong investigation into Westwood’s practices in Illinois. “Now, many of these students are left with thousands in debt in exchange for a college degree that has very little value in the real world.”

* More…

Madigan’s goal with the lawsuit is to shut Westwood’s Illinois campuses down and force the college to return students their money.

Madigan says, according the federal government, a degree from a for-profit college costs five times more than a community college.

Madigan says federal student loans account for close to 90 percent of for profit college revenues.

* In other education-related news, the voucher bill may be back, according to Illinois Statehouse News…

Riding the wave of a victory in school reform last year, education activists are gearing up for another push this spring, this time for school vouchers.

Through vouchers, tax dollars are used to help pay for tuition at private schools. Although attempts at instituting a voucher program have been made, the idea has yet to achieve enough support to make it out of the General Assembly.

Past plans in Illinois have targeted vouchers at children enrolled in underperforming schools and those who live in economically depressed areas of the state.

“All of the most serious school choice proposals we have seen over the past couple of years have at least one thing in common; they in their own way try and deliver school choice to students in the worst schools,” said Collin Hitt, a senior policy analyst with Illinois Policy Institute, a conservative-leaning think tank.

Hitt said his organization plans to ask lawmakers to revisit the issue again this year. […]

Studies on the effectiveness of voucher programs in better educating students are mixed.
Chris Lubienski, a professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, studies school choices, and he said academic gains are minimal.

“Once you control for the fact that there’s more special education students, more English deficient students, more disabled students, in public schools, when you control for those differences, public schools actually might outperform private schools on standardized tests,” Lubienski said. “It’s kind of a surprise.”

But Hitt points to studies such as one by the Friedman Foundation, a group that advocates for school vouchers, to demonstrate the merits for school vouchers. The Friedman Foundation study says “the empirical evidence consistently shows that vouchers improve outcomes for both participants and public schools.”

* And the Tribune editorial board reports on a new development in the legislative scholarship program…

This just in: Republicans in the Illinois Senate are voluntarily suspending their participation in the tuition waiver program that has brought so much dishonor — and so much dishonorable conduct — to the General Assembly. We applaud Minority Leader Christine Radogno for securing commitments that all 24 members of her caucus won’t award waivers for the 2012-13 school year.

Over in the House, at least 38 of Minority Leader Tom Cross’ 54 Republicans also won’t attach their names and reputations to this cesspool of scandal. Which raises an obvious question for Democratic legislators who answer to House Speaker Michael Madigan and Senate President John Cullerton — as well as to any holdout House Republicans — and who now don’t immediately renounce tuition waivers:

What, exactly, is your problem? Do you think citizens by the millions haven’t learned what a rip-off you’re perpetuating?

The decision by Radogno’s caucus is limited to the next school year. But we trust her senators to make it permanent when they realize that the three reasons they’re giving for their move won’t change in subsequent years:

Thoughts?

posted by Rich Miller
Thursday, Jan 19, 12 @ 6:39 am

Comments

The state average for first-time, full time, degree/certificate-seeking students who initially enrolled in a fall semester and who by spring three years later graduated, transfered, or continue to enroll is about 70%.

The amount of remediation required of incoming students at community colleges in math, reading, and English is extensive. Getting students prepared for college level work (while they are in college) adds to the graduation delay as well.

Comment by Way Way Down Here Thursday, Jan 19, 12 @ 7:11 am
Enrolled in a fall semester at a community college that is. . .

Comment by Way Way Down Here Thursday, Jan 19, 12 @ 7:16 am
My wife and I have a few businesses, when we go through resumes for open positions(secretaries, dental assistants, technicians, etc), community college grads are always placed above for-profit colleges. The community college grads are better prepared. Community colleges aren’t Ivy League but you do have to work to get a degree, some of these for-profits; they don’t make you work to get the degree, you just have to work a lot to pay for it.

Comment by k3_Spfld_Chi Thursday, Jan 19, 12 @ 7:33 am
Also misleading in the story is the use of the term ‘graduation rates’. The proper term to use is ‘completion rate’ which is what is used by the Illinois Community College Board. The ‘completion rates’, used but misslabeled in the story, for Illinois Community Colleges are always higher than the ‘graduation rates’. This is because many programs at community colleges offer only a certificate of completion and do not result in a degree (and thus count as a graduation).

It should also be pointed out that the average ‘completion rate’ used in the story is just that, an average. At a number of Illinos public community colleges the ‘completion rates’ are in the 5% to 10% range.

Comment by Left Out Thursday, Jan 19, 12 @ 8:25 am
Why are the feds floating student loans for non-accredited programs? That seems like an easy fix.

Comment by wordslinger Thursday, Jan 19, 12 @ 8:48 am
Listening to the big “fat pumpkin head” Rush Limbaugh yesterday going to lunch. He started in on the Apple education announcement. He went on to quote Steve Jobs and his opinion of vouchers and what’s wrong with Education. It made me think we might see these topics come up again but I thought it would be nationally as part of the campaign. I guess Illinois might get another chance as well.

Comment by Bobby Hill Thursday, Jan 19, 12 @ 9:14 am
Read the headline in the Tribune story by Monique Garcia about the same subject.

Comment by Anonymous Thursday, Jan 19, 12 @ 9:36 am
If Westwood’s students are passing the exams necessary to get into the proper academies, why aren’t they “accredited?”

Madigan seems to be following the path of the Feds, declaring war on private colleges, regardless of how effective they are.

This goes toward exposing the entire “education cartel,” which is a cozy enclave of public jobs that need to be protected from private competition.

If there are private schools that churn federal loans with out educating the kids, why prosecute them? Just shut off access to their public funds.

Just hold the feather-bedded and just-as-greedy public system to the same standards. If a school isn’t educating its students (P-22, mind you), shut it down and turn the infrastructure/funding over to some one who can.

Lastly, pass a law that says that passing the necessary entrance exams is sufficient. If Mr Brown learned enough from his local library, YouTube, or Apple’s I-Tunes university to pass the exam, why shouldn’t he be allowed to get the job.

I know….

If an army of pensioned public employees (administration, admissions officers, professors, adjuncts, etc. )aren’t involved in siphoning off 10s of 1000s dollars for education, then it can’t be “accredited.”

I don’t know every detail of Westwood’s history, and I’ve read enough to know that both public and private colleges have gotten a ride off of the student loan gravy train. Maybe they should be shut down.

However, Mr Brown passing the exam, at least in his instance, shows the fallacy of “accreditation” and the public/academic “industry” jobs protection program it fosters.

Comment by Bruno Behrend Thursday, Jan 19, 12 @ 10:14 am
“Once you control for the fact that there’s more special education students, more English deficient students, more disabled students, in public schools, when you control for those differences, public schools actually might outperform private schools on standardized tests,” Lubienski said. “It’s kind of a surprise.”

Actually, it isn’t a surprise at all, and makes the case FOR vouchers, not against them.

Instead of hiring an army of administrators for special ed, disabled, gifted, and or disadvantaged kids, for 890 or so unnecessary districts…

…why not simply hand all those special ed, disabled, gifted, and or disadvantaged kids a voucher and allow their parents to find the best options for them.

This benefits every special ed, disabled, gifted, and or disadvantaged kid, not to mention all the resources freed to educate the kids who remain in the public school.

Money should follow the child, not the district.

Other than politics, personal financial interest in the status quo, and inertia, there is no logical case against a well-crafted voucher program.

Comment by Bruno Behrend Thursday, Jan 19, 12 @ 10:23 am
Bruno, that’s quite a leap to an assault on public employees.

Plenty of private universities are accredited for law enforcement requirements. Northwestern’s Center for Public Safety is one of the prestigious in the country.

Westwood isn’t one of them. But they were still getting federal money. Hardly an attack on private competition.

Comment by wordslinger Thursday, Jan 19, 12 @ 10:27 am
Wordslinger,

It isn’t so much an assault on “public employees” as it is on “public employment.”

It is also more of an assault on things like “accreditation,” “certification,” and other schemes to control entry industries & jobs.

I get that there are two sides to this issue, but the fact is that too much of a subsidy for all levels of “education,” which simple economics tells us will create both of an oversupply of a shoddier product, and too much unnecessary employment in that sector.

The occupists occupying their parents basements, loaded with debt from financing their “alternative-viewpoint studies” degrees, can tell you as much.

Note that this army of employees is actively chasing jobs out of IL (and the US, in some cases), through the excessive levels of taxation and debt required to keep it afloat.

The case can be made that financing “education” provides a public benefit. Financing an education bureaucracy clear is not.

Nothing personal against any one public employee. There are just too many, and some (not all) are getting paid too much in salary and benefits.

Comment by Bruno Behrend Thursday, Jan 19, 12 @ 10:46 am
==Lastly, pass a law that says that passing the necessary entrance exams is sufficient.==

Seriously? Let’s test that logic by applying it to getting a driver’s license. Would you say that anyone passing a written exam should get a driver’s license? Why does the state require 16-year-olds to have logged hours behind the wheel and with a certified instructor?

Education is much more complex than developing the ability to perform well on an exam. Accreditation is designed to ensure that programs provide the instruction and experiences necessary to provide students with a certain set of skills. It lets students know that a program meets those standards prior to their commitment of time and money. It lets employers know what graduates bring to the job.

If education were as simple as passing a test, we could close all the schools and give the kids their textbooks and tell them to come back when they are ready for the exam.

Comment by Pot calling kettle Thursday, Jan 19, 12 @ 10:52 am
BTW, money does follow the child.

You don’t have to be a genius or an expert on the school funding formula to know that local funding for public schools comes from property taxes generated by where parents CHOOSE to live, and any realtor will tell you that one of the overriding considerations of parents when buying a home is the quality of the schools.

And the state formula for funding schools is based on enrollment.

Its impossible to ignore the fact that Illinois ranks at the bottom of the barrel when it comes to public school formula, so there is simply not enough money to “follow the child” around.

If you believe the private schools, it costs $20,000 a year to provide kids with a world-class education. Illinois’ public schools spend less than $7000 a year on instruction.

Comment by Yellow Dog Democrat Thursday, Jan 19, 12 @ 11:01 am
==This benefits every special ed, disabled, gifted, and or disadvantaged kid, not to mention all the resources freed to educate the kids who remain in the public school.==

Special Education resources are funded separately in most cases. If you move out sped students, their resources will follow them wherever they go.

Since the funding for special education services is so expensive, you won’t see private or charter schools offering their parents any services. The legal requirements also restrict special education to public schools, in most cases.

Comment by Wensicia Thursday, Jan 19, 12 @ 11:06 am
As someone who works for an accredited private university, what you are spouting is nonsense, Mr. Behrend. I suggest you perform an internet search using Google and the term “university accreditation process.”

If you read carefully at 50states.com you will notice those awful overpaid government employees who do nothing actually don’t do anything with regards to accrediting universities. There are regional boards which take care of the process.

Comment by Cheryl44 Thursday, Jan 19, 12 @ 11:09 am
…the Friedman Foundation, a group that advocates for school vouchers, to demonstrate the merits for school vouchers. The Friedman Foundation study says “the empirical evidence consistently shows that vouchers improve outcomes for both participants and public schools.”

Comment by Stay awake and watch for the data Thursday, Jan 19, 12 @ 11:24 am
It also happens at state colleges where there is such a push to get those numbers enrolled. Many times students are told certain degrees are available and the students get to college only to find out there may be a broad degree but not the specific area they spoke to the college recruiter about.

Comment by southernillinois Thursday, Jan 19, 12 @ 11:25 am
PCK,

Stop using apples/oranges scenarios. What I’m saying is if I can walk into a drivers license facility and pass the same exam as everyone else, who cares who I paid or where I learned to drive?

If education were as simple as passing a test, we could close all the schools and give the kids their textbooks and tell them to come back when they are ready for the exam.

That exact thing is increasingly possible for an increasing number of people.

We are about 1-2 years away from tablets and other devices dropping dramatically in price. Hand a kid such a device and provide some framework for learning, and the entire brick and mortar edifice we built becomes less (not UN) necessary.

This isn’t an easy concept to convey over a few blog comments, but yes, I stand for the proposition that we question the entire paradigm all of you are steeped in. Speaking of which…

YDD,

To the extent that money does follow the child, it still gets diffused and wasted on needless bureaucracy.

I’ve been to one of IL’s Ed caucus meetings with a nice person from DOE explaining the complexities of IL’s “funding formula.” It was one of the meetings that persuaded me that the whole system is a joke (a bad one).

The idea that it costs $20K to get a good education is another example of paradigm paralysis, as is the notion that schools won’t pop up all over to meet the needs in an open education market.

Give every IL the OPTION to take that low $7K, and find the best option for their child, and IL will fly past other states in outcomes in about 2-5 years.

Lastly, every property tax dollar is “state funding” because the local property tax for schools is a state tax on a local asset. That is why ‘local control’ is a fallacy.

This isn’t defending the system, it’s an indictment. I’m on record as calling the district system “educational apartheid.”

The Gordian System you describe mis-allocates billions of dollars through absurd “funding formulas” made necessary by adhering to a 19th century model that needs to be dismantled, not “reformed.”

Cheryl,

No, I’m not spouting nonsense. I understand that I AM challenging conventional wisdom and practice.

I also realize that throwing these concepts out in a few blog comments leads to oversimplification and the occasional brushing past some of the facts on the ground that you so accurately point out.

I concede the point about regional boards.

I still think that my larger point stands up to scrutiny. If a guy can walk into an exam to enter the State Police Academy, and passes all phases of that exam, who cares where he learned it?

This used to be a nation that didn’t throw up barriers to autodidacts and entrepreneurs. Technology is in the process of disrupting virtually every business model and many social models, mostly to our benefit. Why not change with the times?
__

YDD, the offer, made back in 2006 or earlier, to come out to ANY neck of the woods to debate this stuff, in front of any audience, still stands.

I’ll bring the camera and the chicken wire (if necessary). The conventional wisdom AND the existing system needs to be challenged. It is too expensive, and it isn’t working for enough people.

Gotta go.

Comment by Bruno Behrend Thursday, Jan 19, 12 @ 11:41 am
I had a great experience at my local community college, but like so many of my fellow students I didn’t finish an associate’s degree. Instead, I transfered to a four-year state school (go EIU!) and got a bachelor’s. I think my CC experience not only saved me money, but helped me transition from an 18-year-old just out of high school to a 21-year-old who was mature enough to live on his own and experience a four-year school.

Comment by Tony Thursday, Jan 19, 12 @ 11:46 am
Re: vouchers. They are going to come the back door is wide open. I am spending a lot of time in Chicago Park District Field Houses. Flyers everywhere about Charter and public schools. Slogan “Your child your choice” http://www.newschoolsnow.org/expo/

Comment by jeff Thursday, Jan 19, 12 @ 11:53 am
The diploma mills should be watched closly.The
scholarship at one time probly had some merit.
But leave in the hands of our politicans forgetaboutit.They just can’t be trusted. Mark my
words it will rise again. Just in a slightly different form.They love giving away other peoples
money.

Comment by mokenavince Thursday, Jan 19, 12 @ 11:57 am
Bruno
Cutting off the federal loans for unaccredited proprietary schools may sound easy, but overcoming the lobby in DC isn’t.
It seems clear that these students are being lied to and burdened with huge debt for worthless programs. I don’t know why you feel obligated to defend such abuses.

Comment by reformer Thursday, Jan 19, 12 @ 12:47 pm
Bruno-

Property taxes are not a state tax. The rates are set and the taxes collected by local taxing bodies.

I am a big fan of charter schools, but even they are not a panacea, and charter school advocates have been forced to admit that many, many charter schools are failing.

We know that because charter schools are accountable to the public for results because they are publicly funded.

You want to give $7000 per pupil to private schools…roughly $700 million out of next year’s budget…and have NO accountability for how those dollars are spent or what results are achieved?

That’s how collegiate diploma mills got started.

Comment by Yellow Dog Democrat Thursday, Jan 19, 12 @ 1:23 pm
Simon’s press release is here: http://www2.illinois.gov/ltgov/Pages/LtGovernorSimontocollegesFocusonthefinish.aspx

It includes a link to the full report.

Comment by Pot calling kettle Thursday, Jan 19, 12 @ 2:24 pm
Phony degrees are awful and we should go after those folks, but if you’re not smart enough to figure out if your school is not legit are you really worthy of an actual degree?

Comment by shore Thursday, Jan 19, 12 @ 2:46 pm
I’m a liberal arts college graduate who contemplated a mid-career switch and went to an (expensive!) for-profit culinary school. What a terrible mistake — from the institution’s perspective, my peers were not students there to learn, but products to be processed. I can’t speak to all for-profit schools, but based on my experience they are costly, ineffective, and ultimately, a terrible burden on their “graduates” re student loans. I got out fast, but was horrified for my peers, who, frankly, didn’t know any better. Sadly, they do now, a few years later, un- or underemployed, getting a real education in real kitchens…

Comment by 1st ward observer Thursday, Jan 19, 12 @ 3:29 pm
~but if you’re not smart enough to figure out if your school is not legit are you really worthy of an actual degree? ~

Could we not blame the victim here?

Comment by Cheryl44 Thursday, Jan 19, 12 @ 3:45 pm
And I thought the “unregulated free market” would solve every problem.

Comment by mark walker Thursday, Jan 19, 12 @ 4:09 pm
I’m definitely pro-charter anti-voucher. charters are public schools and can be scrutinized by the public or at least they should be, I know some have gotten in the habit of trying to hide their budgets.

Students who are in the public school system (and this would include the students with vouchers) deserve to have real science classes (so yes, the facts of evolutions need taught); need not to be sex differentiated (so no gender selection due to religious reasons); and should not have the teaching of religion or religious viewpoints be paid for by the taxpayers. So how does one deal with the first amendment issues of eliminating the Fundamentalist Christian academies, the Haredi Yeshivas, and probably Madrassahs from these vouchers? Better not to have them in the first place.

Comment by cermak_rd Thursday, Jan 19, 12 @ 4:26 pm