Category Archives: Education

The “Departmental Trench:” A Cautionary Note from the Interdisciplinary Trenches

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Written with Mary Hanneman

University departments – disciplinary ones in particular – have lately become targets of criticism, with some scholars claiming that “academic departments create more barriers than benefit.” Departments are said to divide people, curb innovative thinking and research, lead to over-specialization, and encourage rote coursework. Disciplines, some argue, “tend to focus only on a set of trees within a great forest,” and fail to integrate the range of skills students need for tackling real world problems. One IHE op-ed called departments “disciplinary trenches [that] hold us back.” Meanwhile, a movement for the creation of interdisciplinary departments grows.

As long-standing faculty members of a very large and non-departmentalized interdisciplinary school, a model many might be tempted to emulate, we question the functionality and benefit of large and wide-ranging academic units. In practice, these Continue reading →

Washington should invest in Child Savings Accounts to help bridge income gaps

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Published March 5, 2019 in the Seattle Times

“The Fleecing of the Millennials.” This is the provocative headline of a recent opinion piece by a New York Times columnist. David Leonhardt convincingly makes the case that the income gap between younger and older generations has been widening.

There’s nothing alarming about an older generation having more income and wealth than a younger one, of course. But Leonhardt investigates trends in this gap over time. He found that, on average, today’s young adults between the ages of 25 and 34 earn the same now as they did nearly half a century ago. Meanwhile over this same time period, the income of those between 55 and 64 grew by a quarter; and it grew by 75 percent among the retired population.

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Is Free Tuition Europe’s Message to America?

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Published November 15, 2015 in Tacoma’s News Tribune.

grad capsBERGEN, Norway.  Should college be free for students, as Bernie Sanders contends?

Those who take this position usually support it with two claims: We need the best-educated workforce in the world, and cost should not deter young people from developing their talent.

In other words, free tuition would lead to a more prosperous and equitable America. And since college in countries such as Denmark and Norway is free, why can’t it also be free for Americans?

Yet if we follow Sanders’ suggestion and look abroad for inspiration, it’s not so clear that “free tuition” is the take-home message. Look closely at other nations, and it is apparent that we almost excessively invest in college. Continue reading →

PISA provides Turkey with good news, bad news, and lessons

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Published in Today’s Zaman December  22, 2013 (with Turan Kayaoğlu)

Two weeks ago, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) released country-level results from its 2012 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). What typically follows in most news coverage is handwringing and awkward explanations, as few receive the hoped-for good news. Continue reading →

Efforts boost college success for low-income and minority students

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Published in The News Tribune, May 22, 2013.

Critics of the United States like to single out our large disparities in life outcomes as evidence of our country’s moral failures. As disturbing as differences in income and wealth are, we Americans remain wedded to our foundational story: With hard work and a large dose of determination, even the poorest among us can climb the social ladder.

We probably each can recite such a Horatio Alger story. I see them each year in my classroom, where sit immigrants who have fled poverty and conflict, having exchanged it for the security and success our country offers them. Continue reading →

Praising math successes part of fostering big change

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Published in The News Tribune, April 24, 2013.

There’s an increasing drumbeat around making sure all high school students graduate with solid math skills.

You could hear it in News Tribune articles this month. One (“Math problems are a problem for job-seekers, employers say,”, 4-4) described how some local employers require their employees to have a basic grasp of math, but were finding that most high school graduates did not.

In another we learned that 16,000 of the state’s high school seniors have yet to pass the state math test, and thus may not graduate (“Thousands might not graduate because of WA math test,” 4-15).

It so happens that between the publication of these two articles, I found myself in Yakima attending the Washington State Math Council’s annual State Mathematics Contests. Continue reading →

Higher education exploits its athletes

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Published in The News Tribune, April 10, 2013.

When employers gain the lion’s share of the value created in the workplace, we commonly call this economic exploitation. Slavery is the extreme example, but exploitation can occur when workers gain something more than zero percent of what is produced.

A nation’s “wage share” provides a rough approximation of how the value of what a country produces is split between workers and employers. In the United States, the wage share is about 58 percent.

Bear with me a minute, because I’m now going to relate this to March Madness. Continue reading →

State’s future tuition program caught in conundrum

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Published in The News Tribune, February 13, 2013

Only make promises you can keep.

That’s good, solid advice.  In light of what we now know about Washington’s embattled Guaranteed Education Tuition (GET) program, we might modify that to something along the lines of “Only make promises you won’t regret keeping.”

The good thing about GET is that it reduces the financial uncertainty associated with college by allowing anyone to pay for tuition at a set price today, and receive the value of tuition — whatever that might be — tomorrow.  In this way GET has helped many Washingtonians plan for the expense of college. Continue reading →

Op-ed: Approve Initiative 1240 to allow public charter schools

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Published in The Seattle Times, October 22, 2012

Three previous swings at establishing public charter schools in Washington came up empty, so why are proponents for them still at bat?

Passion for charter schools is part of the reason Initiative 1240 is on the Nov. 6 ballot. Another reason is that hope springs eternal — a changing political environment opens up new possibilities and with it, perhaps, a different outcome. Finally, a new campaign for charters might succeed in dispelling common arguments against them that could change the debate.

One common argument is that there’s no evidence the average public charter school outperforms traditional public schools. While true, this fact shouldn’t lead to the conclusion that charters aren’t good for Washington’s children. Continue reading →

We must give our trust to educators, but we must verify the results

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Published in The News Tribune, October 11, 2012

What President Ronald Reagan liked to say about our relations with the Soviet Union, “Trust, but verify” is also true of education.  This is why I think the charter school initiative, I-1240, is a good idea:  it strengthens our trust in schools and it provides new ways to verify that this trust is deserved.

Comparing international relations and negotiations over nuclear disarmament treaties with education and charters schools deserves explanation.  To do that let’s turn back the clock.  Continue reading →