Grading students based on effort rather than achievement is spreading from P.E. class to academic classes in high schools, but in colleges, writes Adam Ellwanger on the Martin Center blog. contract” or “labor-based” grading is “the latest front in a larger war on intellectual excellence, where the focus has now moved from lowering standards to eliminating them,” Ellwanger writes. He teaches English at a university that serves many first-generation students who face significan

#College #maturity #overparenting

New York Times columnist Frank Bruni has good advice on how to get the most out of college. Hanging with people from the same background may be comforting, writes Bruni. But it’s a “wasted opportunity” to learn how to be comfortable with diversity of ideas  and people. Credit: Ben Wiseman/New York Times That includes talking with professors. Bruni asked Mitchell scholars to rank the importance of college “coursework, travel abroad, internships, relationships with classmates,

“After Katrina’s devastation, New Orleans embarked on the the most ambitious education overhaul in modern America,” writes David Leonhardt in the New York Times. New Orleans’ reforms raised achievement, graduation rates and college success, concludes a new study. “The state of Louisiana took over the system in 2005, abolished the old bureaucracy and closed nearly every school. Rather than running schools itself, the state became an overseer, hiring independent operators of pu

Students on the autism spectrum may do well in high school, but fail in college, writes Brendan Borrell on Spectrum. Some colleges now offer support for autistic students. High school comes with a support system — family at home, therapists nearby, special-education classes — but colleges have traditionally embraced a sink-or-swim mentality. . . . Many students on the spectrum require support that extends beyond the classroom into their social and personal lives, such as remi

Last week, California Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed a bill that would have “codified the Obama-era Education Department’s guidance for how college campuses should deal with sexual misconduct, writes Reason‘s Robby Soave. Accused students, guilty or not, “must be treated fairly and with the presumption of innocence until the facts speak otherwise,” Brown declared. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, is revising the guidance on campus sexual assault. Caleb Warner was expelled for rape b

I’ve signed up to mentor an 11th grader — for the next three years — via iMentor, which is looking for mentors in San Jose, Oakland, Chicago and New York City. My year on the civil grand jury ends in June, so I’ll have the time. The group partners with high schools — typically those with lots of kids who will be the first in their families to go to college — to help students plan for the future. Mentors commit to exchanging weekly e-mail with their mentee and getting together

Grammar is “racist,” proclaims the writing center at the University of Washington, Tacoma. In fact, everything’s racist. Language structure is “unjust.” “We promise to emphasize the importance of rhetorical situations over grammatical ‘correctness’ in the production of texts,” announces a poster. Students won’t be taught to communicate in standard English at the writing center, since there is no such thing. “Language is constantly changing.” For all the “social justice” talk,

College should be where things “get more complicated, not less,” writes Lyell Asher, a Lewis & Clark English professor, in The American Scholar.  Yet many students — and their teachers — avoid complexity and embrace “simplifications.” Feeling offended implies an offense, and where there’s an offense there must be a culprit guilty of having committed it. No need to bother with the complexities of  context and intention—it says here that “impact” is what matters, that how I fee