HUP author David Kirp (Shakespeare, Einstein, and the Bottom Line: The Marketing of Higher Education and the newly-released The Sandbox Investment: The Preschool Movement and Kids-First Politics) makes a compelling case for preschool in this Newsweek.com interview. The tagline?--"The states are spending more and more money to educate children before they start kindergarten. But one expert warns that not all programs are created equal."
Each week, the excellent site History News Network profiles a new "Top Young Historian." This week it's Jonathan Zimmerman, author of Innocents Abroad: American Teachers in the American Century and Whose America? Culture Wars in the Public Schools. Zimmerman is Professor of Education and History at the Steinhardt School of Education and in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at New York University. He also spent two years as a teacher with the Peace Corps in Nepal, an experience that informed his insights in Innocents Abroad, which chronicles the adventures of the thousands of American teachers who fanned out across the globe during the twentieth century.
Yet another story on the college rankings uproar in today's New York Times--"College Ratings Race Roars On Despite Concerns." Are the rankings useful? A scam? Do they create more trouble in the form of frenzied competition than they're worth? Lloyd Thacker, the author of College Unranked: Ending the College Admissions Frenzy, is an increasingly high-profile advocate for doing away with the rankings system so that students, parents, and admissions officers will be more inclined to view the process as one of finding the right fit for a given student rather than some sort of contest where the "winners" are those few lucky applicants admitted to the Ivy Leagues, or Berkeley, or wherever. Thacker appeared on NBC's "Today" this very morning to offer his views--we're searching the web for video and will post if we find it.
Today's Wall Street Journal tells us that "As States Tackle Poverty, Preschool Gets High Marks." (sorry, subscription only). Inside, we learn that the preschool movement is going strong in places like Florida, Oklahoma, and New York, all of which either offer or plan to offer free preschool. The states' rationales for taking this step read like they came straight out of David L. Kirp's new book The Sandbox Investment: The Preschool Movement and Kids-First Politics, a guide to the movement that has more and more four-year-olds plugging away at board games and abacuses (or whatever they have in preschool nowadays--computers, probably!). States are finding that preschool represents a pretty solid investment, as children who attend preschool are said to be more likely to stay in school and out of trouble. With the movement picking up steam, there is no better time to get a handle on what could turn into a hot-button issue and no better way to do it than picking up The Sandbox Investment.
Sara Mead in the American Prospect on what progressives can learn from David Kirp's The Sandbox Investment: The Preschool Movement and Kids-First Politics:
For those interested in children's and education issues, it's a valuable primer on this significant but relatively new movement. It also serves a larger purpose, providing a guidebook for other progressive causes which could learn a lot both from the pre-kindergarten movement's improbable effectiveness in advancing its progressive aims -- even in states, such as Texas and Oklahoma, not known to harbor much affection for government programs -- and the challenges it faces.
More on The Sandbox Investment: The Preschool Movement and Kids-First Politics.
Consider the following quote from today's New York Times:
"It’s harder to get into Bowdoin now than it was to get into Princeton when I worked there," said William M. Shain, dean of admissions and financial aid at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Me., who worked at Princeton in the 1970s, which is one of those benefiting from the spillover as the country’s most prestigious colleges turn away nearly 9 out of 10 applicants.
The article, which details the demographic-driven paradigm shift in college admissions (put simply, more applicants = more competition), shows how the Bowdoins, Kenyons, and Lehighs of the world are benefitting from the increasingly absurd levels of competition that accompany the admissions scramble at the Ivies.
If you haven't already been listening to Lloyd Thacker, admissions guru and author of College Unranked: Ending the College Admissions Frenzy, it's probably time to start. Thacker recognizes these trends earlier than most and comes up with sensible solutions, the most salient of which being "chill out." At least some of the players seem to be getting the message:
Students have generally been quicker to adapt to the new realities than parents have been, many guidance counselors said.
Their parents? Not so much:
"My sense is that parents are a lot more concerned with how the name is going to look to neighbors and family members, and there is a real sense among parents that it’s almost embarrassing if your child has to settle for a lower-level school," said Carolyn Lawrence, a private college counselor and the author of a blog, AdmissionsAdvice.com.
Calm down, mom and dad--just because your kid doesn't go to Harvard doesn't mean he or she can't work there someday! Heck, just look at us!
Those who can sympathize with the sentiments in this Chronicle of Higher Education article on the travails of today's academic department head might want to consult The College Administrator's Survival Guide, C. K. Gunsalus' witty tome on how to survive the job with your head intact.
In keeping with our education theme today, a link--over at his blog "Work Matters," Bob Sutton has some kind words for C.K. Gunsalus, author of The College Administrator's Survival Guide, and some insightful comments on the book itself.
More support for Lloyd Thacker's call to reform the college admissions process comes in the form of this New York Times article on the spring admissions season at the nation's elite colleges:
Harvard turned down 1,100 student applicants with perfect 800 scores on the SAT math exam. Yale rejected several applicants with perfect 2400 scores on the three-part SAT, and Princeton turned away thousands of high school applicants with 4.0 grade point averages. Needless to say, high school valedictorians were a dime a dozen.
Here at Harvard, admissions officers received 22,955 applications for undergraduate admission to Harvard College and accepted 2,058 of them, making for a 9% admit rate, the lowest in the College's history.
Thacker, the author of College Unranked: Ending the College Admissions Frenzy, appeared on NBC's Today Show a few days ago to counsel high-schoolers on how to deal with rejection letters. According to him, applicants need to stop treating admission to college like a prize and start focusing on what college is right for them.
||| Learn more about College Unranked or read an excerpt.
Lloyd Thacker, the indefatigable author of College Unranked: Ending the College Admissions Frenzy, will appear on NBC's "Today Show" tomorrow morning. Colleges will be announcing their admissions decisions soon and Thacker has been tasked with advising the nation's high-school seniors on how to deal with the inevitable rejection or two. See also this Time Magazine article quoting Thacker.
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