A $355 Textbook!

I came across this article about a Western Michigan University religion class that requires a $355 textbook, which is written by the professor!  That's a shock there.  To continue, the total cost of the required books for his class is $638.  There are seven required books and five of them are written by the professor, 83 year-old Rudolf Siebert. 

The story gets better from there (Click to Read the Story), but Siebert contends that students don't actually need to purchase all the books, and they certainly shouldn't buy his expensive one.  That begs the question, then why make it a requirement?  College textbooks is such a scam that this story just puts more fuel on the fire.  How many books did you actually use that were "required"?  I always bought my books online from Half.com and when I had a literature class, I had my local city library find the books in advance for me to check out.  It was still a pain, and even though I think I made a profit by selling back my online books to the school bookstore, the outrageous cost of books still made me upset. 

Higher Education Spending in Michigan

Michigan spends a lot of money on colleges, $1.8 billion to be exact.  However, that is not nearly enough to off-set the striking increase in costs over the last decade.  It also is less than other states (with smaller populations) spend.  (Click Here to Read Story)  North Carolina spends $3.5 billion, Georgia spends $2.3 billion, and New Jersey spends $2.1 billion. 

I also was reading in a separate article yesterday, that college tuition in Michigan has increased over 80% from 2002 to today.  The inflation rate over that same time frame is 15%.  So clearly, the costs of attending college in Michigan has skyrocketed, effectively pricing a lot of students out of going to college.  While the price has gone up, financial aid is now 1/3 the level of what it was when Governor Granholm first began.

As a result, Michigan now has the 4th highest public university tuition rate in the country, and ranks 49th out of 50 states in total support for higher education.  All of this leads to the question: how is our workforce going to be transformed if no one can afford to attend college?

Felons in the Classroom

I wrote an entry about this issue a few weeks back, dealing with Grand Rapids and whether or not felons should be allowed to volunteer in the classroom.  Today's article (Click Here to Read Story) gave an update on the situation.  The board decided not to change the policy which prohibits anyone with a felony conviction to volunteer in the classroom.  What do you think about this?  Should someone who wrote bad checks (as the story shows) 20 years ago be prohibited from working in the classroom?  Should there be a line between some offenses, but not others?

Should Students Evaluate Teachers?

I came across another interesting blog article today that asked if students should have a voice in evaluating teachers.  (Click Here to Read the Story).  The article brought up some interesting points, although it is somewhat problematic.  For one, it said that students as the consumers should be able to offer their opinion.  It also talked about how "easy" teachers would get the best ratings, and how that's not necessarily true.  It made the comparison about "easy" teachers and "easy" teenage girls.  On the surface, students say they like them and they're cool, but deep down, no one really respects them.  The author believed the real truth would come out in the evaluations.  It also dealt with some admitted flaws.  For one, how do you have elementary students evaluate their teacher?  Also, how much should the studnets' opinions weigh on the total evaluation? 

So what does everyone think?  Should students have a say in evaluating teachers? 

Is Social Studies Important?

An article published by Julie Mack (Click Here to Read the Article) brings into question just how important social studies is, seems how there is no emphasis placed on it at schools today.  Because of federal NCLB requirements, math, science and writing scores are used to evaluate schools for AYP.  But not social studies.  As a result, schools have been forced to place more emphasis on that.  The article goes on to list some survey results about teachers' perceptions about social studies.  It's funny, because the entire premises of a public education system was to create well-informed citizens so government could run well.  But that has been put on the back burner.  If you ever watch Jay Leno's "Jay Walking", you'll see that there is a huge need for an emphasis on social studies. 

Poker Club at High School Draws Controversy

I came across this article about a high school in the Washington DC area that has recently started an extra-curricular poker club.  (Click Here to Read the Story)  The article was really interesting as it brought up the debate about poker being used as a teaching tool for probability and statistics vs. impressionable minds getting caught into the trap of gambling.  As someone who loves playing poker, you can easily make a case for it in a educational aspect: knowing pot odds, when you're pot committed, and how many outs you have all take strong math skills.  Some of the best professional poker players rely exclusively on the numbers.  But the question becomes, in an era of WSOP on ESPN should students (who admitted in the article they play cash games at home) be exposed to it in a school setting?  What does everyone else think?  I highly recommend reading the article. 

Should Laptops Replace Textbooks

I ran across this article today and it sparked my interest.  Should districts divert funds from textbook purchases and purchase laptops which then can be used for instruction, ideally one a one-to-one basis?  (Click Here to Read the Article) I have long said that the answer is yes.  When you purchase a textbook and it's out of date in two or three years, it's a revolving door.  Now obviously having laptops for every student opens up some different arguments about student responsibility and distraction.  I think the positives far outweigh the negatives, what do you think?