Latest Posts from New America Blogs

Recent posts from all the blogs on NewAmerica.net can be found below. A full listing of all the blogs to which New America fellows and scholars regularly contribute can be found here.

Does the President’s New Budget Signal a Change for Teacher Preparation?

  • By
  • Kristin Blagg
April 18, 2013
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While poring over the president’s fiscal year 2014 budget request, we noticed several subtle, but critical, shifts in the way that the administration addresses teacher preparation grants and regulations.

Just as in the fiscal year 2013 budget request, the administration is proposing to phase out the current TEACH Grants program in favor of a $190 million Presidential Teaching Fellows program. What follows is our attempt to read the tea leaves in the U.S. Department of Education’s proposed budget.

TEACH grants, started in 2008, provide $4,000 a year to eligible undergraduate or graduate students who agree to teach a high-needs subject in a high-needs school for at least four years within the first eight years after they graduate. In the 2013 budget, the Department projected that a large number of grant recipients – perhaps as high as 75% – will not fulfill the service requirement and instead will see the grants converted to Unsubsidized Stafford loans. The 2014 budget justification does not cite this figure, indicating only that a “significant” number of recipients will not fulfill the requirements, and that the Department anticipates about $17 million in revenues from converted grants.

In last year’s Presidential Teaching Fellows proposal, the administration would have provided formula grants to states to improve teacher preparation program performance and finance scholarships of up to $10,000 for students in the last year of an effective education program. Scholarship recipients would commit to teaching a high-needs subject in a high-needs school for at least three years out of six following graduation.

This year’s budget request includes the same framework for granting scholarships, but the provisions for improving teacher preparation programs have been softened. Previously, the Department would have required states to “withdraw approval of programs persistently identified as low-performing,” noting that 38 states and D.C. have not yet identified any low-performing or at-risk teacher training programs. Programs would be given technical assistance to improve before having their approval revoked after a given number of years.

Now, funding is contingent on states’ willingness to “hold teacher preparation programs accountable for results, including withdrawal of approval for programs persistently identified as low-performing” – a subtle difference, but an important one. Rather than revoking approval, states would be required to “establish and enforce a timeline for withdrawing financial support” from schools and alternative preparation programs that have received technical assistance but have not improved in a given number of years. And rather than focus on the closure of schools that produce ineffective teachers, the 2014 budget proposal also has new language that encourages states to “facilitate the broad adoption of practices employed by [high-quality] programs” to broaden the share of teachers prepared using high-performing methods.

This language shift may be the result of the stream of conversations around teacher preparation program accountability that occurred after the last budget release. At the end of February in 2012, ED released a draft set of federal regulations to join the TEACH grant eligibility to teacher preparation reporting under Title II of the Higher Education Act. Submitted for consideration under a negotiated rulemaking process, the regulations would have classified teacher-prep programs in four categories – high-performing, satisfactory, low-performing, or at-risk – based on new indicators including student learning outcomes, employment levels, and satisfaction surveys from recent graduates and schools that hire them. Students attending schools rated in the bottom two categories would not be eligible for federally-funded TEACH grants.

The negotiated rulemaking process fizzled out without a consensus  in April, so ED has been left to write regulations governing teacher preparation programs and TEACH grants on its own. These new rules were initially expected by last fall but thus far are still in progress. In the wake of this slow-down, those on the inside are not optimistic that significant regulations will move forward this year.

Nonetheless, in February the Council for Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP) released a draft set of accreditation standards for teacher preparation schools that provides for increased use of outcome-based measures. The standards have spurred feedback, particularly from the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE), which objects to the creation of a “gold standard” designation for top programs and provisions for the use and interpretation of outcome data.

It remains to be seen whether the revised language in the 2014 budget will move the conversation around teacher preparation towards a feasible outcome for all stakeholders. In the meantime, a few states, including Louisiana and Tennessee, have already implemented systems for tracking student outcomes for graduates of teacher preparation programs. Furthermore, the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) has partnered with U.S. News & World Report to release a ranking of quality of teacher training programs in 2013. Even if the Department ends up dragging its feet, it’s clear that the push to hold teacher preparation programs accountable for their graduates’ achievements will go on.

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It’s Official! US Department of Education Approves First College to Ditch the Credit Hour

  • By
  • Amy Laitinen
April 18, 2013
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For more than 100 years, the time-based credit hour has been the currency of higher education. Originally created to calculate eligibility for Andrew Carnegie’s free faculty pension system, the credit hour evolved to become much more. Entire systems have been built around and upon the time-based credit hour, including the economic lifeblood of many colleges and universities—federal financial aid. But today, the U.S. Department of Education approved Southern New Hampshire University’s (SNHU) College for America (CfA) to be the first program in the country to receive federal financial aid based on “direct assessment” of student learning, rather than the credit hour. This move from the federal government could signal a new era for higher education—one in which we value and pay for learning rather than time.

Southern New Hampshire University, a small, private liberal arts institution, is familiar with pushing the boundaries of what is possible. Over a decade ago, it added a three-year competency-based bachelor’s degree to its regular course offerings. Rather than squeeze four years of “time” into three years through summer and weekend classes, the faculty identified the core competencies students should have upon graduation and then wove those competencies into every course and assignment. By looking at the program holistically, rather than just as a combination of courses, the school was able to eliminate redundancies in the curriculum and focus on what students were expected to learn and do.

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Metrics, Dollars, and Systems Change: Learning from Washington State's Student Achievement Initiative to Design Effective Postsecondary Performance Funding Policies

  • By
  • Betsy Prueter
April 18, 2013

In a recent report, the Community College Research Center and the Institute for Higher Education Leadership and Policy present findings from a three-year evaluation of Washington State’s postsecondary education performance funding system, the Student Achievement Initiative (SAI).  The report updates findings from a 2011 report and shares new observations on the system’s results.  Additionally, this report makes suggestions for states considering a similar performance funding system.

Among the report’s findings:

  • Washington State’s Student Achievement Initiative (SAI), which is the state’s second wave of performance funding, is distinguished by two innovations.
    • The SAI measures and rewards colleges for students’ intermediate achievements (such as completing a college-level math course or earning a certain number of credits) in addition to completion.
    • The SAI provides data to colleges to help them identify their strengths and weaknesses and take steps to improve their student completion rates.
  • Although recent updates and changes to the SAI addressed valid concerns from colleges using it, the report authors identify remaining challenges that may provide insight for other states looking to implement a similar system.
    • The SAI’s metrics were designed to communicate with lawmakers and the public but did not help colleges figure out how to improve, nor did they provide help in interpreting their results.
    • Colleges may require a different set of metrics than state policymakers so that faculty and staff can understand which practices and policies may need to change in order to achieve better results.
    • The data generated by a system like the SAI should be widely disseminated and faculty and staff should be engaged in the process of improvement if institutional improvement is to be achieved.
      • Too often, faculty and staff on campuses using the SAI were frustrated or confused with what the data meant or how to use it to drive change. 
    • Performance funding systems should be sure to utilize a funding formula that does not disadvantage colleges for serving vulnerable populations.
    • Money for a system such as the SAI should be part of the institution’s baseline funding and integrated into the institution’s core operations.
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How Income-Based Repayment Can Cap, Reduce, or Eliminate Interest Rates on Student Loans

  • By
  • Jason Delisle
April 18, 2013

The president’s fiscal year 2014 budget request includes a proposal for setting interest rates on newly issued federal student loans. The fact that the president excluded a cap in his proposal (as did the New America Foundation) has rankled student aid advocates. We’ve argued that the new income-based repayment (IBR) program that became available last year for students who began borrowing after October 1, 2007 ensures that a borrower’s monthly loan payments are capped – which therefore makes it a more generous benefit than an interest rate cap.

Read the rest of this post on Ed Money Watch.

 

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Higher Education Lobby Changes Tune on Income-Based Repayment

  • By
  • Jason Delisle
April 17, 2013

In a hearing before the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce this week, Terry Hartle of the American Council on Education (the higher education lobby) hinted that his association has had a major change of heart on income-based repayment for federal student loans. Or so it seems. 

At issue was a proposal by Rep. Tom Petri (R-WI) that would move the entire loan program to an income-based repayment system administered through employer payroll withholding. Borrowers would make payments at 15 percent of their discretionary income and there would be no loan forgiveness. Instead, total accrued interest would be capped at 50 percent of what a student borrows. Those terms are far less generous than the plan the Obama administration proposed in 2010 and enacted late last year, called Pay As You Earn or Income-Based Repayment. Under that plan, borrowers pay 10 percent of their incomes, 33 percent less per month than the Petri plan, and have their debt forgiven after 10 or 20 years.

Mr. Hartle told the Committee that the Petri proposal “could become an incentive to over-borrowing,” an outcome that he said, “no one wants.” If the Petri proposal more or less rolls back the Obama administration’s Pay As You Earn and Income-Based Repayment plans and replaces them with something that requires borrowers to pay more and for longer, one wonders what the American Council on Education’s position is on the Obama administration plan, which is in current law and available to nearly all new borrowers going forward.

Does Mr. Hartle believe the plan available now for recent borrowers encourages over-borrowing too? If so, that would be a new position for the American Council on Education.

When the president laid out the details of his Pay As You Earn plan in 2010, the American Council on Education rushed to send the White House a letter (available here). The Council’s letter expresses no concern about incentives for over-borrowing, despite the fact that the president’s program is far more likely to encourage over-borrowing (as outlined in this New America Foundation paper) than the Petri proposal because its terms are so much more generous for borrowers, mainly graduate students. The letter is a straight-up endorsement of the president’s proposal to “expand” benefits under Income-Based Repayment.

What explains the inconsistency in ACE’s “strong support” for the Obama administration’s plan and its cautionary warnings about over-borrowing under the Petri plan? (Maybe their position has evolved since they endorsed the Obama administration plan in 2010, and the group does in fact have concerns about it now.) It is unfortunate that the Committee didn’t think to ask Mr. Hartle to explain that glaring inconsistency.

Disclosure: The author worked for Rep. Petri from 2000 to 2005.

 

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Event Summary: Jackpot: Using Lotteries to Promote Personal Savings

  • By
  • Hannah Emple
April 17, 2013
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Yesterday we hosted an event along with our partners at the Doorways to Dreams Fund (D2DFund) to examine the potential of lottery-style programs and products to promote personal savings. The idea of “prize-linked savings” (PLS) emerged out of the observation that while many Americans enjoy playing the lottery or gambling, large numbers of us do not have the personal savings necessary to cope with an emergency. Researchers, advocates, and others in the field noted the existence of PLS programs in other countries and thought that a similar motivational tool could work in the U.S.--if saving was as much fun as playing the lottery, more people would participate. Pilot programs and legislative proposals have emerged to take this concept to scale in several U.S. states. You can watch a recording of the event here or read on for the key takeaways.

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Prize-Linked Savings 101

  • By
  • Justin King
April 17, 2013

After our event on "prize-linked savings" yesterday, I sat down with Joanna Smith-Ramani of D2D and recorded a short podcast focused on the basics. What are prize-linked savings? Where did the idea come from? Can giving people prizes really help to induce more savings? What's happening with this idea now? You can listen to our conversation here:

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In Boston, the Press is an Ally of Government

  • By
  • Rachel Burstein
April 17, 2013

Bostonians and the rest of the nation are grieving their shattered sense of security and the lives destroyed on Marathon Monday. Meanwhile, a combination of city, state and federal authorities are investigating the explosions that killed three people and injured scores more. Governmental staffers are seeking information from the public through hotlines and email. Only time will tell what insights evidence collection and analysis will yield.

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The Sad State of Child Care in America

  • By
  • Clare McCann
April 16, 2013
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In “The Hell of American Day Care,” a piece published by The New Republic on Monday, journalist Jonathan Cohn highlights one particularly devastating example of low-quality child care. Four children died in a house fire that took place at a day care program in a private home, while the proprietor, Jessica Tata, was allegedly shopping at a nearby Target and Starbucks, leaving her young charges alone. Tata was sentenced to 80 years in prison.

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Guest Post: Government Secrecy on Student Loan Collections Hurts Borrowers

April 15, 2013

By Deanne Loonin

President Obama has committed his administration to achieving new levels of openness in government. When it comes to the Department of Education, however, there appears to be far more “talk the talk” than “walk the walk” in these efforts and the “new era” of open government looks a lot like the old way of doing business.

This disappointing record has serious implications for student loan borrowers and their advocates as basic information about Department of Education policy is harder than ever to obtain. 

Take, for example, the Department’s policy regarding the commissions it pays student loan collection agencies.

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