When companies that got their start on college campuses come to mind, the universities in question are typically the big-name schools that bespeak tech royalty: Stanford spawned Google, Harvard launched Facebook, MIT begat Dropbox. Locally, NYU has been the big … Continue reading
At this time last year, Lily Jones and Sonika Mehta were both weighing their college options: private or public? East Coast or West? Big city or small? Today, as first-year students at New York University, they’re each happy with their … Continue reading
Karen Gregory is still puzzled by the events of “the day the syllabus went crazy,” as she calls it. The Queens College instructor, searching for something to spark discussion on the first day of her Introduction to Labor Studies class … Continue reading
If you haven’t heard of MOOCs yet, you will. In fact, if you haven’t already taken a MOOC, seriously, what’s wrong with you? MOOCs are taking the educational world by storm: The New York Times has already proclaimed 2012 the … Continue reading
In the latest Village Voice Education Supplement, I investigate why college is getting so crazy expensive, and what if anything can be done about it: College tuition is, as any Occupy Wall Street demonstrator will tell you, too damn high. … Continue reading
The deal to close CUNY budget gap includes a five-year, $1500 tuition hike, and many students and professors alike aren’t thrilled: By Albany’s notoriously dysfunctional standards, it’s already been a banner year for unexpected breakthroughs. The same week in June … Continue reading
With Shael Polakow-Suransky looking set to become Cathie Black’s lieutenant atop the New York City schools system (as a condition of Black getting the top job), I dig up my notes from an interview with Polakow-Suransky I conducted back in … Continue reading
A consortium of 26 states is working on a plan to revamp standardized testing by the year 2014. The road to “college readiness,” though, may be paved with potholes. For New York City schools reeling from their dismal scores on … Continue reading
The latest New York City test scores are out, and as I predicted back in January, they show that what looked like improvement was more like a test-score bubble: The New York state education department issued its annual test scores … Continue reading
My first article for the relaunched City Limits, about the doomsday budgets proposed for New York city and state, is up. (It’s actually the second article I wrote for them, but is running first — I blame the suits at … Continue reading