I received this on Facebook tonight, credited to a "Marshall Miller." It was originally about moms, but that's not fair, so I've retitled it and share it here. It really hit home for me. How about you?
Dear Parent On Your iPhone,
I see you over there on the bench, messing on your iPhone. It feels good to relax a little while your kids have fun in the sunshine, doesn’t it? You are doing a great job with your kids, you work hard, you teach them manners, have them do their chores.
But let me tell you what you don’t see right now…..
Your little girl is spinning round and round, making her dress twirl. She is such a little beauty queen already, the sun shining behind her long hair. She keeps glancing your way to see if you are watching her.
You aren’t.
Your little boy keeps shouting, “Hey watch this!” I see you acknowledge him, barely glancing his way.
He sees that too. His shoulders slump, but only for a moment, as he finds the next cool thing to do.
Now you are pushing your baby in the swing. She loves it! Cooing and smiling with every push. You don’t see her though, do you? Your head is bent, your eyes on your phone as you absently push her swing.
Talk to her. Tell her about the clouds. The Creator who made them. Tickle her tummy when she comes near you and enjoy that baby belly laugh that leaves far too quickly.
Put your eyes back on your prize…Your kids.
Show them that they are the priority. Wherever you are, be ALL there. I am not saying it’s not ok to check in on your phone, but it’s a time-sucker: User Beware!
Play time at the park will be over before you know it.
The childhood of your children will be gone before you know it.
They won’t always want to come to the park with you. They won’t always spin and twirl to make their new dress swish, they won’t always call out, “WATCH ME!”
There will come a point when they stop trying, stop calling your name, stop bothering to interrupt your phone time.
Because they know…
You’ve shown them, all these moments, that the phone is more important than they are. They see you looking at it at while waiting to pick up brother from school, during playtime, at the dinner table, at bedtime…..
I know that’s not true.
I know your heart says differently.
But your kids can’t hear your words. Your actions are screaming way too loudly.
May our eyes rest upon those we love, first and foremost, and may everything else fall away in the wonderful, noisy, sticky-fingered glory of it all.
In Support of Michael Schill, Candidate for Chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Madison
I am not a nervous person, but I was sweating a bit as I waited more than an hour in line today to meet Michael Schill, candidate for chancellor of UW-Madison. Next year will be my 10th at this university, and I have come to love it deeply, and feel strongly about the important role the chancellor plays in the direction it takes. And thus, it was with some trepidation that I shook hands with Michael, because my instinct is that he's an excellent pick for Chancellor, and thus an important person in our future.
As readers know, I profiled two other chancellor candidates shortly after they were announced and declined to endorse them. It didn't take long to figure out they weren't a match. I haven't yet weighed in on Rebecca Blank, and feel I can't do so until I meet her next week-- she made several comments during her last visit that make me hesitate, and I want to see what she thinks after her Washington experiences.
But reading Schill's work and talking with colleagues about him convinced me that he was very promising, and having now met and chatted with him, that sense is much stronger. Here are the main reasons why:
1. Schill understands UW-Madison's greatest assets and biggest weaknesses. As his very well-written personal statement demonstrates, we stand out for our commitment to service and social justice, and the way we make our decisions--thoughtfully, through shared governance proceses. At the same time, we are substantially hindered by insufficient diversity, declining accessibility, and frequent misuse and misunderstandings around transparency and accountability. To excel at the things we want to do, including conducting pathbreaking research and improving our teaching, we must address those problems. As they say, admitting you have a problem is the first step, and Schill can take us down that road.
2. Schill genuinely likes to talk, and seems to really enjoy listening too. Body language conveys a lot, and Schill's speaks of openness, assertiveness and sincerity. After more than hour of close observation from only a dozen feet away, I can assess this quite well. His reception line went very slowly because he refused to brush anyone off or move them along, despite the efforts of his hosts. He made excellent eye contact, leaned forward when speaking, was evidently comfortable with physical contact (I witnessed several hugs, real handshakes, and he even challenged me to a race), doesn't wear his ego on his sleeve, and displayed a range of emotions. Let's just say, I've seen chancellors smile before but their eyes usually wandered over my shoulder. Schill has a background in activism, and this talent displays it. Of course, I suspect he is shrewd as well-- he knows that people like to be listened to, and he does so to maximum advantage.
3. Voicing strong concern for affordability, Schill told me that we must "keep tuition low, and aid high," restraining ourselves to increases solely to keep up with inflation. He did not speak of competitive pricing, and or peer comparisons. Now, perhaps this is just because he's speaking to me, and he's read the blog. But I checked on this, and what colleagues of his told me is that "He's too smart to think pricing high is smart, and far too smart to believe in 'disruptive' innovation." I asked him for his thoughts on test-optional admissions and he was able to discuss that literature with me, bringing up his teaching on higher education at UCLA in a manner that was quite impressive. In his view, the Supreme Court will rule against Texas in a narrowly tailored decision.
4. Schill is a candidate for chancellor with a very serious and impressive set of publications and books that merit tenure (so is Blank, by the way). He's written on low-income housing, immigration and race, and co-authored with smart people I like and trust, such as Amy Ellen Schwartz of NYU and Colin Chellman of CUNY. I especially liked what I read in Housing and Community Development in New York City: Facing the Future regarding the reasons why efforts to improve low-income housing have failed; he attends to politics and structure in insightful ways.
Of course, no one's perfect and I do have a few qualms about Schill's background. For example, he's had a lot of funding from big banks, such as JP Morgan Chase and Citigroup. He's spent most of his time as an adult in very elite settings-- UCLA may be public but it's no exception. And while he's a first generation student, as we saw with Biddy Martin, being one doesn't mean you fully understand what's required to serve them.
But overall, I am supportive of Michael Schill's candidacy for chancellor. He's bright, calm, thoughtful, and exceedingly well-liked by those who work with him. I'd enjoy getting to know him better.
ps. A final note, for the students-- a bit of street cred-- Michael's done the Daily Show!
But reading Schill's work and talking with colleagues about him convinced me that he was very promising, and having now met and chatted with him, that sense is much stronger. Here are the main reasons why:
1. Schill understands UW-Madison's greatest assets and biggest weaknesses. As his very well-written personal statement demonstrates, we stand out for our commitment to service and social justice, and the way we make our decisions--thoughtfully, through shared governance proceses. At the same time, we are substantially hindered by insufficient diversity, declining accessibility, and frequent misuse and misunderstandings around transparency and accountability. To excel at the things we want to do, including conducting pathbreaking research and improving our teaching, we must address those problems. As they say, admitting you have a problem is the first step, and Schill can take us down that road.
2. Schill genuinely likes to talk, and seems to really enjoy listening too. Body language conveys a lot, and Schill's speaks of openness, assertiveness and sincerity. After more than hour of close observation from only a dozen feet away, I can assess this quite well. His reception line went very slowly because he refused to brush anyone off or move them along, despite the efforts of his hosts. He made excellent eye contact, leaned forward when speaking, was evidently comfortable with physical contact (I witnessed several hugs, real handshakes, and he even challenged me to a race), doesn't wear his ego on his sleeve, and displayed a range of emotions. Let's just say, I've seen chancellors smile before but their eyes usually wandered over my shoulder. Schill has a background in activism, and this talent displays it. Of course, I suspect he is shrewd as well-- he knows that people like to be listened to, and he does so to maximum advantage.
3. Voicing strong concern for affordability, Schill told me that we must "keep tuition low, and aid high," restraining ourselves to increases solely to keep up with inflation. He did not speak of competitive pricing, and or peer comparisons. Now, perhaps this is just because he's speaking to me, and he's read the blog. But I checked on this, and what colleagues of his told me is that "He's too smart to think pricing high is smart, and far too smart to believe in 'disruptive' innovation." I asked him for his thoughts on test-optional admissions and he was able to discuss that literature with me, bringing up his teaching on higher education at UCLA in a manner that was quite impressive. In his view, the Supreme Court will rule against Texas in a narrowly tailored decision.
4. Schill is a candidate for chancellor with a very serious and impressive set of publications and books that merit tenure (so is Blank, by the way). He's written on low-income housing, immigration and race, and co-authored with smart people I like and trust, such as Amy Ellen Schwartz of NYU and Colin Chellman of CUNY. I especially liked what I read in Housing and Community Development in New York City: Facing the Future regarding the reasons why efforts to improve low-income housing have failed; he attends to politics and structure in insightful ways.
Of course, no one's perfect and I do have a few qualms about Schill's background. For example, he's had a lot of funding from big banks, such as JP Morgan Chase and Citigroup. He's spent most of his time as an adult in very elite settings-- UCLA may be public but it's no exception. And while he's a first generation student, as we saw with Biddy Martin, being one doesn't mean you fully understand what's required to serve them.
But overall, I am supportive of Michael Schill's candidacy for chancellor. He's bright, calm, thoughtful, and exceedingly well-liked by those who work with him. I'd enjoy getting to know him better.
ps. A final note, for the students-- a bit of street cred-- Michael's done the Daily Show!
How to Turn Higher Education into an Engine of Inequality
Step 1: Build an enormous and expansive set of opportunities for higher education and tell everyone that a college education is necessary for economic and social security in America-- but refrain from working towards public consensus on providing a free higher education for all.
Step 2: Create the illusion of access with a program of financial aid distribution that isn't backed with a real entitlement program tied to college costs.
Step 3: Do nothing to stem the behavior of bad actors and those who encourage them. Allow colleges and universities to raise prices and engage in rankings wars based on flawed metrics that distort the market. Fail to require states to maintain their effort to ensuring affordability. Allow, even encourage, private business to step into the gaps.
Step 4: Allow the value of need-based aid to decline while redirecting aid towards politically popular programs benefitting the non-needy.
Step 5: Refrain from fundamental reforms addressing the core crisis in the system, and instead introduce small modifications aimed at overcoming individual deficits rather than structural problems.
And here we are!
ps. I highly recommend the CLASP report that includes these figures.
Step 2: Create the illusion of access with a program of financial aid distribution that isn't backed with a real entitlement program tied to college costs.
Step 3: Do nothing to stem the behavior of bad actors and those who encourage them. Allow colleges and universities to raise prices and engage in rankings wars based on flawed metrics that distort the market. Fail to require states to maintain their effort to ensuring affordability. Allow, even encourage, private business to step into the gaps.
Step 4: Allow the value of need-based aid to decline while redirecting aid towards politically popular programs benefitting the non-needy.
Step 5: Refrain from fundamental reforms addressing the core crisis in the system, and instead introduce small modifications aimed at overcoming individual deficits rather than structural problems.
And here we are!
ps. I highly recommend the CLASP report that includes these figures.
Faulty Chronicle of Higher Education Survey Deserves More Scrutiny
As a person who appreciates insights into the thinking of various actors in higher education, I get excited whenever a newspaper invests its resources in fielding a large survey of college faculty, administrators, students, or those who hire them.
Thus, I was initially excited to see the results from the latest survey conducted by the Chronicle of Higher Education and America Public Radio's Marketplace, on how employers view the skills and talents of recent college graduates. Reading through the results, one began to think the story contained provocative information on business's view of online education, for example.
But then I got to the story's end, and stopped cold. There lay the description of survey methodology: The findings on these pages come from a survey developed, fielded, and analyzed by Maguire Associates Inc., a higher-education consulting firm, on behalf of The Chronicle and American Public Media's Marketplace. Maguire invited 50,000 employers to participate in the study. Experience.com, a career-services consultancy, helped develop the sample by providing a contact list of employers that recruit recent college graduates. The survey was conducted in August and September 2012. There were 704 responses.
First, that's the sum total of all details we're given about the sample. We know nothing about the characteristics of the sampling frame or the respondents. In other words, we have no idea whether these employers are representative of specific sectors, specific states, etc. And equally importantly, while the author didn't do the math for us, a simple calculation reveals a response rate of just 1.4%.
This is insanely low. So low, in fact, that I don't think the results should be published at all-- let alone featured on the Website. And if they are, a major banner is needed proclaiming at the start of the story, "PROCEED WITH CAUTION!" I said the same thing regarding an Inside Higher Ed survey last year, and that one had a response rate of 7%.
Yes, I understand that surveys are expensive to field and really costly to do well, but at the very minimum the public deserves far more clarity and transparency in reporting on methods than the Chronicle has provided here. In addition, there are clear best practices for fielding web surveys (which I have to assume this was) and it sure doesn't seem like Maguire Associates followed them. For example, Paul Umbach of North Carolina State wrote a nice piece specifically for those conducting higher education research that lays out the issues point by point. Given that low response rates may lead to sample bias (affecting generalizability), low power, and inaccurate estimations, the researchers should have randomly sampled from the target population only enough people to have sufficient power-in other words, going after a fraction of those 50,000 with solid methods instead of surveying all of them with weak technique. And the overarching goal should have been to achieve a decent rate of response to reduce the possibility of a non-representative sample-- in this case, the response rate is pathetically low (this is as low as I think I've ever seen) and no information on representativeness is provided. This doesn't seem uncommon for Maguire Associates-- this 2011 survey report says nothing about their sampling or response rate, nor does this one from 2010, but this one from 2005 and this one from 2008 provide at least some of the information that Chronicle readers deserve.
It's unethical to publish this information like this. So I recommend that the Chronicle do what I asked Inside Higher Ed to do-- take it down! And consider working with a more credible survey firm next time, please.
Thus, I was initially excited to see the results from the latest survey conducted by the Chronicle of Higher Education and America Public Radio's Marketplace, on how employers view the skills and talents of recent college graduates. Reading through the results, one began to think the story contained provocative information on business's view of online education, for example.
But then I got to the story's end, and stopped cold. There lay the description of survey methodology: The findings on these pages come from a survey developed, fielded, and analyzed by Maguire Associates Inc., a higher-education consulting firm, on behalf of The Chronicle and American Public Media's Marketplace. Maguire invited 50,000 employers to participate in the study. Experience.com, a career-services consultancy, helped develop the sample by providing a contact list of employers that recruit recent college graduates. The survey was conducted in August and September 2012. There were 704 responses.
First, that's the sum total of all details we're given about the sample. We know nothing about the characteristics of the sampling frame or the respondents. In other words, we have no idea whether these employers are representative of specific sectors, specific states, etc. And equally importantly, while the author didn't do the math for us, a simple calculation reveals a response rate of just 1.4%.
This is insanely low. So low, in fact, that I don't think the results should be published at all-- let alone featured on the Website. And if they are, a major banner is needed proclaiming at the start of the story, "PROCEED WITH CAUTION!" I said the same thing regarding an Inside Higher Ed survey last year, and that one had a response rate of 7%.
Yes, I understand that surveys are expensive to field and really costly to do well, but at the very minimum the public deserves far more clarity and transparency in reporting on methods than the Chronicle has provided here. In addition, there are clear best practices for fielding web surveys (which I have to assume this was) and it sure doesn't seem like Maguire Associates followed them. For example, Paul Umbach of North Carolina State wrote a nice piece specifically for those conducting higher education research that lays out the issues point by point. Given that low response rates may lead to sample bias (affecting generalizability), low power, and inaccurate estimations, the researchers should have randomly sampled from the target population only enough people to have sufficient power-in other words, going after a fraction of those 50,000 with solid methods instead of surveying all of them with weak technique. And the overarching goal should have been to achieve a decent rate of response to reduce the possibility of a non-representative sample-- in this case, the response rate is pathetically low (this is as low as I think I've ever seen) and no information on representativeness is provided. This doesn't seem uncommon for Maguire Associates-- this 2011 survey report says nothing about their sampling or response rate, nor does this one from 2010, but this one from 2005 and this one from 2008 provide at least some of the information that Chronicle readers deserve.
It's unethical to publish this information like this. So I recommend that the Chronicle do what I asked Inside Higher Ed to do-- take it down! And consider working with a more credible survey firm next time, please.
A Delicious Revenue-Generating Idea for UW-Madison
This story in today's New York Times made me happy because it emphasized an approach to revenue-generation consistent with the mission of many public universities, especially land-grant institutions: develop ways to produce excellent agricultural output. Washington State University is selling beef, including Wagyu, and marketing it to alumni-- among others.
This is a perfect fit for UW-Madison, which could strategically expand its exist talents via the Babcock Dairy (ice cream and cheese) and Bucky's Butchery, as well as the excellent crops that could be produced by star faculty.
Here's a sample line of potential UW-Madison products that could be marketed throughout the Midwest and indeed across the country to our adoring alumni.
This is the kind of money-making activity that benefits the school without compromising any core values and actually growing educational opportunities for students in an area highly-supported by the state legislature. It's worth serious thought.
ps. I've been informed by uwbadger74 on Twitter that a UW Regents policy prohibits these sorts of activities because they compete with private businesses. That policy is here, and should be revisited.
This is a perfect fit for UW-Madison, which could strategically expand its exist talents via the Babcock Dairy (ice cream and cheese) and Bucky's Butchery, as well as the excellent crops that could be produced by star faculty.
Here's a sample line of potential UW-Madison products that could be marketed throughout the Midwest and indeed across the country to our adoring alumni.
- Ice cream It's already available, but why not ship it to alumni who miss it? As a friend put it, who wouldn't want to try ice cream made by the flagship university of America's dairyland?
- Cheeses (we have award winning cheddar, already in gift sets, but why not market this in tandem with the book store?)
- Cuts of beef, pork, and lamb --all of which Bucky's already offers; this need only be scaled up.
- Bucky sausages (these already exist)
- Bucky's Hot Sticks (these already exist)
- Former Dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Bill Tracy's famous corn (and canned corn)
- Professor Irwin Goldman's beautiful beets (and canned beets)
This is the kind of money-making activity that benefits the school without compromising any core values and actually growing educational opportunities for students in an area highly-supported by the state legislature. It's worth serious thought.
ps. I've been informed by uwbadger74 on Twitter that a UW Regents policy prohibits these sorts of activities because they compete with private businesses. That policy is here, and should be revisited.
Rethinking External Service Providers
Note: This is an uncommon blog for me, an effort to simply engage readers in helping me think through a set of issues that I've been pondering but never had a chance to really study. These are initial, baby ideas, and shouldn't be taken as my final word on the subject. Thanks.
Some recent exchanges on Twitter, including with folks attending the Students for Education Reform summit, and people responding to the latest KIPP evaluation report, have me thinking about the role that external service providers play in schools. I know there's been a fair bit written on this topic, but perceive that there's a lack of clarity and cohesion when it comes to some crucial issues. By writing this, I'm hoping to get some input and ideas, and perhaps even recruit a co-author to write an article on the topic.
First, let's define what I mean by external service providers. I am conceiving of them as running the gamut from external management organizations, typically defined as for-profits and non-for-profits that operate entire schools under contract (e.g. Edison Schools), to other types of comprehensive school design providers (e.g. KIPP), to those that provide a specific type of service, be it a teacher mentoring model (e.g. New Teacher Center--where my husband works) or benefits provision (e.g. Single Stop USA--which I'm studying). While I think the latter types are usually separated from the former, I see little reason not to place them on the same spectrum when considering the issues I'm concerned with here. (See if you agree with me, or not.)
In each case, a school's use of these external entities has the potential to generate conflict with community norms and interests and grassroots activists, and to bring unintended consequences by serving as an existence proof that intervention from external actors can serve to outperform locally grown efforts. Of course, whether you view any of these things as problematic depends on your politics-- and that's precisely what's bothering me.
Is there a non-political, value-free way to assess these external service providers? The conversations I've been observing suggest that perhaps the answer is no. For the very notion of protecting the rights of communities to determine their own solutions without intrusion, and the idea that even a well-meaning external provider might take the place of local workers, these are inherently evaluated with a perspective that includes a moral judgment.
I think it's for this reason that my friends and colleagues arrive at such very different assessments of these actors. I'm uncomfortable with the fact that many on the Left are supportive of efforts like NTC that encourage strong mentoring of new teachers (a value-laden approach, even if local mentors are used), but unsupportive of other models, like KIPP. Similarly, those on the right seem ok with KIPP but reluctant to support actors that will bring greater benefits access to community college students. I think external service providers are differentially cast as "supportive" or "intrusive" based not merely on how they operate but what they provide-- and thus critics need to focus clearly on that content rather than on the idea that external actors are simply inappropriate.
Similarly, I think the way we define the outcomes which should be measured to assess the performance of external service providers is also a political act. A narrow focus on student achievement, without measurement of impacts on local community members or the local labor force, belies a focus on the individual vs. the social.
So...this is what I'm thinking. Perhaps it's something that has already been written about-- and frankly it's an area I've not studied deeply, so please point me toward the right work. Thanks!
Some recent exchanges on Twitter, including with folks attending the Students for Education Reform summit, and people responding to the latest KIPP evaluation report, have me thinking about the role that external service providers play in schools. I know there's been a fair bit written on this topic, but perceive that there's a lack of clarity and cohesion when it comes to some crucial issues. By writing this, I'm hoping to get some input and ideas, and perhaps even recruit a co-author to write an article on the topic.
First, let's define what I mean by external service providers. I am conceiving of them as running the gamut from external management organizations, typically defined as for-profits and non-for-profits that operate entire schools under contract (e.g. Edison Schools), to other types of comprehensive school design providers (e.g. KIPP), to those that provide a specific type of service, be it a teacher mentoring model (e.g. New Teacher Center--where my husband works) or benefits provision (e.g. Single Stop USA--which I'm studying). While I think the latter types are usually separated from the former, I see little reason not to place them on the same spectrum when considering the issues I'm concerned with here. (See if you agree with me, or not.)
In each case, a school's use of these external entities has the potential to generate conflict with community norms and interests and grassroots activists, and to bring unintended consequences by serving as an existence proof that intervention from external actors can serve to outperform locally grown efforts. Of course, whether you view any of these things as problematic depends on your politics-- and that's precisely what's bothering me.
Is there a non-political, value-free way to assess these external service providers? The conversations I've been observing suggest that perhaps the answer is no. For the very notion of protecting the rights of communities to determine their own solutions without intrusion, and the idea that even a well-meaning external provider might take the place of local workers, these are inherently evaluated with a perspective that includes a moral judgment.
I think it's for this reason that my friends and colleagues arrive at such very different assessments of these actors. I'm uncomfortable with the fact that many on the Left are supportive of efforts like NTC that encourage strong mentoring of new teachers (a value-laden approach, even if local mentors are used), but unsupportive of other models, like KIPP. Similarly, those on the right seem ok with KIPP but reluctant to support actors that will bring greater benefits access to community college students. I think external service providers are differentially cast as "supportive" or "intrusive" based not merely on how they operate but what they provide-- and thus critics need to focus clearly on that content rather than on the idea that external actors are simply inappropriate.
Similarly, I think the way we define the outcomes which should be measured to assess the performance of external service providers is also a political act. A narrow focus on student achievement, without measurement of impacts on local community members or the local labor force, belies a focus on the individual vs. the social.
So...this is what I'm thinking. Perhaps it's something that has already been written about-- and frankly it's an area I've not studied deeply, so please point me toward the right work. Thanks!
The MOOC Industrial Complex
These days, every education reform movement seems to generate profit for multiple partners. Take No Child Left Behind, the latest testing and accountability regime. As many scholars have documented, billions of dollars have flowed to corporations providing the tests, textbooks and "supplementary education services" required by that federal policy. Advocates say this is appropriate since it means the market is functioning freely to provide high quality services, while critics note that absent government regulation (carefully limited under the law) public goods are quickly becoming private ones.
In recent blogs about MOOCs, I questioned their business model, asking why supposedly cash-strapped universities (like mine) would choose to engage with them when there is no evident monetary return? I received little response from MOOC advocates on that question. But the answer is becoming increasingly clear.
Many universities have stated that MOOCs are the kind of innovative activity that donors would like to support, and that we would gain new donors if we engaged in creating them. University foundations, including UW-Madison's, seem quite confident in this-- to the point that they are putting in their own dollars for the initial investments to get MOOCs off the ground. While it's possible that this is sheer altruism, it's doubtful-- their leaders always expect a return on investment.
Where will it come from?
Why, the industry that supports the MOOCs of course. For example, today's New York Times documents the growing testing industry associated with online proctoring, helping colleges "keep an eye" on online test-takers. Unfortunately that article failed to investigate the money involved in this effort, focusing instead on the quality of the services provided to prevent cheating. This is unfortunate, since tracking the dollars created by the work of educators, ultimately benefiting the corporate bottom line is exactly what the "paper of record" should be doing.
What other entities will benefit from the instructional activities provided by public and non-profit universities? Write in and let's start a list. And while we're at it, let's think hard about the likelihood that these corporations will eventually constitute those "benevolent new donors" our universities are counting on.
ps. I keep meaning to direct my readers to this excellent commentary in the Chronicle of Higher Education. I highly recommend reading it in full.
In recent blogs about MOOCs, I questioned their business model, asking why supposedly cash-strapped universities (like mine) would choose to engage with them when there is no evident monetary return? I received little response from MOOC advocates on that question. But the answer is becoming increasingly clear.
Many universities have stated that MOOCs are the kind of innovative activity that donors would like to support, and that we would gain new donors if we engaged in creating them. University foundations, including UW-Madison's, seem quite confident in this-- to the point that they are putting in their own dollars for the initial investments to get MOOCs off the ground. While it's possible that this is sheer altruism, it's doubtful-- their leaders always expect a return on investment.
Where will it come from?
Why, the industry that supports the MOOCs of course. For example, today's New York Times documents the growing testing industry associated with online proctoring, helping colleges "keep an eye" on online test-takers. Unfortunately that article failed to investigate the money involved in this effort, focusing instead on the quality of the services provided to prevent cheating. This is unfortunate, since tracking the dollars created by the work of educators, ultimately benefiting the corporate bottom line is exactly what the "paper of record" should be doing.
What other entities will benefit from the instructional activities provided by public and non-profit universities? Write in and let's start a list. And while we're at it, let's think hard about the likelihood that these corporations will eventually constitute those "benevolent new donors" our universities are counting on.
ps. I keep meaning to direct my readers to this excellent commentary in the Chronicle of Higher Education. I highly recommend reading it in full.
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