Alex Chediak

Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa write: "The typical student meets with faculty outside of the classroom only once per month, with 9 percent of students never meeting with faculty outside the classroom the previous semester. Although 85 percent of students have achieved a B-minus grade point average or higher, and 55 percent have attained a B-plus grade point average or higher, the average student studies less than two hours per day. Moreover, half of students have not taken a single course that required more than twenty pages of writing, and approximately one-third have not taken any courses … [Read more...] about Limited Learning on College Campuses?

Trevor Persaud of Christianity Today has the latest: Palm Beach Atlantic University President Lu Hardin resigned suddenly on Friday and pled guilty on Monday to wire fraud and money laundering charges rooted in his previous job as president of the University of Central Arkansas. Hardin had headed the Florida-based interdenominational Christian school for only two years. For much of that time, his name has been a recurring feature of investigations into questionable financial dealings that took place during his time at UCA. This particular case involves a $300,000 deferred-compensation … [Read more...] about President of Christian University Pleads Guilty to Wire Fraud, Money Laundering

I have largely avoided political issues of late, but today's WSJ op-ed piece by Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin is simply excellent. What he is trying to do in Wisconsin simply makes good fiscal and educational sense.  Read it for yourself and see why. A couple noteworthy points: 1. Federal workers don't have collective bargaining for wages and benefits.  Yet that's one of the perks that the public employee union in Wisconsin is fighting to retain. 2. The changes Gov. Walker seeks are modest: "We ask government workers to make a 5.8% contribution to their pensions and a 12.6% … [Read more...] about Scott Walker, Collective Bargaining, and Educational Effectiveness

That's the juxtaposition posed by Jay Mathews in this classic Washington Post article: "According to the Washington think tank's annual Brown Center report on education, 6 percent of Korean eighth-graders surveyed expressed confidence in their math skills, compared with 39 percent of U.S. eighth-graders. But a respected international math assessment showed Koreans scoring far ahead of their peers in the United States, raising questions about the importance of self-esteem." As I discuss in Thriving at College, it's better to have a sober estimation of one's skills (Rom. 12:1) - one … [Read more...] about High Self-Esteem or High Test Scores?