The Real Problem with the College Scorecard

There is an ongoing and reasonably interesting debate about the Obama Administration's College Scorecard that I'd like to weigh in on, in order to draw out what's gone unsaid.

On one side of the debate are a set of elite college presidents who think the Scorecard's narrow focus on economic returns to the degree miss the mark; the college-going decision should be about more than getting a job. For example, Harvard President Drew Faust writes that "the focus in federal policy making and rhetoric on earnings data as the indicator of the value of higher education will further the growing perception that a college degree should be simply a ticket to a first job, rather than a passport to a lifetime of citizenship, opportunity, growth and change...Equating the value of education with the size of a first paycheck badly distorts broader principles and commitments essential to our society and our future."

On the other side are people like the Brookings Institution's Beth Akers, who argue that financial returns are critical to the assessment of whether college is worthwhile, especially for people without substantial family wealth, and that providing more information on economic returns is therefore important to influencing the college-going decision.

Both camps are partially right, in my view, and yet both are missing some critical points as well.

First, it is clear that college has multiple meanings and purposes for all students -- students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds seek access to a "lifetime of citizenship, opportunity, growth, and change" just as other students do.  They are not aiming merely at a "first paycheck" -- in fact, if we present them with information on returns from the first paycheck, we won't be showing much economic return at all, since the payback to a bachelor's degree accrues over a lifetime, with the real value often not readily apparent until one's 30s or even 40s.  The economic returns come mainly from job stability and retention, not the initial paychecks.

But try telling that to an 18 year old who simply wants a better life for herself, and sees college as the way to do it.  The first step in that process, from her angle, is to get a degree that gets her employed.  The upward path to social mobility, wherein she is employed longer and more consistently, and also has the knowledge and desire to bring her own children into postsecondary education--that's far down the road.  And that's why Akers is right that this sort of information is valuable.

However, the main problem with the College Scorecard approach lies in its deceptively simple approach to the challenge.  Even though the people creating it probably know that it's just a teeny tiny part of the fix, its mention in the President's State of the Union and attention it is getting reinforces a common perception that the college cost problem is mainly informational.  Informational problems are fundamentally attributed to individual deficiencies rather than institutional or structural actions, and they are addressed in that manner.  The College Scorecard equips the "student-consumer" so that they can make a "rational choice" in the face of a rich competitive marketplace.   This framework is deeply problematic.  Education is not a good like a car or a home.  It means far more to people, and has transformative powers that other goods do not provide.   The fundamental problem is that colleges and universities have been given strong incentives to act like businesses instead of sites of education, and this is magnified by the Scorecard.

A college education is a social good that actualizes the potential of all who enjoy it.  I think President Obama knows this.  He knows that a community comprised of college-educated parents feels and acts differently than one with less education.  Given this, we cannot and should not address the college attainment problem in this country one person at a time by providing scorecards of information.  We need our leadership to insist on a national conversation about social priorities, and insist on approaches to education that are fundamentally democratic-- and therefore public--and are socially just.   We have to insist that a focus on equity is not only required but is more important than a focus on efficiency, since cost is not the only way to assess value, and when we say that it is, we prioritize efforts that keep the poor poor.

I am not naive-- the schooling system we have today reflects the state of our economic life, and the College Scorecard is merely a symptom of that status quo.  But with each policy decision comes a set of choices, and in his last term, President Obama has the opportunity to initiate important changes in our economic life by rejecting the notion that the advantages held by the 1% trickle down to the rest of us, that the consumerism which suits them so well serves our interests too, and that our college opportunities should be guided by the same approach that their families embrace.   Helping college opportunities achieve their potentially liberating ends requires leveraging governmental resources to pursue the provision of a free public education in which the value of college is clearly stated, provided by society to all of its membership.

IWB, Mirroring Apps or Apple TV? Big iPad Decisions

There has been a great discussion forum within our school system about iPads, Interactive Whiteboards (IWBs) and sharing student's work. It started with a question from a teacher just wanting to connect their iPad to the IWB. What followed has been a great discussion about classroom practice and workflows.

We have all spent time and energy creating resources for our IWB but is it time we move to new technology. We can in fact connect our iPads to an IWB via the VGA Adaptor but would you choose to if you had other options.

What we need to do is have a wider conversation around the way we want to interact with our students and how we have them share with others what they are doing on their devices.

There are many tools out there that give us this functionality. Tools like AirServer and Reflector are good for this because they create a link to a laptop that you have connected to your projector and therefore the iPad is shared with a group of people. For many people this is a great solution. For appropriately $15.00 you have a good way to share your iPad and maintain all its interactivity.

I originally preferred AirServer. It was difficult to get it working within our closed network but once it was, it was a great way to present, giving you the option to walk around the room just as you would normally in a class. I have had a few connectivity problems with AirServer lately and so have switched over to Reflector.

I have been using Reflector almost exclusively this year and it has been very stable. I am still not convinced by the skin in which it presents but it is definitely a reliable and robust app. As long as both your iPad and your Laptop are on the same wifi, then whenever you wish to present you lift up your screen with four fingers, swipe all the way to the left and a fourth bottom appears. This is the AirPlay button. Slect this then select the device your wish to mirror to and away you go. Every time I present with it I have people come up afterwards to talk to me about it.

BUT....

Is Apple TV the better way to go. As IWBs are getting to the end of their lifecycle and school executives are starting to look at replacement costs the IWB struggles to compete with a 55 inch HD TV and Apple TV. Schools can buy a 55 inch TV for under a $1000  and Apple TV for $99. If you were buying 8 or 10 I guarantee you would get the Televisions even cheaper. Compare this to a IWB and a new data projector and you are looking at closer to $3000. Three for the price of one is hard to ignore in this current economic climate.

The IWB can not compete with the performance, the ease of use or the ability for one students to pop their work up on the TV before another one does and another, all without getting out of their seats. So how do the options for Projecting on a TV compare?  Tony Vincent developed a great poster and published it on his blog Learning in Hand. It was reimxed by Seth Hansen last month and republished at Edudemic. It is well worth a look. The link is here

I know people have limited resources and are often looking for immediate and simple workaround but we do need to start the conversation with our school community about how we see the proliferation of iPads being taken to the next level. The ease by which people can mirror their iPads is one of those seamless examples of best practice and invisible technology - getting out of the way of good educational outcomes and student centred workflows.