by Garen Singer
Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki visited President Obama at the White House on Monday to discuss regional security issues, as well as trade, energy, American investment in Iraq and education. Sadly, I was not invited, but I want to pose a question to PM Maliki about the last, and surely least, point of discussion: education.
First, a little background: As you may know, Saddam Hussein banned political and religious freedoms – and mobile phones. So my question, PM Maliki, is how you plan to use the relatively recent introduction of mobile technology to improve educational access, opportunity and outcomes. (more…)
by Erin Tario
On September 30, 2011, Blackboard Student Services- Killeen, Texas hosted U.S. Congressman John Carter and his staff to discuss ways education technology is empowering students, teachers and parents in the state of Texas—and the important role Blackboard Student Services plays in the student experience at higher ed institutions throughout the country.
- Blackboard employs ~400 Texans at our Killeen Blackboard Student Services call center
- Blackboard learning technologies are used at 83% of all Texas higher education institutions and 21% of all Texas school districts
- 1 in 3 Texans who are in public education are using Blackboard technology daily (more…)
by Andrea Meier
Originally posted by Ray Henderson on Ray H blog. Follow Ray on Twitter @readmeray.
Recently, the U.S. Department of Education launched a series of regional summits at community colleges. The goal? To identify promising practices for increasing completion at community colleges. In announcing the summit series, Ed Sec Arne Duncan reinforced that community colleges will need to lead the way if we’re serious about the administration’s goal of leading the world in degree attainment by 2020.
I was pleased to note that several Blackboard clients were on the list to host one of the summits, including some that we’ve spoken with regarding a new initiative we have underway to impact an area crucial to attainment: developmental education. It’s another in a line of examples I’ve blogged about recently where we’re expanding our vision and looking to solve some larger problems in education in partnership with our clients. They’re all examples of a new form of innovation taking root in our organization as we rethink how we can better serve educators by considering new ways to tackle some of the biggest challenges they face…. READ MORE
by Garen Singer
Does this sound familiar?
- Data is not accessible – only a small group of people know what’s there, how to get to it and what to do with it.
- Data is siloed, and how/where it’s stored (index card?) varies greatly across the institution
- Strategic decisions are sometimes 100% not strategic, like a 15% across-the-board budget cut
- Everybody (and nobody) wants to own the data (more…)
by Leslie Day
“By 2020, the United States will once again have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world.”
This is President Obama’s 2020 attainment goal that he committed to during his 2009 State of the Union address.
As a college degree is becoming more and more essential in order to find a job and achieve financial success, it is interesting to look at how this standard has changed over the course of the last 65 years.
This map from the Chronicle of Higher Education depicts the number of adults with college degrees in the United States, by county, since the 1940’s. It is fascinating to look at how much more prevalent a college education has become, even over the past 10 years. Some interesting stats from the graph are:
- In 1960 only 9.7% of men and 5.8% of women had a college education. This took a major jump over the course of the next 30 years and by 1990, 23.3% of men and 17.6% of women were college educated.
- By 2005-2009, women were within 2 percentage points of their male counterparts.
- The northeast appears to have the densest concentration of college graduates.
(more…)
