Report flunks state, 48 others on affordability

Nice article from Ryan Alessi at the Herald-Leader, Graphic by Chris Ware:

STUDY SAYS KENTUCKY IMPROVING

IN OTHER AREAS

More Kentucky students are being encouraged to enroll in college, showing up prepared and graduating, but the state still doesn't do enough to make college affordable, according to a new national report.

The independent report on American higher education flunks all but one state when it comes to affordability — an embarrassing verdict that is unlikely to improve as the economy contracts.

The biennial study by the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, which evaluates how well higher education is serving the public, handed out F's for affordability to 49 states, including Kentucky, up from 43 two years ago. Only California received a passing grade in the category, a C, thanks to its relatively inexpensive community colleges.

Bluegrass Institute free-market guy, David Adams, writing at Kentucky Progress, provides helpful lessons to the non-rich on how to be poor. For some reason, it reminded me of Marie-Antoinette, the Queen consort of Louis XVI, (late 18th century) who is said to have quipped, "Qu'ils mangent de la brioche," when told told that the French populace had no bread to eat. It translates to, "Let them eat cake."

The story gets slightly better treatment at the hands of BGI analyist Richard Innes who reluctantly acknowledges,

"Measuring Up does indicate that Kentucky is making some progress relative to the rest of the country in some areas..."

Alert the media! But he laments that the quality of higher education in America is a "low target."

The report notes:

• Kentucky has hoisted itself up to or above the national average in several key areas.
• Kentucky reached the national average in getting young adults into college, with 35 percent of 18- to-24-year-olds entering a college, university or technical school.
• The number of Kentucky students completing their degrees in relation to total enrollment also soared from near the bottom in the early 1990s to match the top-performing states.
• Forty-seven percent of Kentucky college students now complete a bachelor's degree within six years.
• Richard Crofts, the interim president of Kentucky's Council on Postsecondary Education. credits KERA for many of the improvements reflected in the report, such as greater success with low-income students in math and science.
• Kentucky is more generous with financial aid across all income levels than most states, ranking third in the nation with $1,098 per student.
• Kentucky ranks 9th in need-based grant aid per student with $542, according to figures from the National Association of State Student Grant and Aid Programs annual survey.

Then former North Carolina Gov. Jim Hunt accurately observed, "Our nation and our states can do better... Family wealth and income, race and ethnicity and geography play too great a role in determining which Americans receive a high school education that prepares them for college, which ones enroll in college, and which ones complete certificate or degree programs."

Trafficking in Hyperbole

Thank God, It's Friday!

Feel Free to Reach Out and Smack Someone.

A little firestorm broke out today over at Page One. It seems that Jake Payne has had quite enough of David Adams.

David Adams may pretend that the Bluegrass Institute is an honest think tank. But it’s obviously a right-wing agenda pusher that not only hates public education and stops at nothing to complain about it 24/7. [KY Progress]

This set off a a series of thrusts and parries reminscent of the battling attorneys I had been writing about earlier today. It went something like this:

David: Nuh uh. We don't hate public schools.
Jake: Yeah Huh. You're a hater who hangs out with Frank Simon.
David: Nuh uh. I've got kids in public school.
Jake: Yeah huh. BGI kills your credibility.
David: I may be a right-winger but KDE really sucks.

Or, words to that effect.....

Both blogs stoop to name-calling, which I try not to do, but I suppose I'm sympathetic with Jake's frustration.

Despite trying not to pay too close attention, every now and again, I get my fill of the outrage-of-the-day mentality and petty name-calling that goes on regularly at the Bluegrass Institute blog now. Everybody's a liar, or a fraud - and always an educrat. (By the way, what's the opposite of that? An ignocrat?

For example, Adam's big story of the day at Kentucky Progress was "Cutting through Big Ed's crap" A Richard Innes quote in a wrapper. Adams concludes:

As the Kentucky's mainstream media crumbles, independent researchers like Innes will take on an even more important role in holding government entities like Big Education accountable.

Perhaps so. But if it's wrapped up in an on-going screed about how awful everybody else is, I'm not sure many middle-of-the-road types are going to be able to hear it. Then, BGI's voice only gets further marginalized?

In a normal year, I'd be right in there with BGI fussing to improve assessment methods and results for our kids. I think the CATS concordance idea is little more than a bandaide put on a transition period with the hope no one will notice the 5-7 point bump schools get with the new and easier test. But the dialogic atmosphere is at Kentucky Progress, and now, BGI, is so toxic I'd just rather give KDE a pass and move on the other issues.

It wasn't always that way.

When Adams started blogging for the Bluegrass Institute I expressed my concerns to Innes. My thought was that the style of discourse on Kentucky Progress was inconsistent with what I understood them to stand for. Now I think it was my assessment of what they stood for that was wrong. I was less familiar with BGI overall and didn't make much of an effort to look into it. It wasn't really a concern of mine. I've worked with folks from all kinds of political perspectives for my whole career.

Innes and I managed to work together fairly well on a couple of issues (KIRIS, Barbara Erwin)despite being misaligned politically. We never thought we had to agree on everything to agree on the things we did.

The association probably cost me some credibility with educators in Kentucky.

A close colleague once asked me a question that I can't quite get out of my head. She said, "You've spent your whole life fighting for better schools in Kentucky. How can you stand being identified with the Bluegrass Institute on anything?"

I told her, "We only agree when we agree."

I'm not sure David and Jake are going to be able to hear each other. Jake sees the big picture. David sees individual claims. So today they just "yelled" at each other.

I suspect David isn't half as interested in understanding the implications of the data Innes produces, or the conclusions drawn, as he is in staying on message. I guess it's all about the influence.