8/11/2010: Interesting article in the Chronicle on the increasing role of the Gates Foundation in higher ed issues. Not everyone welcomes them:
Diane Ravitch, in a chapter of her recent book, Death and Life of the Great American School System, takes aim at Gates and other business tycoons’ foundations. “Education,” she writes, “is too important to relinquish to the vagaries of the market and the good intentions of amateurs.”
Others, of course, welcome the help. Many college leaders say the foundation is bringing much-needed attention to a neglected sector of higher education. The Gates foundation aims to double the proportion of low-income Americans who earn a postsecondary credential by age 26. To get there, the philanthropy is focusing its grants on community colleges, where more than half of students come from families earning less than $40,000 a year.
The truth is there is not a lot of good evidence on what works in higher education. Most decisions seem to be made on gut instinct. The article talks about controlled experiments to investigate such basic things as the effectiveness of “learning communities” and student help centers.
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