Princeton Review: Get Ready for the College for Working Families

NationalLaborCollege Thanks to Daniel Mitchell, Professor-Emeritus at the UCLA Anderson Graduate School of Management, who brought to my attention this article by Steve Kolowich entitled: A Historic Union?  (January 15, 2010, Inside Higher Ed).

Here’s a taste:

A month after completing its first foray into online higher education by acquiring the distance education provider Penn Foster, the Princeton Review has set its next goal: to help create the largest online college ever. And it thinks it can do it in five years.

The company announced yesterday that it is entering into a joint venture with the National Labor College — an accredited institution that offers blended-learning programs to 200 students, most of whom are adults — to establish what would be called the College for Working Families. The college would offer courses tailored to the needs of union members and their families, beginning this fall.

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Farewell to a Beloved Professor

danfreedI was saddened today to learn that my dear mentor, Professor Dan Freed of Yale Law School, is dying.  I wrote a post about Dan on this blog some time ago.  Although word has just been getting out today, tributes and farewell messages to Dan are already starting to pour into this website.  It is amazing to read what a profound influence he had on so many people.  One line particularly caught my eye, from Professor Frank Bowman of Missouri:

Most importantly, I want to say that there are innumerable “professors” in American graduate education, but there are only a bare handful of teachers. You are one.

How perfectly fitting a tribute for Dan Freed — the teacher’s teacher.

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How Lonely Was that Walk?

The clock in my car said 12:34 p.m. Thursday while I waited for a car to pass before I pulled out of my parking spot on N. 53 rd St. I watched as the car turned on to W. Vliet and immediately pulled in front of the Milwaukee Public Schools central administration building. The passenger in the front seat got out and slowly walked by himself to the front door of the building.

It was Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett. And he was playing out a scene in what appears to have become a lose-lose political situation for him.  

The bid by Governor Jim Doyle, Barrett, and others to overhaul governance of MPS, giving the mayor dominant power over the school system, is on life support, at best. The effort is deadlocked in the Legislature. It appears to be decidedly on the unpopular end of sentiment in Milwaukee, especially among African Americans. And several days of pretty intense efforts to reach some form of compromise with backers of a less-extensive plan to shift power in MPS pretty much blew up on Wednesday.  The two sides simply and apparently irresolveably disagree on how much power a mayor should have over MPS. 

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