Posted: 16 Jul 2010 01:12 PM PDT

Los Angeles

The University of California – considered to be America's top public university – hopes to become the country's first top-tier research institution to offer a bachelor's degree over the Internet that is comparable in quality to its campus program.

A pilot program of 25 to 40 courses this fall would offer the university's most crowded courses, including calculus, chemistry, physics, and freshman composition.

Making it work will require $6 million in private donations, and it comes at a challenging time for higher education in California. It was just a year ago that students took over campus buildings and blocked parking lots in high-profile demonstrations, protesting a 32 percent increase in student fees.

"We have the opportunity to show everyone else how to do it," said Regent Sherry Lansing after a July 14 meeting of UC's governing board in which details were laid out. The regents largely agreed with the plan's leader, UC Berkeley Law School Dean Christopher Edley, that the program could save money while expanding access to other states and countries, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.

Faced with a budget deficit that is expected to grow to $1.2 billion in 2010-11 – largely because of the biggest state deficit in US history – the nine-campus university had already cut 2,000 employees, reduced supplies, and cut late hours for libraries.

World-renowned system

The UC system is the top of California's three-tiered system of higher education that is world renowned: The top one-eighth of graduating high-schoolers can be admitted here, while the CSU (California State University) system draws from the top 33 percent, and California Community Colleges admit any student capable of benefiting from instruction.

Since the online idea began gaining currency last May, several faculty and graduate-student instructors have expressed misgivings about tarnishing the university's reputation that has taken decades to build. The university boasts 25 Nobel Prize winners.

"The danger is not only degraded education but centralized academic policy that undermines faculty control of academic standards and curriculum," said the Berkeley Faculty Association in a May report. "It's also likely that the whole thing will be a boondoggle."

Nationally, many higher-education experts agree that the time is right for such an idea, some with major caveats.

"Absolutely I think it's a good idea," says Sean O'Donnell, director of e-learning and graduate marketing at the Villanova University College of Engineering in Pennsylvania. "Online education has proven time and time again that, when done correctly, it is a very effective means of educating the greater masses."

The undergraduate market in America, he says, is a distinct population that is not being served. As night-school programs diminish, he says, online education is the natural fit for working professionals to complete unfinished undergraduate degrees.

"It's time for California to rethink the way it administers higher education," says William Tierney, director of the Center for Higher Education Policy Analysis at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. "The world of online education needs to be explored since it has made so much progress over the past 10 years."

The perception of online learning has improved, he says, "because online learning has improved, and the entire environment of education is changing." But he is concerned about the small number of courses initially being offered.

"Offering a handful of classes online is a really nice attempt, but it just seems late and a stutter step," he says. "It's like a major newspaper offering to have one online edition per week or Amazon.com offering just Latin American literature online ... but for all other books, you have to come to a store. They would go out of business with that policy."

But Mr. Tierney, Mr. O'Donnell, and others say that not enough research has yet been done to know how students learn online, how they perform afterward, what technology is needed, and how much it costs to maintain such a system.

'Other universities have failed'

"Other universities have failed in this because the technology was not right or ready, they didn't get the cost savings they expected, or they needed a too-heavy investment up front," says Robin Garrell, a professor of chemistry at UCLA who serves on an academic senate committee that has been examining online learning. Some courses, she says, will be very suitable to online learning, such as math and English, and others will not be – like chemistry lab and theater.

"This is still unfolding," she says. "The faculty is of two minds. On the one hand they are bold, innovative, and creative, and on the other there is an element of 'let's try it but rather see how it's going before going too far.' "

Success will depend on how well the programs are created and maintained, say Ms. Garrell and O'Donnell. Complaints at the University of Illinois led to the collapse of that school's Global Campus program after just two years, Garrell points out. Campus officials "had too strong a confidence that 'if you build it, they will come,' " she says.

"The question the universities need to ask is, who is in charge of this and do they have a proven track record?" says O'Donnell. "None of these programs are off-the-shelf; they are all custom-built. They might use the same tool sets, but the key question is how?"

California faces $19 billion budget deficit despite massive cuts

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McCollum's education proposal would remove tenure

Posted: 16 Jul 2010 08:14 PM PDT

By The Associated Press

Published: July 16, 2010

Updated: 50 min. ago

Republican gubernatorial candidate Bill McCollum announced his education platform Friday, saying he wants to make it easier to fire teachers by eliminating tenure and base their pay raises on classroom performance instead of seniority.

McCollum would also increase standards for teachers in the state's voluntary pre-kindergarten program for 4 year olds, expand a program that gives corporations tax breaks for providing private school scholarships for low-income students and require most high school students to take at least one course online.

"We have to set priorities that we haven't had to set before," said McCollum, the state's attorney general who faces Naples businessman Rick Scott in an Aug. 24 primary showdown of conservative Republicans. "Government is going to be involved until we see significant improvement in student improvement."

Scott hasn't formally released his education platform, but his positions on the major issues largely mirror McCollum's.

"In order for Florida to attract business, compete effectively in the global economy, and create 21st century jobs we must have an educated workforce," Scott said in a statement released Friday by his campaign. "I am committed to improving education and putting Florida back to work."

McCollum largely embraces the educational philosophies of former Gov. Jeb Bush, with merit pay for teachers a key element.

"I think most teachers want to see good teachers rewarded," said McCollum, a product of Florida's public education system from elementary school through law school. "We must make sure they meet escalating professional standards. A very serious problem in our state."

A highly controversial Senate bill (SB 6) that included similar proposals was vetoed by Gov. Charlie Crist this spring, but is sure to be resurrected again in the 2011 session when there will be a new governor.

Under McCollum's proposal, tenure would be phased out for new teachers, who would receive raises based on how their classroom performance is judged, not seniority. Current teachers would be allowed to waive tenure in return for receiving merit raises if they are judged to have performed well. District superintendents and principals would be allowed to easily fire teachers who are deemed underperforming.

The state teachers union worked hard against SB6, arguing the lack of job security would discourage good teachers from working in Florida. Union leaders also argued that testing can be skewed by outside factors such as students' home lives. It says McCollum's plan is more of the same.

"It doesn't look a whole lot different from the blueprint that Republicans have been following the last few years," Florida Education Association spokesman Mark Pudlow said Friday. "It appears that McCollum hasn't really gauged the view of some people, teachers and parents to SB6."

McCollum's other proposals include:

• Develop standards for the pre-kindergarten program and require that every school be supervised by an instructor with a post-secondary degree in early childhood education or development. He also calls for collecting more data to measure the children's and schools' success.

• Improve instruction in elementary and middle schools to support increased high school graduation requirements, particularly in math and science.

• Encourage school district to work with local employers to develop programs that will support their work force needs.

• Allow online schools in other states and countries to enroll Florida students. He would also require that every high school student, where possible, take at least one online course before graduation.

• Give financial incentives for college students to major in science, technology, engineering or math, including lower tuition and possibly loan forgiveness.

• Reward public colleges that graduate more of their students.

• Increase funding for community colleges and vocational education programs.

The candidate conceded that priorities would have to be determined because of the recession's effect on state government.

"We're going to be in a very difficult time," he said. "Some programs will have to be eliminated, at least in the short run. Some programs will have to be consolidated. Where do we put our resources?"

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UC takes steps to online degree

Posted: 15 Jul 2010 11:07 PM PDT

SAN FRANCISCO - The University of California is moving ahead with a plan to develop a new batch of online courses that could eventually lead to the country's first highly selective, Internet-based degree program for undergraduates.

Members of the UC Board of Regents expressed support Wednesday for a pilot project proposed by Berkeley Law School Dean Christopher Edley to test new forms of online instruction at the 10-campus system.

The UC President's Office is raising money from private donors so faculty can begin developing 25 to 40 online courses, starting with those in highest demand, including calculus, chemistry and physics. It's unclear when students could enroll.

UC already offers 1,250 online courses, which Edley said could serve as a starting point for a more sophisticated, high-tech approach that gives students easier access to instructors and classmates.

Edley said an online undergraduate degree program would save the cash-strapped university money and expand access to students in California and around the world.

"We can't treat UC as a precious little box," he said at Wednesday's meeting in San Francisco. "Demand is growing."

Board Chairman Russell Gould, chairman of the UC Commission on the Future, said it's one way the university could thrive in an era of shrinking financial support from the state.

"We are in a position to lead," Gould said.

But Regent George Marcus was skeptical of the

proposal, calling it "faddish."

Marcus said the project should be abandoned if data from the pilot program show the online courses aren't working.

Some faculty members and graduate student instructors have expressed concern that an online degree program could compromise the quality of undergraduate education and hurt the university's reputation.

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McCollum pirches education plan during Palm Beach County visit

Posted: 16 Jul 2010 06:32 PM PDT

By George Bennett, The Palm Beach Post

8:54 p.m. EDT, July 16, 2010

Republican governor hopeful Bill McCollum unveiled an education plan Friday that would reward top teachers and make it easier to fire poor ones — proposals similar to the ones that drew howls from teachers unions and a veto from Gov. Charlie Crist this year.

McCollum, the Florida attorney general locked in a tough GOP gubernatorial primary against multimillionaire businessman Rick Scott, said he'd work as governor to build consensus for a fair merit-pay plan.

"I don't know anybody, including those teachers, who don't believe that we ought to be rewarding good teachers," McCollum said. "I believe that most teachers in our public schools today are scared and worried about how they're measured."

The bill Crist vetoed tied merit pay hikes to student performance on standardized tests. McCollum said merit pay "can't be all based on tests."

"We have a whole group of people working on this and when I'm governor it'll be even broader-based, with more people. We're going to work together and come up with the right formula" for merit pay, McCollum said after announcing his plan at The Scripps Research Institute in Jupiter.

McCollum's 11-page proposal also would expand tax credits for businesses that provide private school scholarships to low-income children.

He would require the supervisors of pre-kindergarten programs to hold a postsecondary degree in early childhood education or development, and he wants to expand online education for high school students and offer incentives, such as lower tuition, to college students who major in science, technology, engineering or math.

McCollum's plan emphasizes "measurable, quantitative results to judge progress." But he said he's sympathetic to concerns that there's too much emphasis on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test.

"Absolutely we have to have testing," McCollum said. But "I'm open-minded and I will be as governor about how we rework the use of the FCAT."

Before touring Scripps and rolling out his education plan, McCollum spoke to a business group in Palm Beach. He then spoke to about 80 people at a Republican Club of the Palm Beaches lunch in West Palm Beach and was scheduled to attend a private fund-raiser in St. Lucie County on Friday night.