Sobre modelos, su transferencia y transformación en el campo de la educación superior (En la huella de Simón Schwartzman)

En los próximos días se presentará en la ciudad de Rio de Janeiro un libro en homenaje a Simón Schwartzman, con ocasión de sus 70 años. Lleva por título O Sociólogo e as Políticas Públicas y contiene contribuciones de colegas brasileños y latinoamericanos.

Bajar mi contribución en su versión en español aquí 395 KB

Presentación e Índice del libro por FVG Editora

Simon Schwartzman, um dos intelectuais brasileiros mais atuantes em nosso tempo, é referência obrigatória no vasto campo das ciências sociais e políticas. Sua produção abrange desde a análise das origens e do funcionamento do Estado até importantes contribuições nos debates sobre a reformulação das políticas no Brasil e na América Latina.

Este livro é uma homenagem aos seus 70 anos. Seus filhos, idealizadores do projeto, convidaram os amigos e colegas de Simon, sociólogos, economistas, cientistas políticos e educadores, a escrever sobre temas inspirados nas idéias e debates provocados pelo grande sociólogo. Bem ao estilo de Simon, o resultado desta homenagem foi uma criteriosa seleção de textos sobre os métodos e objetos das ciências sociais, além de interessante avaliações das políticas públicas no Brasil.

Sumário

Prefácio
Maria Helena Guimarães de Castro

Sobre Simon Schwartzman
Eunice Ribeiro Durham

PARTE I: QUESTÕES TEÓRICAS E METODOLÓGICAS

O Estado nacional como desafio teórico e empírico para a sociologia política contemporânea
Elisa P. Reis

Bases do autoritarismo revisitado: diálogo com Simon Schwartzman sobre o futuro da democracia brasileira
Bolívar Lamounier

Três sociólogos e um arquivo
Helena Bomeny e Vanda Ribeiro Costa

Sobre modelos, sua transferência e transformação no campo da educação superior: na esteira de Simon Schwartzman
José Joaquín Brunner

PARTE II: OBJETOS DE PESQUISA E POLÍTICA PÚBLICA

Desigualdade e indicadores sociais no Brasil
Francisco Vidal Luna e Herbert S. Klein

O declínio recente da pobreza e os programas de transferência de renda
Sonia Rocha

Por que a educação brasileira é tão fraquinha?
Claudio de Moura Castro e João Batista Araujo e Oliveira

A internacionalização da formação de doutorado, o mercado de trabalho no Norte e a circulação de cérebros latino-americanos
Jorge Balán

PARTE III: PESQUISA E AVALIAÇÃO NA POLÍTICA PÚBLICA

Pensando e mudando a atividade estatística brasileira
Nelson de Castro Senra

Avaliação externa em novas versões: a voz dos estudantes no ensino superior britânico (2003-2008)
Maria Helena de Magalhães Castro

Avaliação da qualidade da educação escolar brasileira
José Francisco Soares

Controle externo: a função esquecida do Legislativo no Brasil
Charles Pessanha

Sobre os autores

Otras publicaciones académicas de Sión Schwartzman ver aquí.

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¿Es la 'industria' de la educación superior la próxima burbuja que estallará? Punto de vista en los EE.UU.

Aunque referido a los Estados Unidos, el artículo del Chronicle of Higher Education que se reproduce más abajo aborda temas de preocupación también en Chile, tales como el costo de la enseñanza terciaria, el futuro de las instituciones privadas, la sanidad y sustentabilidad de los regímenes de apoyo estudiantil (créditos, en particular), los efectos anti-equitativos de la selección académico-financiera que opera en las universidades más prestigiosas y otros. Ver el artículo completo a continuación.

POINT OF VIEW
Will Higher Education Be the Next Bubble to Burst?
By JOSEPH MARR CRONIN and HOWARD E. HORTON
The Chronicle of Higher Education, May 22, 2009

The public has become all too aware of the term "bubble" to describe an asset that is irrationally and artificially overvalued and cannot be sustained. The dot-com bubble burst by 2000. More recently the overextended housing market collapsed, helping to trigger a credit meltdown. The stock market has declined more than 30 percent in the past year, as companies once considered flagship investments have withered in value.

Is it possible that higher education might be the next bubble to burst? Some early warnings suggest that it could be.

With tuitions, fees, and room and board at dozens of colleges now reaching $50,000 a year, the ability to sustain private higher education for all but the very well-heeled is questionable. According to the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, over the past 25 years, average college tuition and fees have risen by 440 percent — more than four times the rate of inflation and almost twice the rate of medical care. Patrick M. Callan, the center's president, has warned that low-income students will find college unaffordable.

Meanwhile, the middle class, which has paid for higher education in the past mainly by taking out loans, may now be precluded from doing so as the private student-loan market has all but dried up. In addition, endowment cushions that allowed colleges to engage in steep tuition discounting are gone. Declines in housing valuations are making it difficult for families to rely on home-equity loans for college financing. Even when the equity is there, parents are reluctant to further leverage themselves into a future where job security is uncertain.

Consumers who have questioned whether it is worth spending $1,000 a square foot for a home are now asking whether it is worth spending $1,000 a week to send their kids to college. There is a growing sense among the public that higher education might be overpriced and under-delivering.

In such a climate, it is not surprising that applications to some community colleges and other public institutions have risen by as much as 40 percent. Those institutions, particularly community colleges, will become a more-attractive option for a larger swath of the collegebound. Taking the first two years of college while living at home has been an attractive option since the 1920s, but it is now poised to grow significantly.

With a drift toward higher enrollments in public institutions, all but the most competitive highly endowed private colleges are beginning to wonder if their enrollments may start to evaporate. In an effort to secure students, some institutions, like Merrimack College near Boston, are freezing their tuition for the first time in decades.

Could it get worse for colleges in the coming years? The numbers of college-aged students in the "baby-boom echo," which crested with this year's high-school senior class, will decline over the next decade. Certain Great Plains and Northeastern states may lose 10 percent of the 12th-graders eligible for college. Vermont is expected to lose 20 percent by 2020.

In the meantime, online, nontraditional institutions are becoming increasingly successful at challenging high-priced private colleges and those public universities that charge $25,000 or more per year. The best known is the for-profit University of Phoenix, which now teaches courses to more than 300,000 students a year — including traditional-age college students — half of them online. But other competitors are emerging. In collaboration with an organization called Higher Ed Holdings--which is affiliated with Whitney International University, owner of New England College of Business and Finance, where one of us is president and the other a trustee--some state universities have begun taking back market share by attracting thousands of students to online programs at reduced tuition rates. One such institution is Lamar University, in Texas, which has seen its enrollment mushroom since working with Higher Ed Holdings to increase access to some of its programs.

Moreover, increases in federal financial aid and state scholarships have been unable to keep up with the incessant annual increases in tuition at traditional four-year colleges. For example, Congress has raised the Pell Grant limits from $4,731 to $5,350 a year by scrubbing the federal loan programs of bank subsidies thought to be excessive. But $5,350 pays for only about four to six weeks at a high-priced private college.

A few prominent universities, including Harvard and Princeton, have made commitments to reduce or eliminate loans for those students from families earning less than $75,000 or even $100,000 a year. But the hundreds of less-endowed colleges cannot reduce the price of education in that fashion. It is those colleges that are most at risk.

What can they do to keep the bubble from bursting? They can look for more efficiency and other sources of tuition.

Two former college presidents, Charles Karelis of Colgate University and Stephen J. Trachtenberg of George Washington University, recently argued for the year-round university, noting that the two-semester format now in vogue places students in classrooms barely 60 percent of the year, or 30 weeks out of 52. They propose a 15-percent increase in productivity without adding buildings if students agree to study one summer and spend one semester abroad or in another site, like Washington or New York. Such a model may command attention if more education is offered without more tuition.

Brigham Young University-Idaho charges only $3,000 in tuition a year, and $6,000 for room and board. Classes are held for three semesters, each 14 weeks, for 42 weeks a year. Faculty members teach three full semesters, which has helped to increase capacity from 25,000 students over two semesters to close to 38,000 over three, with everyone taking one month (August) off. The president, Kim B. Clark, is a former dean of the Harvard Business School and an authority on using technology to achieve efficiencies. By 2012 the university also plans to increase its online offerings to 20 percent of all courses, with 120 online courses that students can take to enrich or accelerate degree completion.

Colleges can also make productivity gains by using technology and re-engineering courses. For the past 10 years, the National Center for Academic Transformation, supported by the Pew Charitable Trusts, has helped major universities use technology to cut instructional costs by an average of 40 percent while reducing the number of large course sections, graduate teaching assistants, and faculty time on correcting quizzes. Grades have increased, and fewer students have dropped out. Meanwhile, students have a choice of learning styles and ways to get help online from either fellow students or faculty members. That "transformation" requires a commitment to break away from the medieval guild tradition of one faculty member controlling all forms of communication, and to give serious attention to helping students think and solve problems in new formats.

The economist Richard Vedder of Ohio University, a member of the federal Spellings Commission, offers more radical solutions. He urges that university presidents' salaries include incentives to contain and reduce costs, to make "affordability" a goal. In addition, he proposes that state policy makers conduct cost-benefit studies to see what the universities that receive state support are actually accomplishing.

Fortunately, some other forces are at work that might help save higher education. The federal government recently raised significantly the amount of money that returning veterans might claim to pursue higher-education degrees, so it reaches at least the level of tuition and fees at many public universities.

In addition, the rest of the world respects American higher education, and whether studying at a college here or an American-based one abroad, the families of international students usually pay in full. The number of international students could rise from 600,000 to a million a year if visa reviews are expedited; the crisis of September 11, 2001, temporarily reduced the upward trajectory of overseas enrollments in American colleges. Accrediting agencies could also develop standards to expedite the exporting of American education into the international market.

But colleges cannot, and should not, rely on those trends. Although questions about the mounting prices of colleges have been raised for more than 30 years and just a few private colleges have closed, the stakes and volume of the warnings are mounting. Only during a critical moment in economic history can one warn of bubbles and suggest that the day of reckoning for higher education is, in fact, drawing near.

Joseph Marr Cronin is the former Massachusetts secretary of educational affairs, and Howard E. Horton is the president of New England College of Business and Finance.

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Más sobre las dificultades que enfrentan las editiorales universitarias

Hace unos días comentábamos sobre las editoriales universitarias entre dos fuegos: ¿cambiar o morir?.

A continuación una serie de tres recientes artículos aparecidos en publicaciones especializadas que dan cuenta de las dificultades de diverso orden que deben sortear (o ante las cuales terminarán sucumbiendo) las casas editoras académicas:

-- Books Aren't Everything , Thomas Bacher, director of the University of Akron Press,
Inside Higher Ed, June 30, 2009

-- A Manifesto for Scholarly Publishing, By PETER J. DOUGHERTY, Director Princeton University Press, The Chronicle of Higher Education, June 12, 2009

-- The Future of Scholarly Publishing, The Chronicle of Higher Educayion, June 12, 2009, con la participación de un grupo seleccionado de directivos de algunas de las principales editoriales universuitarias de los EE.UU:

Douglas Armato, director, University of Minnesota Press; Joan Catapano, associate director and editor in chief, University of Illinois Press; Patricia Fidler, publisher (art and architectural history), Yale University Press; Wendy Lochner, senior executive editor (religion, philosophy, and animal studies), Columbia University Press; Charles T. Myers, executive editor and group publisher (social sciences), Princeton University Press; Niko Pfund, trade and academic publisher, Oxford University Press; Leila Salisbury, director, University Press of Mississippi; Doug Sery, editor (new media, game studies, and design), MIT Press; Alan G. Thomas, editorial director (humanities and sciences), University of Chicago Press; Lindsay Waters, executive editor (humanities), Harvard University Press; Eric Zinner, editor in chief, New York University Press

Ver artículo completo "Más sobre las dificultades que enfrentan las editiorales universitarias"

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Política de educación superior y CRUCH

La política de educación superior continua debatiéndose en clave CRUCH, lo cual revela, una vez más, los límites político-culturales e institucionales de la discusión. A fin de cuentas, ésta sigue entrampada en el estrecho círculo de intereses de las 25 universidades que forman parte del Consejo de Rectores de las Universidades Chilenas (CRUCH).

Ver más abajo las siguientes recientes intervenciones.

-- Política de educación superior, El Mercurio, opinión editorial, 29 junio 2009

-- Las universidades del Estado, Eduardo Dockendorff , Director del Instituto de Asuntos Públicos , Universidad de Chile, El Mercurio, columna de opinión, 29 junio 2009

-- Consejo de Rectores, Carta, El Mercurio, 27 junio 2009, Víctor Pérez Vera, Vicepresidente Ejecutivo del Consejo de Rectores

-- Polémica en Consejo de Rectores por diferencias en criterio de financiamiento, Radio Universidad de Chile, 26 junio 2009

-- Juan Manuel Zolezzi, presidente del Consorcio de Universidades Estatales: "Con esta reunión el CRUCH se ha fortalecido", Universia, 26 junio 2009

-- El oficio de columnista, Leonidas Montes, La Segunda, columna de opinión, 25 de Junio de 2009

-- Jiménez: "Lamento que haya un quiebre" en el Consejo de Rectores. Ministra de Educación aseguró que mientras una ley no diga lo contrario seguirán "entendiéndose" con dicha institucionalidad, La Tercera, 25 junio 2009

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Sobre las virtudes de la enseñanza on line

El Departamento de Educación de los EE.UU. ha dado a conocer un informe que --a partir de un meta-análisis de cerca de mil estudios empíricos-- concluye que los alumnos de cursos superiores (enseñanza terciaria) on line muestran ventajas de aprendizaje respecto de aquellos que se limitan al aprendizaje cara a cara dentro de una sala de clase. Y que la mayor ventaja la pbtienen aquellos alumnos que participan en experiencias de educación mixta (blended instruction) que combinan interacciones educativas cara a cara con interaccuiones a distancia usando las tecnologías digitales.

Bajar el Informe aquí 820 KB

Comunicado oficial del Departamento de Educación del Gobierno de los EE.UU.

U.S. Department of Education Study Finds that Good Teaching can be Enhanced with New Technology
Analysis of Controlled Studies Shows Online Learning Enhances Classroom Instruction

Providing further evidence of the tremendous opportunity to use technology to improve teaching and learning, the U.S. Department of Education today released an analysis of controlled studies comparing online and face-to-face instruction.

A systematic search of the research literature from 1996 through July 2008 identified over 1,000 empirical studies of online learning. Of these, 46 met the high bar for quality that was required for the studies to be included in the analysis. The meta analysis showed that “blended” instruction – combining elements of online and face-to-face instruction – had a larger advantage relative to purely face to face instruction or instruction conducted wholly online. The analysis also showed that the instruction conducted wholly on line was more effective in improving student achievement than the purely face to face instruction. In addition, the report noted that the blended conditions often included additional learning time and instructional elements not received by students in control conditions.

“This new report reinforces that effective teachers need to incorporate digital content into everyday classes and consider open-source learning management systems, which have proven cost effective in school districts and colleges nationwide,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. “We must take advantage of this historic opportunity to use American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds to bring broadband access and online learning to more communities.

“To avoid being caught short when stimulus money runs out, school officials should use the short-term federal funding to make immediate upgrades to technology to enhance classroom instruction and to improve the tracking of student data,” Duncan added. “Technology presents a huge opportunity that can be leveraged in rural communities and inner-city urban settings, particularly in subjects where there is a shortage of highly qualified teachers. At the same time, good teachers can utilize new technology to accelerate learning and provide extended learning opportunities for students.”

Few rigorous research studies have been published on the effectiveness of online learning for K-12 students. The systematic search found just five experimental or controlled quasi-experimental studies comparing the learning effects of online versus face-to-face instruction for K-12 students. For this reason, caution is required in generalizing the study’s findings to the K-12 population because the results are for the most part based on studies in other settings, such as in medical, career, military training, and higher education.

“Studies of earlier generations of distance and online learning courses have concluded that they are usually as effective as classroom-based instruction,” said Marshall “Mike” Smith, a Senior Counselor to the secretary. “The studies of more recent online instruction included in this meta-analysis found that, on average, online learning, at the post-secondary level, is not just as good as but more effective than conventional face-to-face instruction..”

The study was conducted by the Center for Technology and Learning, SRI International under contract to the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Policy and Program Studies Service, which commissioned the study.

Ver más abajo un comentario de Inside Higher Ed

Síntesis de conclusiones del Informe

Key Findings
The main finding from the literature review was that

• Few rigorous research studies of the effectiveness of online learning for K–12 students have been published. A systematic search of the research literature from 1994 through 2006 found no experimental or controlled quasi-experimental studies comparing the learning effects of online versus face-to-face instruction for K–12 students that provide sufficient data to compute an effect size. A subsequent search that expanded the time frame through July 2008 identified just five published studies meeting meta-analysis criteria.
The meta-analysis of 51 study effects, 44 of which were drawn from research with older learners, found that2

• Students who took all or part of their class online performed better, on average, than those taking the same course through traditional face-to-face instruction. Learning outcomes for students who engaged in online learning exceeded those of students receiving face-to-face instruction, with an average effect size of +0.24 favoring online conditions.3 The mean difference between online and face-to-face conditions across the 51 contrasts is statistically significant at the p < .01 level.4 Interpretations of this result, however, should take into consideration the fact that online and face-to-face conditions generally differed on multiple dimensions, including the amount of time that learners spent on task. The advantages observed for online learning conditions therefore may be the product of aspects of those treatment conditions other than the instructional delivery medium per se.

• Instruction combining online and face-to-face elements had a larger advantage relative to purely face-to-face instruction than did purely online instruction. The mean effect size in studies comparing blended with face-to-face instruction was +0.35, p < .001. This effect size is larger than that for studies comparing purely online and purely face-to-face conditions, which had an average effect size of +0.14, p < .05. An important issue to keep in mind in reviewing these findings is that many studies did not attempt to equate (a) all the curriculum materials, (b) aspects of pedagogy and (c) learning time in the treatment and control conditions. Indeed, some authors asserted that it would be impossible to have done so. Hence, the observed advantage for online learning in general, and blended learning conditions in particular, is not necessarily rooted in the media used per se and may reflect differences in content, pedagogy and learning time.

• Studies in which learners in the online condition spent more time on task than students in the face-to-face condition found a greater benefit for online learning.5 The mean effect size for studies with more time spent by online learners was +0.46 compared with +0.19 for studies in which the learners in the face-to-face condition spent as much time or more on task (Q = 3.88, p < .05).6

• Most of the variations in the way in which different studies implemented online learning did not affect student learning outcomes significantly. Analysts examined 13 online learning practices as potential sources of variation in the effectiveness of online learning compared with face-to-face instruction. Of those variables, (a) the use of a blended rather than a purely online approach and (b) the expansion of time on task for online learners were the only statistically significant influences on effectiveness. The other 11 online learning practice variables that were analyzed did not affect student learning significantly. However, the relatively small number of studies contrasting learning outcomes for online and face-to-face instruction that included information about any specific aspect of implementation impeded efforts to identify online instructional practices that affect learning outcomes.

• The effectiveness of online learning approaches appears quite broad across different content and learner types. Online learning appeared to be an effective option for both undergraduates (mean effect of +0.35, p < .001) and for graduate students and professionals (+0.17, p < .05) in a wide range of academic and professional studies. Though positive, the mean effect size is not significant for the seven contrasts involving K–12 students, but the number of K–12 studies is too small to warrant much confidence in the mean effect estimate for this learner group. Three of the K–12 studies had significant effects favoring a blended learning condition, one had a significant negative effect favoring face-to-face instruction, and three contrasts did not attain statistical significance. The test for learner type as a moderator variable was nonsignificant. No significant differences in effectiveness were found that related to the subject of instruction.

• Effect sizes were larger for studies in which the online and face-to-face conditions varied in terms of curriculum materials and aspects of instructional approach in addition to the medium of instruction. Analysts examined the characteristics of the studies in the meta-analysis to ascertain whether features of the studies’ methodologies could account for obtained effects. Six methodological variables were tested as potential moderators: (a) sample size, (b) type of knowledge tested, (c) strength of study design, (d) unit of assignment to condition, (e) instructor equivalence across conditions, and (f) equivalence of curriculum and instructional approach across conditions. Only equivalence of curriculum and instruction emerged as a significant moderator variable (Q = 5.40, p < .05). Studies in which analysts judged the curriculum and instruction to be identical or almost identical in online and face-to-face conditions had smaller effects than those studies where the two conditions varied in terms of multiple aspects of instruction (+0.20 compared with +0.42, respectively). Instruction could differ in terms of the way activities were organized (for example as group work in one condition and independent work in another) or in the inclusion of instructional resources (such as a simulation or instructor lectures) in one condition but not the other.

The narrative review of experimental and quasi-experimental studies contrasting different online learning practices found that the majority of available studies suggest the following:

• Blended and purely online learning conditions implemented within a single study generally result in similar student learning outcomes. When a study contrasts blended and purely online conditions, student learning is usually comparable across the two conditions.

• Elements such as video or online quizzes do not appear to influence the amount that students learn in online classes. The research does not support the use of some frequently recommended online learning practices. Inclusion of more media in an online application does not appear to enhance learning. The practice of providing online quizzes does not seem to be more effective than other tactics such as assigning homework.

• Online learning can be enhanced by giving learners control of their interactions with media and prompting learner reflection. Studies indicate that manipulations that trigger learner activity or learner reflection and self-monitoring of understanding are effective when students pursue online learning as individuals.

• Providing guidance for learning for groups of students appears less successful than does using such mechanisms with individual learners. When groups of students are learning together online, support mechanisms such as guiding questions generally influence the way students interact, but not the amount they learn.

Conclusions

In recent experimental and quasi-experimental studies contrasting blends of online and face-to-face instruction with conventional face-to-face classes, blended instruction has been more effective, providing a rationale for the effort required to design and implement blended approaches. Even when used by itself, online learning appears to offer a modest advantage over conventional classroom instruction.

However, several caveats are in order: Despite what appears to be strong support for online learning applications, the studies in this meta-analysis do not demonstrate that online learning is superior as a medium, In many of the studies showing an advantage for online learning, the online and classroom conditions differed in terms of time spent, curriculum and pedagogy. It was the combination of elements in the treatment conditions (which was likely to have included additional learning time and materials as well as additional opportunities for collaboration) that produced the observed learning advantages. At the same time, one should note that online learning is much more conducive to the expansion of learning time than is face-to-face instruction.

In addition, although the types of research designs used by the studies in the meta-analysis were strong (i.e., experimental or controlled quasi-experimental), many of the studies suffered from weaknesses such as small sample sizes; failure to report retention rates for students in the conditions being contrasted; and, in many cases, potential bias stemming from the authors’ dual roles as experimenters and instructors.

Finally, the great majority of estimated effect sizes in the meta-analysis are for undergraduate and older students, not elementary or secondary learners. Although this meta-analysis did not find a significant effect by learner type, when learners’ age groups are considered separately, the mean effect size is significantly positive for undergraduate and other older learners but not for K–12 students.

Another consideration is that various online learning implementation practices may have differing effectiveness for K–12 learners than they do for older students. It is certainly possible that younger students could benefit more from a different degree of teacher or computer-based guidance than would college students and older learners. Without new random assignment or controlled quasi-experimental studies of the effects of online learning options for K–12 students, policy-makers will lack scientific evidence of the effectiveness of these emerging alternatives to face-to-face instruction.

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Consejo de Rectores (CRUCH): agudización de las polémicas

Desde nuestra última nota relativa al lento naufragio del CRUCH, se suceden los desencuentros y las cruzadas declaraciones polémicas entre los rectores universitarios que integran este organismo. A continuación una selección de dim es y diretes [ver textos completos más abajo].

-- Cinco planteles no participarían del encuentro de hoy en Antofagasta: La marginación de "ues" privadas tensiona cita del Consejo de Rectores, El Mercurio, 25 junio 2009

-- Plantean fin del Consejo de Rectores, Chile.com, 25 junio 2009

-- Arrate plantea un nuevo concepto de universidad pública, Radio Universidad de Chile, 25 junio 2009

-- "Llegó el momento de impulsar la creación de un referente que aglutine a todas las Universidades" , Universia, 24 junio 2009

-- Se agudizan diferencias entre planteles estatales y privados: Universidades de red "Cruz del Sur" no concurrirán a la reunión de Consejo de Rectores, El Mercurio, 24 junio 2009

-- USM reconoce quiebre al interior del Consejo de Rectores, El Mercurio de Valparaiso, 23 junio 2009

Ver artículo completo "Consejo de Rectores (CRUCH): agudización de las polémicas"

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Expansiva UDP y el CPCE: Lanzan los primeros estudios que analizan el impacto de la Ley SEP

“El impacto de la Subvención escolar preferencial” fue el nombre del seminario con el que se lanzaron los dos primeros números de la serie en foco educación, a través de la cual Expansiva UDP y el Centro de Políticas Comparadas de Educación de la UDP (CPCE) publicarán los resultados de sus investigaciones conjuntas. En esta oportunidad se dieron a conocer dos estudios orientados a analizar el impacto de la Subvención Escolar Preferencial (SEP) desde la mirada de los sostenedores y del incremento del aprendizaje en las salas de clase (ver más sobre el seminario).

Ambos estudios arrojaron interesantes resultados. Algunos de ellos son: que en Chile existen aún cerca de 50.000 alumnos prioritarios que no poseen los beneficios que otorga la subvención; que mayoritariamente adhieren a ella los colegios del sector municipal; que los colegios católicos son los que menos probabilidades tienen de participar de la SEP, que la tarea pendiente de las políticas educacionales es la capacidad de gestión y la centralización de la asistencia técnica; y que pese a que la ley crea las Agencias Técnicas Educativas, la responsabilidad por mejorar la calidad de la enseñanza sigue estando en su mayor parte sobre los docentes y establecimientos.

Cabe destacar que la Ley de Subvención Escolar Preferencial (SEP), promulgada e implementada en enero 2008, tiene entre sus principales objetivos promover la equidad de la educación chilena, ofreciendo una subvención especial a los estudiantes de escasos recursos e incrementando entre un 50 y un 60% la subvención por alumno. Esta ley posee tres particularidades. La primera es que los colegios deciden voluntariamente si participan o no de la subvención; la segunda apunta a que entrega recursos, pero exige resultados; y la tercera es que clasifica a las escuelas en Autónomas, Emergentes y En recuperación. Cada uno de estos aspectos tiene implicancias directas en su implementación y en las posibilidades de que esta política pública se convierta en un aporte a la educación en Chile.

Te invitamos a descargar ambas investigaciones (ambas en versión PDF):

en foco educación N°1: La toma de decisiones de un sostenedor: Análisis a partir de la Ley SEP. Por Gregory Elacqua, Úrsula Mosqueira y Humberto Santos; del Centro de Políticas Comparadas de Educación de la UDP.

en foco educación N°2: ¿Cómo el programa de mejoramiento de la ley SEP puede ayudar a perfeccionar los aprendizajes? Por Ernesto Treviño, Miguel Órdenes y Karina Treviño, de la Facultad de Educación de la UDP.

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Ranking mundial de producción e impacto en las ciencias sociales

De acuerdo con el ranking preparado por el Times Higher Education, EE.UU., China y el Reino Unido presiden la lista de los países con mayor volumen de publicaciones académicas en en el campo de las ciencias sociales.

Pero mientras Estados Unidos y el Reino Unido tienen además un alto impacto medida por las citas a dichos artículos, China tiene un impacto menor en relación a su volumen de producción.

Entre los 20 primeros países por producción sólo aparece Brasil de la región latinoamericana, ocupando el lugar 15.

El ranking ha sido elaborado sobre la base de Thomson Reuters, National Science Indicators.

Top 20 nations in output and world share for the sciences and social sciences
The Times Higher Education, 25 June 2009

Data provided by Thomson Reuters National Science Indicators (ESI fields) database, 1981-2008 (table based on data from 2004-08 only)

Nation / No of papers 2004-08 / % world output / Relative impact as % +/- world average
1 United States 1,513,797 31.11 +46
2 China 413,326 8.49 –38
3 United Kingdom 401,649 8.25 +36
4 Germany 386,903 7.95 +29
5 Japan 383,345 7.88 –2
6 France 276,104 5.67 +17
7 Canada 226,232 4.65 +23
8 Italy 214,709 4.41 +15
9 Spain 167,402 3.44 +3
10 Australia 147,081 3.02 +13
11 India 143,186 2.94 –44
12 South Korea 141,317 2.90 –30
13 Russia 125,778 2.58 –50
14 The Netherlands 123,456 2.54 +49
15 Brazil 101,263 2.08 –37
16 Switzerland 90,167 1.85 +63
17 Taiwan 89,268 1.83 –33
18 Sweden 87,466 1.80 +38
19 Turkey 78,809 1.62 –51
20 Poland 75,631 1.55 –30

The data above were extracted from the National Science Indicators database of Thomson Reuters. This database surveys only journal articles (original research reports and review articles) indexed by Thomson Reuters. Both articles tabulated and citation counts to those articles are for the period indicated.

Here, the ranking is by output, which is also expressed as world share in percentage terms. The number of indexed original research reports and review articles, for 2004-08, amounted to 4,865,868 items. For articles with multiple authors from different nations, each nation receives full, not fractional, publication credit. Noteworthy is China’s ranking in second place, resulting from a steep increase in output over the past decade.

Of interest, too, is the presence of Turkey and Poland at 19th and 20th positions; both now surpass in output Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, and Israel, to name a few.

The column at the far right provides a rough indicator of relative impact, meaning citations per paper for the nation in the sciences and social sciences as compared with the world average. Readers should view these figures, which are expressed as a percentage above or below the world average, with caution because individual nations show greater concentration of output in some fields than in others, and different fields, as shown in this space previously, exhibit the very different rates of citations per paper. To the degree a nation skews its output to fields with high rates of citation, such as molecular biology, it would score a higher number in this analysis. Also, if a nation focused its output in lower impact fields, its score would be dampened. On the other hand, because the numbers dealt with here are large and all 20 nations publish across all fields in the sciences and social sciences, there seemed some insight to be gained.

The US certainly stands out in relative impact, with a score 46 per cent higher than the world average. But that is not the highest among the 20: Switzerland and the Netherlands tally higher scores, at 63 per cent and 49 per cent more than the world average, respectively. Sweden, the UK and Germany follow according to this measure, at fourth, fifth and sixth places. Although China now ranks second in output, its relative citation score stands at 38 per cent below the world average. China’s output does, in fact, tilt more towards the physical sciences than the biological sciences, so this measure may be somewhat depressed. Still, China’s score, about that of Brazil, is higher than those of India, Russia and Turkey.

For more information on Thomson Reuters National Science Indicators database, see http://www.in-cites.com/rsg/nsi/index.html

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Acuerdo internacional para combatir a las "fábricas de certificados"

UNESCO y el Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) de los EE.UU. han suscrito la declaración Toward Effective Practice: Discouraging Degree Mills in Higher Education, que busca contrarrestar la difusión de instituciones no acreditadas de educación superior que, en el mercdo internacional y en los mercados locales, operan como fabricantes de (falsos) certificados de grado.

Ver la Declaración aquí 275 KB

El Chronicle of Higher Education comenta hoy esta delcración en los siguientes términos.

June 24, 2009
Accreditation Group and Unesco Team Up to Take On Diploma Mills

The Council for Higher Education Accreditation and the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization put out a joint statement today with suggestions for combating diploma mills around the world.

The statement is short on details, instead outlining a set of general goals. For instance, it says that higher-education leaders should confirm that providers are “in good standing with recognized accreditation and quality-assurance bodies” in other countries. But often the rub is knowing which bodies are recognized and which are bogus.

It also suggests developing “an international network for information and alerts about degree-mill activity.” But how such a network would work — and who might run it — is left to the imagination.

The problem of international diploma mills is a thorny one. Because what amounts to accreditation varies from country to country, figuring out whether a foreign institution is legitimate often isn’t a simple matter, and shutting down illegitimate operators can be next to impossible.

Even in the United States, diploma mills have moved from state to state to avoid the authorities. In recent years, though, some states have gotten tougher on diploma-mill operators. Mississippi — once known as a haven for unaccredited colleges — passed a law in 2006 that cracked down on diploma mills, and it seems to be working.

Perhaps the best list of unaccredited colleges is maintained by Oregon’s Office of Degree Authorization. —Thomas Bartlett

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Más sobre la ley brasileña de cuotas estudiantiles

En el último número del Boletín International Higher Education del Center for International Higher Education (CIHE) del Boston College, se publica un nuevo artículo de Simón Schwartzman sobre la ley de cuotas para el ingreso a la educación superior del Brasil. A continuación el texto.

Student Quotas in Brazil: The Policy Debate
Simon Schwartzman

The Brazilian Congress is discussing a bill requiring federal higher education institutions to introduce a 50 percent quota for poor, nonwhite applicants who are public-school graduates. The bill addresses that these students lack the opportunity to attend the best secondary schools, which are mostly private, and are in disadvantage regarding the entrance examinations of the best public universities in the country. This bill does not represent the first project for social inclusion in higher education in Brazil. From some years now, private higher education institutions can obtain a tax relief if they admit a certain number of students who pay no tuition or pay half the tuition rate. Many public universities have also created their own affirmative programs.

In 2009, there are about 5.8 million students in higher education in Brazil, 75 percent in private institutions. These student numbers form about 13 percent of the 18–24 age group—the net enrollment rate—(data provided by the National Household Survey of 2007). One of the main reasons for the low net enrollment is that 40 percent of the people in that age bracket have not completed secondary education. The quality of secondary schools, particularly in the public sector, is very low, and many applicants cannot pass the entrance examinations for the programs of their choice. About half the students in higher education are older and study in the evening.

Public higher education is free, and most of the best and more prestigious programs and institutions are public. The cost per student in federal higher education institutions equals around US$10,000 a year, by far the highest in Latin America. Most graduate education and research take place in a number of (but not only) public universities. Competition to enter the prestigious careers of medicine, dentistry, engineering, and law in these institutions can be fierce, with dozens of applicants per place, selected through written examinations. Expensive private secondary schools and cramming preuniversity courses prepare the students who can pay for these exams. Thus, only students from richer, better-educated families can likely get the necessary training and eventually enter these careers. For students from other social backgrounds, the alternative options are the less-competitive careers in public universities—teaching, social work, nursing, and others—or the private sector, which provides evening, nondemanding programs in administration, pedagogy, and other “soft” fields with affordable tuition fees.

Arguments for Quotas
This situation, however, is under change, with strong pressures and incentives from governments and social movements for public universities to expand and admit more students and a new trend for the creation of elite private institutions, particularly in fields such as economics, business administration, and law. Today, 35 percent of the students in public institutions have family incomes under 1.5 minimum wages (about US$300), compared with 25 percent in private institutions and 47 percent for the population as a whole. The national minimum wage (about US$200 per month) is established each year by the federal government and is mandatory for all labor contracts. Most secondary school students in Brazil (83%) attend public institutions. In higher education, however, 60 percent of the students come from private schools. These figures show that many students who would benefit from this bill are already in higher education, and many more are likely to be admitted as the system expands.

The most controversial aspect of the bill, however, is the racial component, because it is entangled with a prolonged and sometimes bitter debate about racial identity and prejudice in Brazil. The Brazilian statistical office has traditionally asked persons to classify themselves in terms of their color (white, black, yellow, and pardo—meaning to have dark skin, between white and black), with the “yellow” category being now divided into indigenous and Oriental. In the 2007 household survey, 49.4 percent considered themselves white, 42.3 percent pardos, 7.4 percent black, 0.5 percent yellow, and 0.3 percent of indigenous origin.

Given the high historical levels of miscegenation in the country, the boundaries between these categories are very fuzzy, and many whites would probably be classified as black in countries with more well-defined ethnic boundaries, such as the United States or South Africa. In spite of that, statistical analyses show consistently that pardos and blacks are economically more impaired than whites, and that blacks are worse off than pardos in terms of educational attainment. Social and racial prejudice in Brazil, however, is combined with high levels of intermarriage and conviviality between persons of various racial appearances. Education and the quality of jobs, and not race differences, explain the main social and economic differences in the country.

Supporters of race-based affirmative action in Brazil tend to lump the pardo and black categories in one group, which would include about half of the Brazilian population. As access to education has increased, the proportion of whites and nonwhites in basic and secondary education in Brazil is now similar to that in the population as a whole. In higher education, the proportion of nonwhites has grown from 22 percent in 2001 to 32 percent in 2007. In public institutions, the proportion is 38 percent and 30 percent in the private sector.

The various quota bills under discussion require that 50 percent of places in programs at public higher education institutions should be filled in by underprivileged students. None of the suggested policies, however, take into account most of these students’ inadequate academic requirements to complete the more demanding programs. If this legislation were enacted, it is likely that a large number of students would drop out, or public institutions may lower their standards, increasing the exodus of the richer and better-educated students to the private sector.

The quota bill would bring to public institutions a few hundred thousand students from a lower social background, displacing others who may likely also stand at the bottom of the entrance examination rankings. Social inequities within the higher education system would not change much, but high-quality programs and institutions can be affected by the forced admission of students unable to keep up with their standards.

Ongoing Problems
To make higher education in Brazil more equitable requires improving the quality and reach of secondary education, which would depend, in turn, on improving the equally precarious system of basic education. In the meantime, the controversies surrounding the quota bill have led to the neglect of the main issues concerning higher education in Brazil. Creating an effective differentiated system would provide alternatives for students with dissimilar backgrounds and needs. The system must protect high-quality programs from pressures to lower standards. Funding will be required for deserving students who need financial support, while tuition should be charged from those who can pay at public universities. A range of policies are necessary for public and private institutions to improve their quality and to use more effectively the public resources they receive.

Verl el Boletín completo aquí 240 KB

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El lento naufragio del CRUCH

Se mantiene la polémica en torno al Consejo de Rectores de las Universidades Chilenas (CRUCH) causada por el desencuentro entre sus miembros, quienes, a pesar del tono habitualmente aterciopelado de las autoridades académicas, esta vez no han podido ocultar el abismo que se ha abierto entre ellas.

Es posible que en los próximos días se tienda un tupido velo sobre el abismo, como suele hacerse en nuestro mundo universitario, pero es evidente que estamos asistiendo al lento y poco glorioso fianl del CRUCH.

-- Carta del rector de la UDEC, Sergio Lavanchy, a El Mercurio, 22 junio 2009
-- La polémica votación por Víctor Pérez que provocó la crisis en el Consejo de Rectores, reportaje, El Mercurio, 21 junio 2009
-- Conflicto en el Consejo de Rectores, El Mercurio, opinión editorial, 20 junio 2009
-- Carta del rector de la UCH Víctor Pérez, a El Mercurio, 20m junio 2009
-- Educación superior: Cruz del Sur pide más AFI y nuevo Consejo de Rectores, crónica, El Mercurio, 15 junio 2009

Ver artículo completo "El lento naufragio del CRUCH"

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Un desafío para los charter schools en los EE.UU.: una efectiva autorregulación de calidad

Llamado del Ministro de Educación del Presidente Obama, Arne Duncan, a los colegios privados subvencionados de los EE.UU., para eliminar de entre ellos a los colegios de baja calidad que dañan la reputación de este sector.

Education Chief to Warn Advocates That Inferior Charter Schools Harm the Effort
By SAM DILLON
The New York Times, June 22, 2009

The Obama administration has made opening more charter schools a big part of its plans for improving the nation’s education system, but Education Secretary Arne Duncan will warn advocates of the schools on Monday that low-quality institutions are giving their movement a black eye.

“The charter movement is putting itself at risk by allowing too many second-rate and third-rate schools to exist,” Mr. Duncan says in prepared remarks that he is scheduled to deliver in Washington at the annual gathering of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools.

In an interview, Mr. Duncan said he would use the address to praise innovations made by high-quality charter schools, urge charter leaders to become more active in weeding out bad apples in their movement and invite the leaders to help out in the administration’s broad effort to remake several thousand of the nation’s worst public schools.

Since 1991, when educators founded the first charter school in Minnesota, 4,600 have opened; they now educate some 1.4 million of the nation’s 50 million public school students, according to Education Department figures. The schools are financed with taxpayer money but operate free of many curricular requirements and other regulations that apply to traditional public schools.

Mr. Duncan’s speech will come at a pivotal moment for the charter school movement. The Obama administration has been working to persuade state legislatures to lift caps on the number of charter schools.

At the same time, the movement is smarting from the release last week of a report by Stanford University researchers that found that although some charter schools were doing an excellent job, many students in charter schools were not faring as well as students in traditional public schools.

“The charter movement is one of the most profound changes in American education, bringing tremendous new options to underserved communities,” Mr. Duncan is to say in the speech, the text of which was provided to The New York Times by his advisers.

But, the speech says, states should scrutinize plans for new charter schools to allow only high-quality ones to open. In exchange for the autonomy that states extend to charter schools, states should demand “absolute, unequivocal accountability,” the speech says, and close charter schools that fail to lift student achievement.

Mr. Duncan’s speech calls the Stanford report — which singles out Arizona, Florida, Minnesota, New Mexico, Ohio and Texas as states that have done little to hold poorly run charter schools accountable — “a wake-up call.”

“Charter authorizers need to do a better job of holding schools accountable,” the speech says. (Mr. Duncan is to note exceptions like the California Charter Schools Association, which last week announced a plan to establish and enforce academic performance standards for charter schools.)

The Stanford study, by the Center for Research on Education Outcomes, used student achievement data from 15 states and the District of Columbia to gauge whether students who attended charter schools had fared better than they would if they had attended a traditional public school.

“The study reveals that a decent fraction of charter schools, 17 percent, provide superior education opportunities for their students,” the report says. “Nearly half of the charter schools nationwide have results that are no different from the local public school options, and over a third, 37 percent, deliver learning results that are significantly worse than their students would have realized had they remained in traditional public schools.”

Reports on charter schools often arouse impassioned debates, because charter schools in some cities have drawn millions of dollars in taxpayer money away from traditional public schools, and because many operate with nonunion teachers. The Stanford study was no exception; some charter school advocates asserted that it was slanted to favor traditional public schools.

Nelson Smith, president of the charter school alliance, said that the authors of the Stanford study could have phrased their findings more positively, with no loss of accuracy, but that he considered the center a “very credible outfit” and its director, Margaret Raymond, “an esteemed researcher.”

Mr. Smith praised the administration’s efforts to increase financing for charter school startups.

“To a remarkable extent, they are walking the walk,” he said. “They’ve been very clear on the need to stimulate the growth of quality charters.”

Mr. Duncan has been working to build a national effort to restructure 5,000 chronically failing public schools, which turn out middle school students who cannot read and most of the nation’s high school dropouts. In his speech, he will urge states, school districts, nonprofit groups, teachers’ unions and charter organizations “to get in the business of turning around our lowest-performing schools.”

“Over the coming years,” the speech says, “America needs to find 5,000 high-energy, hero principals to take over these struggling schools, and a quarter of a million great teachers who are willing to do the toughest work in public education.”

Mr. Smith said he believed that some charter school operators would react favorably to Mr. Duncan’s call, but only if they were given flexibility over hiring and firing teachers, structuring student learning time and other issues.

“They have to be able to maintain the integrity of the charter model,” Mr. Smith said.

Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company

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Efectividad docente: revisión de la literatura internacional

Junto con la carta que copio más abajo, PREAL circula un nuevo documento de trabajo sobre efectividad del trabajo docente: una reseña de la literatura internacional y su relevancia para mejorar la educación en América Latina.

Bajar el documento aquí 270 KB

Nos complace compartir con ustedes PREAL Documento No 43, Efectividad del Desempeño Docente. Una reseña de la literatura internacional y su relevancia para mejorar la educación en América Latina elaborado por la experta en educación, Barbara Hunt para el Grupo de Trabajo Profesionalización Docente (GTD) de PREAL. El documento contiene una reseña de la literatura internacional reciente sobre los temas relacionados con la efectividad docente. La primera sección presenta una definición operativa de la “efectividad docente”. Sigue un panorama general de las necesidades educativas, de la situación de los docentes y de su formación en los países latinoamericanos. La tercera sección destaca distintos abordajes para definir y medir la efectividad docente, mientras que la cuarta reseña lo que dice la literatura sobre cómo mejorar la efectividad docente. La quinta sección lleva al contexto latinoamericano los hallazgos de la literatura internacional en estas materias. El documento concluye con una propuesta de definición de efectividad docente.

­Esperamos que ésta publicación les resulte de interés y utilidad. Se puede encontrar el documento en la página Web de PREAL, www.preal.org, también.

We are pleased to share with you PREAL Working Paper No. 43, Teacher Effectiveness: A Review of International Literature and Its Relevance for Improving Education in Latin America (Efectividad del Desempeño Docente. Una reseña de la literatura internacional y su relevancia para mejorar la educación en América Latina). Barbara Hunt authored the publication for PREAL’s Working Group on Teacher Professionalization (GTD). This working paper is based on a review of recent international literature on issues related to teacher effectiveness. The first section offers a working definition of teacher effectiveness. It is followed by a second section on general education needs, the state of the teaching profession, and the status of teacher training in Latin America. The third section presents different approaches to defining and measuring teacher effectiveness, and the fourth reviews findings from literature on how to improve teacher effectiveness. The fifth section applies this information in the Latin American context. The paper concludes with a proposal for defining teacher effectiveness.

We hope that you find this publication both interesting and useful. This document is also available online from the PREAL website, www.preal.org.

Saludos/Regards,

Jeffrey Puryear & Marcela Gajardo
Codirectores/Co-directors, PREAL

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Editoriales universitarias entre dos fuegos: ¿cambiar o morir?

Bajo el provocativo título de "cambiar o morir", Inside Higher Ed publica hoy un interesante reportaje sobre las casas editoriales universitarias, sugiriendo que ellas se encuentran puestas entre dos fuegos: el del acelerado tránsito desde los volúmenes impresos hacia los recuros digitales on line, por una parte y, por la otra, el de la contracción de los presupuestos universitarios y, en especial, de los sellos editores de las universidades de los Estados Unidos. Ya en otra oportunidad nos habíamos referido al incierto destino de las publicaciones académicas.

Change or Die?
Inside Higher Ed, June 22, 2009

PHILADELPHIA -- It can be humbling to lead a university press these days. Sure, the decision to accept or reject a book proposal can determine the outcome of a tenure bid, a creative series can reshape thinking in a discipline, and a press director can see the first drafts of path-breaking ideas.

But to a university budget officer, none of that is terribly impressive. Garrett P. Keily, director of the University of Chicago Press, noted (both jokingly and not) that to his budget office, “the entirety of the University of Chicago Press is summarized as auxiliary revenue,” adding, “that puts you in your place.”

Keily spoke here Saturday at the annual meeting of the Association of American University Presses. The meeting came at a time when at least two university presses are facing threats of closure or budget cuts so severe that they would effectively be unable to function. For many other university presses, the situation isn’t that bad, but just about everyone here was trading stories about cuts in the number of employees, the number of titles published, the number of sales and so forth.

The challenge of changing economic conditions “continues to confront and sometimes confound presses,” said Kathleen Keane, director of the Johns Hopkins University Press and incoming president of the association. “The number of paying customers for many of our printed books and journals is declining,” she said. And the declines are taking place year after year, with no evidence of change in sight, she noted.

In sessions Saturday, some speakers focused on ways for university presses to better position themselves to survive university budget-cutting processes in these bad times. Others, however suggested new business models -- with more of an emphasis on digital and/or free content. These discussions were based on the reality that university presses aren’t just being hurt by the bad economy, but by changes in reader habits. While many here continue to discuss the primacy of the printed book, some see grave danger for university presses holding on to the print model -- with one speaker going so far as to predict a “death spiral” for presses if they don’t move within the next few years to an online, free model.

What the Libraries Want

The press directors received an overview of why they can’t count on book orders anymore from Beth Jacoby, collection development librarian at York College of Pennsylvania, a primarily undergraduate, teaching-oriented institution. She opened by talking about formats of communication that are dead (the 8-track), “on life support” (print newspapers and journals), and those that are thriving (e-journals, e-reference books, databases, etc.)

“Students will use heavily anything that can be accessed by a computer,” she said.

While faculty in some disciplines (primarily in the humanities) are still ordering print monographs, students are so committed to digital resources that they generally don’t use print resources unless forced to do so by a faculty member. Students, she said, “don’t know how to use a print phone book.” Students are so committed to the idea of easy access, she continued, that they tend not to use online resources that have extensive systems to limit use or that ask for a lot of verification.

How do these trends play out? At York, based on student requests for more computers in the library, the college got rid of 85 percent of its print reference materials (while still keeping access to equivalent reference materials in digital form). While the online reference works are used constantly, Jacoby said, hardly anyone uses the remaining print reference works.

Being Understood

If the evolution from print to online poses one set of challenges, the sagging budgets of colleges pose another. University presses’ budgets are generally small line items in large research universities. But when college presidents list the (few) things that are exempt from cuts these days, university presses aren’t on the list. With many press directors feeling that administrators don’t understand their operations, much discussion here was about how to become better known and appreciated.

Gary Dunham, director of the State University of New York Press, prepared some advice for fellow directors (read by a colleague when he had to leave the meeting early). Among his recommendations: “Don’t take relevance for granted. Know your university’s administration as well as you understand your field of acquisitions, become conversant with university’s research interests and find points of intersection.” And in a recommendation that may have been sacrilegious a few years back, but seemed understandable at the meeting: “It’s as important to sell the press as it is to sell the books.”

Along those lines, B. Bryon Price, director of the University of Oklahoma Press, talked about the importance of reaching out to faculty members -- even those whom a press may never publish. For example, he said that Oklahoma holds publishing workshops to explain the process to professors, many of whom don't know how it works. A recent workshop attracted 75 faculty members.

Officials from Pennsylvania State University Press described the benefits of a structure in which their operations are part of the library division, a setup that several other presses also have -- while many others are more autonomous. Patrick H. Alexander, associate director (who is becoming director July 1), said that the impact from being part of a library division comes in part from the different "cultures" of the typical university press and library.

Presses, he said, "look outward" and are "very much concerned about professors at other institutions, relationships with external vendors -- we work largely with people outside the institution. That is not the perspective of the university library,” he said. University presses must be constantly thinking about revenue, while libraries, he said, are focused on service. At a university press, he said, the motto must many times be "just say no," as editors turn down book proposals they can't publish and must do so all the time. The library, he said, is much more of a "yes we can" place, trying to satisfy the faculty and students of the campus.

Some of the more dramatic shifts in press policies lately have come at universities where the press is part of or becoming part of the library division. At the University of Michigan, such a shift is being made as the press prepares to shift most monograph publishing to digital. And the Michigan and Pennsylvania State directors were among those that recently issued a letter in which they endorsed "open access," in which articles are made available free and online, including federal requirements for federally supported research to be open access. The letter goes directly against the stance taken by the Association of American University Presses, which has argued that new ways must first be found to finance university presses, which fear that they might lose money if more material is available online and free.

Keane of Johns Hopkins, in her debut speech as president of the association, noted that the current debates over open access "appears to put us at an impasse with members of the library and faculty communities" and that this appearance was "unfortunate." But she didn't suggest any change in association policies.

Open Access -- Experiment or Take the Leap?

Several presenters at a session on open access took positions consistent with the association's official view -- which is that this is a time to experiment with new models, but not to require any change. And most of the models presented involved some sort of new source of revenue coming to university presses.

Stuart M. Shieber, director of the Office of Scholarly Communication and professor of computer science at Harvard University, said that the current publishing system is "not economically sustainable," but he offered a take on open access that differed from that of its most fervent supporters. Shieber said that we shouldn't be talking about how to pay for open access, since open access doesn't cost much at all. Rather, the question should be about "paying for publisher services" such as managing peer review and marketing (which apply to digital work as much as to printed editions). He said that it may be time to consider a model where libraries don't pay for subscriptions in the typical way, but pay "first copy costs" (those that still exist digitally) or that universities pay a fee for work published by their faculty members.

This would help the goal of not only providing access, but the quality of work produced by university presses, he said.

Ivy Anderson, director of collection development and management for the California Digital Library, put forth the SCOAPE3 project as "a path forward" on open access. SCOAPE3 stands for Sponsoring Consortium for Open Access Publishing in Particle Physics. In its current version, libraries are buying journal subscriptions (to support peer review and other costs) and then providing access to those who use their libraries, much like a site license. Future plans are closer to an open access model in which funding agencies and libraries would contribute to support peer review, and the articles would be free to everyone.

She said that this approach reflects what the University of California has found its faculty members want: open access that is easy and that doesn't involve them paying to publish or being told where to publish.

Several others at the meeting discussed models like SCOAPE3, in which some works in one or more disciplines are made available free, with someone paying costs. One speaker at the meeting captured the audience's attention (although, from appearances, not their hearts) by calling such efforts well-meaning, but not nearly bold or comprehensive enough.

Michael Jensen, director of strategic Web communications for the National Academies Press, noted that his publisher offers more than 4,000 books in free, digital form, "and we are not broke." Jensen -- who, when he isn't thinking about the future of scholarly publishing, is thinking about environmental issues -- said that university presses need to acknowledge "an inconvenient truth about book publishing," namely that its basic structure won't work anymore.

He alternated discussion of university presses and the environment, talking about the toxic rivers and oceans we may soon see, the civil strife and economic turmoil that will be set off as energy becomes more scarce, and the inability of university presses to reposition themselves as things get worse -- and universities make do with less. "If you think open access is scary," he told the audience, it's nothing compared to what the economy is about to do to academic publishing.

If university presses don't make "radical strategic choices" in the next two to three years, he said, they face a "death spiral."

What are those choices?

Scholarship must be "de-linked from print publication," such that books are "the exception" and no longer the norm for disseminating new scholarship. With colleges and universities unlikely to be providing major budget increases to libraries, the reality is that within a decade "we will be unlikely to be able to sell print books to to libraries at the prices we need to charge," adding that "it's crazy to think we can continue to do what we have been doing."

While stressing that he believes book publishing is essential to promote and spread great new intellectual ideas, Jensen said there is no good reason to keep print and to keep charging. Print distribution hurts the environment, he says, and charging (while failing to make university presses economically viable) limits readership.

"We've been hearing about collaboration and new models," but these ideas "are not radical enough," and it's time to move to open access, he said.

Jensen said that it's fine for university presses to charge for some things -- and that he sees their economic future based on such charges, as they relate to digital sales. In five years, he would like to see 50 percent of their budgets coming from "value added" on to digital book and journal sales, adding additional features that aren't part of the book in basic digital form; 25 percent from print-on-demand services, and 25 percent in institutional support. Jensen said that university presses are more likely to get institutional support if they go in this direction now, and show their provosts and presidents that they aren't standing in the way of open access (which helps libraries control costs) and that their scholarship is of such high value that it merits backing.

The choice, he said, is to take that leap, or to fade away. "Don't write me off as a doomer," he said. Rather, Jensen said that he wasn't accepting a marginal role for university presses but wanted them on a path of "long-term survival."

— Scott Jaschik

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© Copyright 2009 Inside Higher Ed

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Programa universitario de apoyo a la enseñanza de ciencia y matemáticas en los colegios de los EE.UU. recibe ambigua evaluación

El Chronicle of Higher Education informa hoy del Report Who Benefits? The Effect of STEM Faculty Engagement in MSP, que evalúa el impacto de un Programa estrella de la National Science Foundation (NSF) de los EE.UU., mediante el cual profesores de colleges universitarios ofrecen apoyo y capacitación a profesores de matemática y ciencia de colegios en los grados K-12.

Breve presentación del Proyecto

The Math and Science Partnership (MSP) program at the National Science Foundation (NSF) is a major national research and development effort that supports innovative partnerships to improve K–12 student achievement in mathematics and science.

The funded projects were designed to:

􀂄 Enhance schools’ capacity to provide challenging curricula for all students and encourage more students to succeed in advanced courses in mathematics and the sciences;

􀂄 Increase the number, quality, and diversity of mathematics and science teachers, especially in underserved areas;

􀂄 Engage and support scientists, mathematicians, and engineers at local universities and local industries to work with K–12 educators and students;

􀂄 Contribute to a greater understanding of how students effectively learn mathematics and science and how teacher preparation and professional development can be improved; and

􀂄 Promote institutional and organizational change in education systems — from kindergarten through graduate school — to sustain partnerships’ promising practices and policies.

Solicitations between 2002 and 2004 funded in three cohorts of projects consist of four components:

􀂄 Comprehensive partnerships implement change across the K–12 continuum in mathematics, science, or both.

􀂄 Targeted partnerships focus on improved student achievement in a narrower grade range or disciplinary focus in mathematics and/or science.

􀂄 Institute partnerships develop mathematics and science teachers as school- and district-based intellectual leaders and master teachers.

􀂄 Research, Evaluation, and Technical Assistance (RETA) activities assist partnership awardees in the implementation and evaluation of their work.

Los resultados de este proyecto, si bien interesantes para los profesores, muestran escaso impacto en el aprendizaje de los alumnos, señala el comentario del Chronicle.

Ver el Informe completo aquí 1,0 MB

Professors' Impact in NSF Science-Education Effort Proves Difficult to Gauge
By JEFFREY BRAINARD
The Chornicle of Higher Education, June 19, 2009

A new report presents decidedly mixed news about the impact of college professors in one of the National Science Foundation’s signature, nationwide projects to improve mathematics and science education. The test scores of school students involved in the Math and Science Partnership program have risen, for example, but little evidence exists that the professors deserve the credit.

On the plus side, schoolteachers and college faculty members said their participation in the program was worthwhile and stimulating, according to the report on a study by researchers at Westat Inc., a research corporation based in Rockville, Md. But many participants also harbored doubts about whether the improvement efforts at schools and colleges would persist after NSF financing ended, even though the projects are intended to continue on their own.

The NSF started the Math and Science Partnership program, or MSP, in 2002 to test a simple notion: that college professors in math and science could help improve the mediocre performance of American students on mathematics and science tests relative to peers in other countries. The idea was that the academics could help schoolteachers improve their content knowledge and that the professors would encourage more of their college students to consider careers as schoolteachers.

To date, the NSF has financed 75 such projects involving 150 colleges, most of which are still in progress. A research university is typically the lead partner. Congress has supported the program as a way to boost the economy through technological innovation; the program’s budget this year is $61-million.

No Silver Bullet

Despite high hopes that colleges would spark change, relatively few college professors have joined the program—about 900 as of 2006, Westat found. Many tenure-track professors were not rewarded for participation because tenure-and-promotion policies at research institutions reward faculty members in the STEM fields (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) primarily based on their scholarship. And most universities that received the program’s grants did not change their policies significantly to help the faculty members involved.

“Proponents who are looking for a silver bullet to solve STEM education woes will be slightly disappointed at the results” of the program so far, said Westat’s report, “Who Benefits? The Effect of STEM Faculty Engagement in MSP,” which was financed by the science agency. “However, for opponents who think STEM faculty are irrelevant in the picture, their criticisms are not substantiated either.”

The lack of evidence that the participating academics affected students’ test scores reflects that the professors were working directly with schoolteachers, not students, wrote the Westat authors, who were led by Xiaodong Zhang. The connection between the scores and the professors’ involvement is difficult to study rigorously even though it represents a key component of the program’s success, they wrote.

That link remains of interest to the NSF and is being studied by other scholars financed by the agency, says the program’s director, James E. Hamos. A formal evaluation of the program, by a different firm, is in progress.

The Westat report also suggests that liberal-arts colleges and regional state colleges might prove a better venue for future improvement efforts because of their commitment to teaching. And college scholars not on the tenure track may be an untapped source of participants.

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Discurso del rector Rosso de la PUC en los 121 años de esta Universidad

El rector Rosso analiza la educación superior chilena durante su cuenta anual

El rector Pedro Pablo Rosso destacó los enormes logros de esta universidad en investigación, la presencia de la UC en todos los ámbitos de la vida nacional, la necesidad de desarrollar un sistema de admisión a las universidades menos sensible al origen del postulante y subrayó también que el sistema de la educación superior chileno vive una encrucijada histórica que exige nuestra toma de posición en este debate. Los profesionales titulados en la UC Mauricio Larraín, Manuel Pellegrini y Gabriel Valdés recibieron el “Premio al ex alumno distinguido”.

Ver el discurso completo aquí 385 KB

Nota de prensa más abajo.

Ver artículo completo "Discurso del rector Rosso de la PUC en los 121 años de esta Universidad"

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Consejo de Rectores (CRUCH): Polémicas dentro y a su alrededor

Desde hace rato que el Consejo de Rectores de las Universidades Chilenas (CRUCH), que agrupa a las universidades estatales y a un grupo de universidades privadas confesionales y no confesionales --instituciones todas que reciben un aporte fiscal directo del Estado-- se halla sujeto a turbulencias internas y externas.

Hoy, el Rector Pedro Rosso de la PUC, en entrevista al diario El Mercurio, revela que el CRUCH está parlizado por sus querellas internas; "ahogado en sus propios propblemas" [ver texto completo más abajo].

Muestra que en el seno del CRUCH coexisten hoy diversos grupos: 1) el de las universidades estatales agrupadas en el Consorcio de Universidades Estatales (CUE), dentro del cual claramente coexisten, a su turno, tres sub-ghrupos: (i) las dos más antiguas universidades estatales de la Región Metropolitana (UCH, USACH); (ii) dos universidades estatales metropolitanas especializadas (UMCE y UTEM) y (iii) las universidades estatales regionales; 2) el grupo denominado Cruz del Sur, que agrupa a las universidades privadas subvencionadas por el Estado con mayor desarrollo de capacidades de investigación (PUC, UDEC, UAUSTRAL, UTFSM y PUCV); y 3) el grupo de las universidades privadas subsidiadas por el Estado de carácter regional, las cuales son todas católicas (UCNorte, UCMaule, UCSantísima Concepción y UCTemuco).

Por distintas razones, todas ellas de la índole de la gestión de las universidades estatales, varias de ellas enfrentan asimismo diversos tipos de dificultades, ya sea presupuestarias --según señala el diario electrónico de la Radio de la UCH-- o bien por un mal manejo de recursos que se investiga judicialmente.

En general, las orientaciones e intereses de los distintos grupos y subgrupos señalados más arriba son diversos y, en muchos casos, contradictorios. Asimismo, la disputa entre ellos por fondos del Estado ha venido acrecentándose durante los últimos años; en especial, desde el momento que el Rector Victor Pérez (UCH) --hoy debilitado dentro de su propia Universidad y ante la opinión pública "ilustrada"-- enunció su tesis de un "nuevo trato" del Estado con las universidades estatales, tesis que viene a poner fin a la tradicional alianza entre las universidades del CRUCH.

En respuesta, las universidades privadas subsidiadas por el Estado de mayor trayectoria de investigación y prestigio decidieron crear la Red Cruz del Sur, cuyo portavoz es el Rector de la PUC.

Desde fuera, el CRUCH es percibido de manera crecientemente crítica, viéndose afectado por una errática conducción y una progresiva pérdida de reputación desde hace ya varios años.

Se denuncia su falta de representatividad, al excluir a las universidades privadas sin subsidio del Estado que se hallan acreditadas. Esto hace aparecer al CRUCH como una suerte de cartel u órgano que se ocupa solo de defender un trato privilegiado de sus miembros con el Estado. La mala conducción del CRUCH quedó patente especialmente durante el largo proceso que llevó a la sustitución de la PAA por la PSU y, en general, se manifiesta por el nulo peso del organismo en el debate de políticas públicas.

Al interior de la comunidades académicas, el CRUCH es considerado irrelevante desde ya hace tiempo, como mostró una encuesta realizada hace algunos años entre directivos universitarios.

Por último, el Informe reciente de la OCDE sobre la educación superior chilena concluye que el CRUCH debe dar paso a un nuevo organismos representativo del conjunto de las universidades acreditadas del país, enunicado a esta altura obvio pero que, igual, despertó reacciones múltiples.

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En preparación de la Conferencia Mundial sobre Educación Superior

Según expresa la UNESCO,

En la esfera de la educación superior se producen actualmente transformaciones rápidas y de gran calado: la demanda aumenta considerablemente, los prestatarios son cada vez más diversos y los estudiantes tienen más movilidad que nunca antes. Pero la financiación de los países no alcanza a satisfacer las necesidades y persisten graves desigualdades, en una época en que la enseñanza superior debe contribuir decisivamente a que podamos abordar los problemas sociales y económicos fundamentales.

Esta situación servirá de telón de fondo a la Conferencia Mundial sobre Educación Superior (CMES), que se celebrará en París (Francia) del 5 al 8 de julio.

"Trends in Global Higher Education: Analyzing an Academic Revolution", "Systems of Higher Education, Research & Innovation: Changing Dynamics" y “Higher Education at a time of transformation. New dynamics for social responsibility” son los tres informes generales encargados por la UNESCO para la CMES 2009. En conjunto, ofrecerán una panorámica oportuna del estado de la educación superior en todo el mundo. Los documentos elaborados para la Conferencia compilarán un inventario de los cambios y los nuevos desafíos surgidos desde 1998.

"Trends in Global Higher Education: Analyzing an Academic Revolution"[Las tendencias mundiales en materia de educación superior: Análisis de una revolución en la universidad]

Este informe destacará las principales tendencias en la enseñanza superior y ofrecerá una descripción sucinta de su desarrollo en el mundo, con respaldo estadístico o de gráficos, así como un análisis del tema. Las tendencias más notorias son: la masificación de la enseñanza superior; la mundialización y la internacionalización; la educación a distancia y las nuevas aplicaciones de las tecnologías de la información y la comunicación (TIC); la privatización de la enseñanza superior; la circulación internacional del talento (la mundialización ha potenciado el movimiento de las personas altamente capacitadas por todo el planeta); la profesión docente en la encrucijada por lo tocante a la experiencia del alumnado; las universidades que se dedican a la investigación y el fenómeno de la “categoría mundial”; la financiación de la enseñanza superior; las garantías de calidad y los nexos entre la universidad y la empresa. El informe terminará esbozando algunas tendencias futuras en la materia.

Los autores del informe (Philip G. Altbach, Liz Reisberg 
y Laura E. Rumbley) trabajan en el Center for International Higher Education, del Boston College, cuya misión consiste en fomentar el conocimiento en torno a las complejas realidades de la enseñanza superior en el mundo contemporáneo. Por conducto de sus publicaciones y otras actividades, el Centro promueve la idea de que una perspectiva internacional propiciará políticas y prácticas más justas y acertadas.

El informe fue elaborado en estrecha colaboración con el Instituto de Estadística de la UNESCO (IEU).

“Higher Education at a time of transformation. New dynamics for social responsibility”

Este documento es una síntesis de los tres informes sobre la educación superior en el mundo, que a su vez son parte de una colección sobre el compromiso social de las universidades. El informe, que presenta una panorámica del estado de la enseñanza superior en el mundo entero. [Más información sobre este documento abajo].

Por su parte, el Instituto Internacional para el planeamiento Educativo (IIPE) de la UNESCO contribuye a la CMES con un Legajo Especial sobre Educación Superior y Globalización, donde se aborda la situación actual y retos que la educación terciaria enfrenta en todo el mundo en seis temas principales:

•Globalización y educación superior.
•La educación superior privada.
•El aseguramiento de la calidad en la educación superior.
•Investigación y desarrollo en la educación superior.
•Gobernanza y gestión de la educación superior (comienzos de julio).
•Conclusión: perspectivas de la educación superior (mediados de julio).

Ver artículo completo "En preparación de la Conferencia Mundial sobre Educación Superior"

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Mercados, instituciones y políticas en la educación superior chilena y otros artículos sobre la universidad en la sociedad del conocimiento

En en último número (Nº 57, enero - marzo 2009) de la revista cubana Temas - Cultura, Ideología, Sociedad, dedicado al tema Universidades y sociedad del conocimiento, se publica mi artículo Mercados, instituciones y políticas en la educación superior chilena.

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Los artículos incluidos en este número de Temas son los siguientes (todos disponibles en versión PDF a través del sitio de la Revista al pinchar el título):

Educación superior y sociedad del conocimiento. Tendencias actuales
Francisco López Segrera

Pertinencia y nuevos roles de la educación superior en América Latina
Manuel Ramiro Muñoz

¿Espacios colonizados o democracias del conocimiento?
Marcela Mollis

Una nueva universidad para la sociedad del conocimiento
Axel Didriksson Takayanagui

La educación superior necesaria para el siglo XXI
Carlos Tünnermann

Mercados, instituciones y políticas en la educación superior chilena
José Joaquín Brunner

La universidad actual y sus retos
Adrián Cuevas Jiménez

Trabajo y Universidad: una nueva estrategia de inclusión social
Lisett María Gutiérrez Domínguez

¿Quo vadis, universidad? Un simposio cubano
Daniel Salas y Rachel Domínguez

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Investigadores: ¿funcionarios o contratados? Un debate español

La ciencia: ¿sólo en manos de funcionarios?

La reforma de la carrera de los investigadores busca otras formas de contrato para atraer a más cerebros - El nuevo modelo económico español está en juego - El proyecto levanta ampollas en un sistema sin el dinamismo del mundo anglosajón
SUSANA PÉREZ DE PABLOS
El País, 16/06/2009

Un total de 122.600 personas trabajan como investigadores en España y el 70% de la producción científica procede de los que están en universidades. España se juega con este cambio más de lo que parece: la reforma de la carrera de los investigadores condicionará el funcionamiento del modelo económico del futuro. El anteproyecto encargado por el Gobierno a un consejo asesor de expertos pretende impulsar los proyectos pero llevará a dos modelos paralelos: personal contratado en los organismos públicos y funcionarios en la universidad.

España es de los pocos países, junto con Italia, en el que sobrevive este modelo napoleónico, el de la Vieja Europa, en el que la inmensa mayoría de la actividad científica está hecha por funcionarios. Alemania ya lleva tiempo alejándose de él y Francia aún tiene un sistema similar al español, pero da mucho margen a las instituciones públicas para tomar decisiones sobre sus funcionarios. Al otro lado está la flexibilidad de los países anglosajones, con sus ventajas e inconvenientes: el proyecto de las instituciones prima sobre el de las personas.

Entre los puntos más criticados de la propuesta de la reforma que el Ministerio de Ciencia español tiene sobre la mesa están que se salta el Estatuto de los Trabajadores tres veces y establece una carrera de 12 años para los licenciados que quieran acceder a un contrato fijo. Los que trabajan en la universidad seguirán siendo funcionarios. Los que lo hacen en centros públicos de investigación (alrededor de 20.000) serán, en cambio, todos contratados. Dos modelos de carrera, de situación y de vida para un mismo oficio, el de investigador. Esto es lo que ocurrirá en España si se implanta la propuesta de carrera científica que incluye el borrador de anteproyecto que reformará la obsoleta Ley de la Ciencia (de 1986).

Los argumentos que esgrimen los que están de acuerdo con este cambio son básicamente que es una manera de activar la producción científica, de dar una carrera con normas claras a estos profesionales, de facilitar la movilidad nacional en internacional. Los que están en contra temen la inestabilidad o incluso la precariedad laboral, están en contra de la excesiva amplitud de la carrera (12 años) hasta que se llega a tener un contrato estable y critican algunas "irregularidades": el texto "se salta" el Estatuto de los Trabajadores en tres ocasiones para permitir que los investigadores estén más tiempo en prácticas y con contratos temporales.

La realidad es que los investigadores empiezan a trabajar en un equipo que no pueden dejar, aunque se les acabe la beca, porque tienen que seguir haciendo currículo ante las pocas ayudas y la mucha competencia. Muchos pasan periodos sin cobrar, pero siguen trabajando en su equipo con la incertidumbre del futuro. Pero tampoco les resulta fácil a la inmensa mayoría, si no hay más remedio, trabajar en otra cosa. La investigación es un trabajo peculiar y el currículo de los que trabajan en ella casa mal con el que buscan las empresas para otros empleos.

El Ministerio de Ciencia no quiere hablar por ahora. El cambio es delicado, legalmente complicado y afecta a otros ámbitos: se está negociando y analizando de forma minuciosa con el Ministerio de Trabajo, con los empresarios, los sindicatos y todos los sectores a los que afecta. No es un cambio menor, advierten muchas voces. La ley anterior no se ha cambiado en 20 años y ahora el país se juega su futuro más que nunca, en mitad de una crisis que ha sacado a relucir los problemas del modelo económico y productivo español. La tan anunciada sustitución del actual modelo español, basado en la construcción y el turismo, por la apuesta por la innovación empieza por este cambio legislativo. Y, aunque la situación del personal investigador ocupa sólo un capítulo de la futura ley (el título II), es una de las claves. De la situación y el trabajo de esas personas dependerá que todo el resto funcione.

"No es la primera vez que se piensa en un cambio así. Ya Federico Mayor Zaragoza, que fue ministro de Educación y Ciencia en los años ochenta pensaba que los profesores e investigadores debían de ser contratados. Pero lo que está claro es que el hecho de que sean mayoritariamente funcionarios no ha dado buenos resultados, lo que no quiere decir que valga cualquier cambio". El catedrático de Electromagnetismo y presidente de la Real Sociedad Española de Física, Antonio Fernández-Rañada, recuerda así que no es un debate ni un problema nuevo. Pero comenta a continuación que el hecho de que pueda haber dos tipos de relaciones laborales, una para la universidad y otra para los centros públicos de investigación, puede causar problemas. Explica el porqué y sitúa así uno de los problemas principales: "La realidad es que los que trabajan como contratados ahora están como locos por sacar una plaza de funcionario". Pero, por otro lado, mira con optimismo la propuesta: "Puede ser buena idea para la investigación, puede dinamizarla. Hay que incrementar la colaboración con las empresas, desarrollar más ciencia aplicada, devolver el conocimiento a la sociedad e intentar conseguir una nueva dinámica para que la universidad no se mire su propio ombligo. Se puede hacer una buena investigación en España con funcionarios, pero un cambio como el que se plantea dinamizaría todo el sistema, es una cuestión muy cultural". "En cualquier caso es mucha novedad y hay que ver cómo se regula exactamente y hay mucho riesgo de que no se haga bien", advierte Fernández-Rañada.

Los investigadores que trabajan en la universidad empiezan con becas y después suelen seguir como contratados doctores, a la espera de que saquen una plaza de funcionario para convertirse en profesores titulares. La mayoría de los expertos ven necesario que a todos los investigadores se les evalúe periódicamente. Es una de las claves del cambio. Esto lo contempla la propuesta de anteproyecto. Una vez que el investigador ha pasado los cuatro años en prácticas y tres más de contratos temporales pasaría a la etapa que el texto llama "de acceso" (que dura cinco años) y se le evaluaría cuando lleve tres años. Si el resultado es positivo, tendría derecho a un "contrato fijo".

Los investigadores no tienen ahora una carrera definida. El borrador del consejo asesor de expertos encargado por Ciencia sí crea una y establece los grados específicos por los que tendrán que pasar los investigadores durante ella. Una vez concluido el grado (que sustituye a partir del año próximo a las licenciaturas y diplomaturas), cuando los investigadores estén haciendo el doctorado tendrán contrato en prácticas durante un máximo de cuatro años (el Estatuto de los Trabajadores establece este límite en dos). Una vez que sean doctores, tendrán un contrato.

Todo esto es aplicable a quien logre ese contrato. Porque, aunque la maraña de datos y de circunstancias (hay gran diversidad de becas y contratos tanto nacionales como autonómicos y en entidades públicas y privadas) hace imposible precisar con exactitud cuántas personas han optado en España por ser investigadores. La Federación de Jóvenes Investigadores Precarios ha hecho un cálculo. Lo explica su vicepresidenta, Begoña Camblor: "Unas 8.000 personas empiezan una investigación, es decir, inician la etapa predoctoral con una ayuda pública, del Gobierno o de las comunidades autónomas. Pero en este recuento no están incluidos los que tienen becas con cargo a proyectos, los que investigan pero no hacen tesis (como los técnicos de laboratorio) o los que tienen becas financiadas por fundaciones o empresas privadas. De esos 8.000, alrededor de 2.000 consiguen una ayuda pública para la etapa posdoctoral. Éste es el primer problema, el caos, que no hay registro, no se sabe en realidad cuánta gente hay investigando que necesita una carrera y un contrato y que no hay suficientes". Esta organización pide que se garantice un contrato a todos los investigadores desde que empiezan. "Una carrera debe dar estabilidad en todas las etapas y debe estar bien definido el acceso a cada fase, que pases una evaluación pero que si la superas se te garantice la continuación, que no tengas que esperar a terminarla para saberlo", señala Camblor.

Estos investigadores están en contra de que la propuesta no sea en el marco del Estatuto de los Trabajadores. Su argumento es lógico: "No se puede contratar a ningún trabajador con una beca. Cualquier persona que empieza en un oficio tiene un contrato. ¿Por qué nosotros no? Es un trabajo como cualquier otro. Y debe regularse por la misma norma que el resto".

Nazario Martín es investigador, experto en nanotecnología y preside además la Sociedad Española de Química. "Un cambio así es importante para el investigador. No se puede pedir a una persona que dedique su vida a ello con una incertidumbre absoluta", opina Martín. Y explica que "no se va a inventar nada" porque hay ya modelos muy distintos en otros países. El de Italia, Francia y Portugal es similar al nuestro, de funcionarios que investigan, pero hay otros modelos en los que el propio responsable de la universidad hace a los profesores una oferta. "En España donde se investiga es en la universidad, los organismos públicos (OPIS) y las empresas no están implicados en ella al nivel, por ejemplo, de Estados Unidos".

Martín dice, como su homólogo de la Real Sociedad de Física, que "de la universidad no se echa a nadie". "Es una máxima que he visto toda mi vida". ¿Y eso es bueno? "Es malísimo como principio", responde. En el instituto de nanociencia donde él trabaja, una fundación privada financiada con fondos públicos, funcionan con contratados. A los cinco años, un comité externo hace al investigador una evaluación de su actividad. Del resultado depende si continúa. Y cree que un sistema así sería lo deseable. "Aunque en general en el ámbito de la ciencia los resultados suelen ser muy buenos, es verdad que el problema de los funcionarios es que da igual lo que hagas, da igual que uno haga una labor mejor y otro peor, y esto podría cambiarse, por ejemplo, con incentivos".

Si se implanta un modelo de contratos, Martín dice que lo importante es "que el sueldo sea digno, que no haya subempleo. Si no se juega a eso, no veo inconveniente en que se sea funcionario, si se ponen filtros de calidad cada cinco años. Éstos son necesarios y también definir muy bien los pasos para atraer a la investigación a la gente joven, que vea que tiene posibilidad de estabilizarse".

Este investigador dice que "todo cambio en la carrera en los OPIS, bien definido y con filtros, bienvenido sea". "Pero la ley no permite en la universidad este tipo de contratos, por lo que habrá dos modelos paralelos, seguirá habiendo investigadores funcionarios y no funcionarios". Y acaba con la conclusión que está en el fondo de esta reforma: "En realidad da igual si se es funcionario o no, si se te valora el trabajo que haces".

© EDICIONES EL PAÍS, S.L. - Miguel Yuste 40 - 28037 Madrid (España)

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El valor del trabajo (manual) y la sociedad del conocimiento

Reproduzco más abajo el comentario de Francis Fukuyama al libro SHOP CLASS AS SOULCRAFT. An Inquiry Into the Value of Work, de Matthew B. Crawford, The Penguin Press, 246 pp., publicado en el New York Times del 7 de junio pasado.

Agradezco a Jeff Puryear, Co-Director de PREAL, por haber llamado mi atención a este comentario, de especial interés para los debates sobre la sociedad del conocimiento y la dualidad trabajao intelectual / manual.

Otros escritos de Matthew Crawford disponibles en la Red

The Case for Working With Your Hands, 2009

The Limits of Neuro-Talk, 2008

Political Pseudoscience, 2007

Shop Class as Soulcraft, 2006

Science Education and Liberal Education, 2005

Matthew B. Crawford: datos biográficos

Matthew B. Crawford is a philosopher and mechanic. He has a Ph.D. in political philosophy from the University of Chicago and served as a postdoctoral fellow on its Committee on Social Thought. Currently a fellow at the University of Virginia's Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture, he owns and operates Shockoe Moto, an independent motorcycle repair shop in Richmond, Virginia.

Making Things Work
By FRANCIS FUKUYAMA
The New York Times, June 7, 2009

“Shop Class as Soulcraft” is a beautiful little book about human excellence and the way it is undervalued in contemporary America.

Matthew B. Crawford, who owns and operates a motorcycle repair shop in Richmond, Va., and serves as a fellow at the University of Virginia’s Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture, notes that all across the United States, high school shop classes teaching mechanical arts like welding, woodworking or carpentry are closing down, to free up funds for computer labs. There is a legion of experts denigrating manual trades like plumber, carpenter and electrician, warning that the United States labor force needs to be “upskilled” and retrained to face the challenges of a high-tech, global economy. Under this new ideology, everyone must attend college and prepare for life as a “symbolic analyst” or “knowledge worker,” ready to add value through mental rather than physical labor.

There are two things wrong with this notion, according to Crawford. The first is that it radically undervalues blue-collar work that involves the manipulation of things rather than ideas. Expertise with things permits human beings to have agency over their lives — that is, their ability to exert some control over the myriad faucets, outlets and engines that they depend on from day to day. Instead of being able to top up your engine oil when it is low, you wait until an “idiot light” goes on on the dashboard, and you turn your car over to a bureaucratized dealership that hooks it up to a computer and returns it to you without your having the faintest idea of what might have been wrong.

The second problem with this vision is that the postindustrial world is not in fact populated — as gurus like Richard Florida, who has popularized the idea of the “creative class,” would have it — by “bizarre mavericks operating at the bohemian fringe.” The truth about most white-collar office work, Crawford argues, is captured better by “Dilbert” and “The Office”: dull routine more alienating than the machine production denounced by Marx. Unlike the electrician who knows his work is good when you flip a switch and the lights go on, the average knowledge worker is caught in a morass of evaluations, budget projections and planning meetings. None of this bears the worker’s personal stamp; none of it can be definitively evaluated; and the kind of mastery or excellence available to the forklift driver or mechanic are elusive. Rather than achieving self-mastery by confronting a “hard discipline” like gardening or structural engineering or learning Russian, people are offered the fake autonomy of consumer choice, expressing their inner selves by sitting in front of a Harley-­Davidson catalog and deciding how to trick out their bikes.

This glorification of manual labor would seem patronizing but for the author’s personal biography. Crawford grew up in a commune in the Bay Area with a theoretical physicist for a father, and worked his way through high school and college as an electrician. Along the way he picked up the ability to rebuild the engines of old Volkswagens, something that stayed with him even as he went on to get a Ph.D. in political philosophy at the University of Chicago, where he was a fellow at the Committee on Social Thought. He also worked on a white-collar assembly line, writing abstracts of articles in scientific journals that he could not understand. Straight out of graduate school Crawford got a job as the executive director of an unnamed Washington “think tank,” which he soon realized was being financed by oil companies to issue scientific studies questioning global warming. “I landed a job at the think tank because I had a prestigious education in the liberal arts, yet the job itself felt illiberal: coming up with the best arguments money could buy. This wasn’t work befitting a free man, and the tie I wore started to feel like the mark of a slave.” Rather than his fellow academics, he found himself drawn to people like Fred Cousins, owner of a Chicago area parts shop, who “gave me a succinct dissertation on the peculiar metallurgy of Honda starter motor bushings” when his motor wouldn’t start.

Crawford argues that the ideologists of the knowledge economy have posited a false dichotomy between knowing and doing. The fact of the matter is that most forms of real knowledge, including self-knowledge, come from the effort to struggle with and master the brute reality of material objects — loosening a bolt without stripping its threads, or backing a semi rig into a loading dock. All these activities, if done well, require knowledge both about the world as it is and about yourself, and your own limitations. They can’t be learned simply by following rules, as a computer does; they require intuitive knowledge that comes from long experience and repeated encounters with difficulty and failure. In this world, self- esteem cannot be faked: if you can’t get the valve cover off the engine, the customer won’t pay you.

Highly educated people with high- status jobs — investment bankers, professors, lawyers — often believe that they could do anything their less-educated brethren can, if only they put their minds to it, because cognitive ability is the only ability that counts. The truth is that some would not have the physical and cognitive ability to do skilled blue-collar work, and that others could do it only if they invested 20 years of their life in learning a trade. “Shop Class as Soulcraft” makes this quite vivid by explaining in detail what is actually involved in rebuilding a Volkswagen engine: grinding down the gasket joining the intake ports to the cylinder heads, with a file, tracing the custom-fit gasket with an X-Acto knife, removing metal on the manifolds with a pneumatic die grinder so the passageways will mate perfectly. Small signs of galling and discoloration mean excessive heat buildup, caused by a previous owner’s failure to lubricate; the slight bulging of a valve stem points to a root cause of wear that a novice mechanic would completely fail to perceive.

Crawford asserts that he is not writing a book about public policy. But he has a clear preference for a “progressive republican” order in which the moral ties binding workers to their work or entrepreneurs to their customers are not so readily sacrificed at the altar of efficiency and growth. He argues that there is something wrong with a global economy in which a Chinese worker sews together an Amish quilt with no direct connection with its final user, or understanding of its cultural meaning. Economic ties, like those between a borrower and a lender, were once underpinned by face-to-face contact and moral community; today’s mortgage broker, by contrast, is a depersonalized cog in a financial machine that actively discourages prudence and judgment.

In the end I must confess that it would have been hard for me not to like this book. While I make my living as a “symbolic knowledge worker,” I have both ridden motorcycles and made furniture — my family’s kitchen table, the beds my children slept on while growing up, as well as reproductions of Federal-style antiques whose originals I could never afford to buy. Few things I’ve created have given me nearly as much pleasure as those tangible objects that were hard to fabricate and useful to other people. I put my power tools away a few years ago, and find now that I can’t even give them away, because people are too preoccupied with updating their iPhones. Shop class, it appears, is already a distant historical memory.

Francis Fukuyama is professor of international political economy at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

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Fundación Gates invierte en docentes efectivos

Del Blog de PREAL tomamos esta noticia publicada recientemente:

Nos complace compartir con ustedes un artículo de la Associated Press basado en una entrevista con el nuevo director ejecutivo de la Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Jeff Raikes, sobre el nuevo énfasis de la fundación en docentes efectivos. Vale la pena resaltar tres aspectos de esta noticia. Primero, el cambio de rumbo de la fundación más grande en los Estados Unidos (que previamente se había enfocado en clases pequeñas sin obtener muchos resultados) parece reforzar el creciente consenso de que los docentes son el factor más importante para mejorar el desempeño estudiantil. Segundo, es interesante que la fundación tome como medida principal de su éxito el impacto que sus intervenciones tienen en el aprendizaje, a diferencia del enfoque tradicional de las fundaciones corporativas en insumos (infraestructura, libros de texto, computadoras, etc.) Finalmente, la forma en la que la fundación llegó a su nuevo enfoque—experimentando, evaluando y ajustando su labor en base a sus resultados—propone un interesante modelo para otras fundaciones, invitándolas a tomar riesgos y aprender de sus errores.

AP | New CEO: Gates Foundation learns from experiments

Gates Foundation | Education section of annual letter

Gates Foundation | 10 minute video on effective teachers during social entrepreneurs conference

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Visión 2020 de la educación superior en los EE.UU.

Los servicios de investigación del Chronicle of Higher Education dan a conocer la primera parte del estudio: The College of 2020 - Students, cuya presentación dice así:

This is the first Chronicle Research Services report in a three-part series on what higher education will look like in the year 2020. It is based on reviews of research and data on trends in higher education, interviews with experts who are shaping the future of colleges, and the results of a poll of members of a Chronicle Research Services panel of admissions officials.

To buy the full, data-rich 50-page report, see the links at the end of this Executive Summary. Later reports in this series will look at college technology and facilities in 2020, and the faculty of the future.
Bajar el Resumen Ejecutivo aquí 80 KB

Tabla de contenidos

Executive Summary 3
21st-Century Learners 7
The Pipeline 12
College Population 19
Tuition Trends 23
For-Profit Colleges 28
A Survey of Admissions Officers 32
Online Learning 37
International Enrollment 44
Adult Learners 48
Conclusion 51
Bibliography 54

The entire content in this report, including but not limited to text, design, graphics, and the selection and arrangements thereof, is copyrighted as a collective work under the United States and other copyright laws, and is the property of Chronicle Research Services. Chronicle Research Services is a division of The Chronicle of Higher Education Inc. Copyright © 2009. ALLALLALL RIGHTS RESERVEVED.

You may electronically copy, download, and print hard copy portions of the report solely for your own, noncommercial use. You may not modify, copy, distribute, transmit, display, reproduce, publish, license, create derivative works from, transfer, or sell any information obtained from this report without the express, written authorization of Chronicle Research Services

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Liceos Prioritarios: la dificultad de mejorar resultados

Un interesante reportaje publicado ayer domingo 15 de junio 2009 por el diario El Mercurio en su página de Educación, referido a los resultados del programa ministerial denominado Liceos Prioritarios [ver detalles se dan más abajo].

El interés del reportaje, más allá de su impacto noticioso, muestra las dificultades que encuentran los establecimientos municipales que atienden a la población más vulnerable para poder mejorar de manera significativa (y sostenida) sus resultados.

Ficha básica

Decreto Supremo de Educación N° 312 del 30 de diciembre de 2002 y sus modificaciones que determina las actividades a ejecutar por el Programa de Educación Media y los convenios individuales celebrados entre el Ministerio de Educaciones y cada Universidad que presta servicios de Asesoría a los Liceos Prioritarios.

Los convenios entre el Ministerio y la Instituciones son anuales y la estrategia de Asesoría a cada Liceo dura 3 años. De esta forma, existen 2 cohortes.: 2006, 2007.

Se seleccionaron 121 liceos considerando los siguientes criterios: Que fueran municipalizados, que tuvieran un alto IVE según estudio de la Universidad de Chile (2006), que estuvieran territorialmente concentrados y se tomo en cuanta criterios propios de cada región.

Monto total asignado al programa (en miles de $): M$ 1.243.500

Ver listado oficial de los 121 liceos includios en el programa aquí [Excel].

Fuente: Gobierno Transparente, MINEDUC - Programas de Subsidios y Otros Beneficios 230 KB

Recuros asociado

Discurso de Ministra de educación, Mónica Jimenez, Presentación Encuentro Sobre Liceos Prioritarios
16 de mayo de 2008. Bajar aquí

A continuación el reportaje de El Mercurio.

Estrategia Liceos Prioritarios ha implicado una inversión estatal de 3.248 millones de pesos: Caída en el Simce es el resultado de los dos primeros años de plan de apoyo a liceos críticos
De los 121 colegios intervenidos por universidades y centros por encargo del Mineduc, 77 han mantenido o empeorado sus puntajes en matemática.
MANUEL FERNÁNDEZ BOLVARÁN
Domingo 14 de junio de 2009

De los 121 colegios intervenidos por universidades y centros por encargo del Mineduc, 77 han mantenido o empeorado sus puntajes en matemática.

MANUEL FERNÁNDEZ BOLVARÁN

El plan era el siguiente: el Ministerio de Educación detectó 121 liceos con problemas institucionales, alta vulnerabilidad social y mal desempeño en el Simce de 2° medio y le encargó a un grupo de universidades apoyarlos por tres años. Al final de ese lapso, "los liceos habrán logrado avances significativos en sus resultados educativos y tendrán condiciones institucionales que garanticen la sustentabilidad de los logros", indica el sitio web ministerial.

Así se pensó en 2006 el plan Liceos Prioritarios. Pero tres años después, la situación no parece haber mejorado. Al contrario, si en el Simce 2006 un alumno promedio de estos colegios sacaba 221 puntos, en 2008 su desempeño cayó a 218,4. O sea, 2,7 puntos menos. Otro dato: de los 121 colegios intervenidos, 77 se han mantenido o bajado en matemática y 67 en lenguaje.

Y si el análisis considera sólo a los 47 colegios que empezaron a ser intervenidos en 2007 (el resto partió en 2008), y que este año serán "dados de alta", el resultado es aún peor: caen 3,4 puntos.

Promesas rotas

Magros resultados si se considera que a la fecha el Mineduc ha destinando 3.248 millones de pesos a este proyecto; cada institución recibe 10 millones de pesos al año por cada establecimiento asesorado.

En los liceos, la lista de quejas es extensa. En el Armando Quezada (Punta Arenas), cuentan que la asesoría de la U. del Mar fue una "pérdida de tiempo". "Las personas que vinieron a hacer un diagnóstico llegaron con muchos aires y se cultivó una odiosidad con el equipo docente. Nos mandaron un informe que se daba un montón de vueltas y no aterrizaba en algo concreto y después no hicieron nada", cuenta el director subrogante, Juan Alvarado.

La misma U. del Mar fue seleccionada para apoyar liceos de las regiones de Atacama, Valparaíso y de O'Higgins. "Debido a sus incumplimientos, conversamos con la Seremi y acordamos que no seguiríamos con ese apoyo", explica Mario Aguirre, director subrogante del Mercedes Fritis (Copiapó). Hoy, la U. del Mar no asesora a ningún colegio.

María Verónica Rodríguez, quien coordinó al equipo de Liceos Prioritarios de esa universidad, asegura que su salida de los colegios no se debió a quejas: "El Mineduc incluso nos felicitó por la calidad del trabajo. Sin embargo, nos dijeron que no podíamos seguir porque la universidad no estaba acreditada".

Volviendo a cero

Jaime Veas, jefe (s) de la División de Educación General del Mineduc, entidad a cargo del programa, aclara: "Si los liceos hubieran dicho que la asesoría era positiva y la universidad se hubiera comprometido a concluir con éxito su acreditación, podrían haber continuado".

De hecho, en la actualidad siguen trabajando con colegios tanto una universidad no acreditada (la Bolivariana) y una institución que ni siquiera es una universidad: el Centro de Investigación y Difusión Poblacional de Achupallas (Cidpa), de Valparaíso. Este último asesora a cinco liceos de la X Región; todos han bajado en el Simce.

Uno de ellos, el Punta de Rieles (Los Muermos), le pidió al Mineduc prescindir de su asistencia este año. En otro, el Benjamín Vicuña Mackenna (Puerto Montt), si bien valoran el material didáctico que reciben, reconocen problemas. "Las capacitaciones son muy esporádicas y no hay continuidad", dice la jefa técnica, Olga Cárdenas.

Raúl Irrazabal, coordinador de Liceos Prioritarios de Cidpa, admite que les "preocupan los bajos resultados", pero confía en que el foco que este año tendrán en el desarrollo de "habilidades generales" de los alumnos dará frutos: "Culminamos el trabajo en 2010, donde esperamos mostrar resultados satisfactorios".

En el liceo Claudio Matte (Talcahuano), el director, Miguel Toledo, relata sus inconvenientes: "Es el tercer año que estamos con la Universidad San Sebastián y es el tercer equipo que nos toca. Cambian a la gente, los que llegan encuentran malo lo que se hizo antes y parten de cero". Consultada al respecto, la coordinadora de Liceos Prioritarios de la U. San Sebastián, Mónica Reyes, señala que la información "detallada, precisa y objetiva" sobre el trabajo que han realizado "es de exclusivo manejo del Ministerio de Educación".

Aparte de los incumplimientos, una de las claves detrás de los bajos resultados del programa ha sido la poca química entre universidades y liceos. "Los asesores andan muy arriba, hablan de teorías, de la deconstrucción, pero eso no nos ayuda, nuestros problemas son muy concretos", dice Helmut Kaufman, director del liceo San Felipe, apoyado por la U. de Viña del Mar.

La idea de que están siendo "intervenidos" irrita a los colegios y genera resistencia contra la asesoría. Si a esto se suma que buena parte de los directores de los liceos han sido cambiados en medio del programa y que pocos municipios entregan tiempo a los profesores para trabajar con los profesionales, era difícil esperar logros mayores.

Los cambios

"Podríamos hacer más acompañamiento, pero estamos limitados a ir sólo dos veces al mes, porque los profesores, como no tienen horas extras para esto, deben dejar botados a sus cursos para trabajar con nosotros. Eso afecta la continuidad del proceso", dice Fernando Maureira, encargado de Liceos Prioritarios de la Universidad Alberto Hurtado.

Para Jaime Veas, la evaluación del programa es simple: "Es preocupante que un liceo o escuela disminuya su puntaje, eso sin duda que tenemos que mirarlo". Destaca que el proyecto ha servido para empezar a observar al "liceo en su conjunto", y asegura que de los puntos críticos han salido importantes lecciones para que el sistema de la subvención escolar preferencial funcione adecuadamente.

Por lo pronto, el trabajo con los liceos prioritarios ha sufrido cambios. Deberán crear, con sus asesoras, planes de mejoramiento con metas a cuatro años, tal como los colegios que reciben la subvención preferencial. "Les estamos abriendo un horizonte hasta 2014 para seguir en la mejora continua".

MAYORES CAÍDAS

En el Simce 2008, estos fueron los liceos prioritarios que más bajaron respecto de 2006.

Liceo Polivalente Luis Vargas Salcedo (Cerrillos), asesorado por la UMCE: -25,5 puntos.

Liceo Mercedes Fritis Mackenney (Copiapó), asesorado por la U. del Mar y ahora por la Usach: -22,5.

Liceo de San Felipe, asesorado por la U. de Viña del Mar: -22.

Liceo B. Vicuña Mackenna (Puerto Montt), asesorado por Cidpa: -18,5.

Liceo Los Héroes de la Concepción (Cerro Navia), asesorado por la U. Alberto Hurtado: -16,5.

Liceo Villa La Pintana: asesorado por la U. Academia de Humanismo Cristiano: -16.

Õ Donde el trabajo sí dio frutos

En los colegios en que el plan dio resultado se ha dado una combinación poco usual: profesores dispuestos a dejarse guiar, un director que tiene claro lo que necesita de la asesoría y una universidad capaz de adecuarse a los requerimientos de los colegios. Así lo entiende René Muñoz, director del Liceo Luis Cruz Martínez (Curicó) que, asesorado por la Universidad de Talca, subió 22,5 puntos. "Nosotros no nos sometimos a la asesoría, sino que la usamos. Le dijimos a la universidad: éste es nuestro proyecto, ustedes ayúdennos en esto", cuenta Claudio Salcedo, líder del Colegio San Gerónimo (Puente Alto), apoyado por la Universidad Católica, que subió 13 puntos.

Un tema clave sería generar confianza entre universidad y colegio. "No hay que llegar como experto a imponer, sino como un asesor que viene a generar acuerdos", plantea Evelyn Palma, coordinadora de Liceos Prioritarios del Equipo de Psicología y Educación de la U. de Chile, institución que logró subir 4,8 puntos el rendimiento de los nueve colegios que tiene a cargo.

Un caso aparte es el de la Usach. Pese a bajar los puntajes en los cuatro liceos con que partió, otros ocho han pedido trabajar con ellos. Su asesoría incluye talleres de nivelación los sábados para los alumnos de peores notas y además les entrega cupos de bachillerato y becas de estudio a los estudiantes destacados de sus liceos, sin importar su puntaje en la PSU.

© 2002 El Mercurio Online

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Sexto taller Internacional sobre Reformas de la Educación Superior

Se encuentra disponible en la Red el sitio del 6th International Workshop on Higher Education Reforms, que tendrá lugar en México D.F., los días 9 al 11 de noviembre de 2009.

Los temas del Taller son:

1.Theoretical perspectives on changes in markets of and the roles of the state in higher education.
2.The new regulatory frameworks and policies dealing with the private sector.
3.Relationships between the private and public sectors.
4.Diversity in structures, offers, delivery forms and quality in the private sector.
5.Educational market segmentation and differentiation of prestige, quality and clientele.
6.Market or quasi-market mechanisms in the management of higher education systems and institutions.
7.New forms of market self-regulation and network structures.
8.Autonomy of governance and finance in public and private institutions.

Ver información completa sobre llamado a presentar trabajos aquí.

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Revista de Investigación Educativa - México

Se halla en circulación el Nº 8 de CPU-e, Revista de Investigación Educativa, correspondiente al semestre enero-junio, 2009. Es una publicación de calidad del Instituto de Investigaciones en Educación de la Universidad Veracruzana, México.

Índice

Investigación

¿Qué demonios pasa en las aulas? La investigación cualitativa del aula (Traducción)
Antonia Candela, Elsie Rockwell y César Coll

Apertura del tercer espacio y los procesos de hibridación en las situaciones de enseñanza dentro del salón de clases
Alicia Vistrain Juárez

¿Cómo elaboran sus respuestas los niños de las escuelas de educación indígena que obtienen los más bajos resultados en las evaluaciones de lectura?
Beatriz Rodríguez Sánchez y Minerva Reséndiz García

Crítica y opinión

Entre el fracaso y la integración. Los estudiantes de nuevo ingreso en la Universidad Autónoma de la Ciudad de México
Araceli Parra Guzmán, Berenice Pineda Salazar, Claudia López Ortiz y Juan Carlos López Martínez

La alfabetización socioeconómica y financiera y la educación para el consumo sotenible en México: algunas reflexiones desde la psicología y la educación
Evelyn Diez Martinez

Práctica

Aprendizaje todo el tiempo en todo lugar con el diseño e implementación de un tutorial didáctico
Norma Angélica Sandoval Delgado, María Eugenia Loeza Corichi, Francisco Javier Gómez Ordóñez, José Luis de la Torre Covarrubias, Salvador Jiménez Vallejo

Reseñas

The Presented Past: Heritage, Museums and Education, de Peter G. Stone y Brian Molyneaux (Eds.)
Fernando Calonge Reíllo

La educación de las élites. Aspiraciones, estrategias y oportunidades, de Guillermina Tiramonti y Sandra Ziegler (Coords.)
Verónica Ortiz Méndez

CPU-e, Revista de Investigación Educativa 8
enero-junio, 2008

ISSN 1870-5308, Xalapa, Ver.
Instituto de Investigaciones en Educación
Universidad Veracruzana

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Desarrollos recientes en torno a la profesión académica en el mundo

Inside Higher Ed comenta hoy el reciente informe de la Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U), titulado The Future of the Professoriate: Academic Freedom, Peer Review, and Shared Governance, de Neil W. Hamilton and Jerry G. Gaff.

Este informe explora diversas dimensiones de la profesión académica que hoy se experimenta profundas transformaciones, como muestra el Boletín Nº 4 del Programa Anillo (SOC01) en Políticas de Educación Superior editado por Andrés Bernasconi.

El report de la AAC&U analiza en particular las responsabilidades públicas de una profesión sujeta al control de la revisión por pares y las fallas que esta forma de autonomía y autogobierno social paecen estar presentando en el mundo desarrollado. [Ver comentario completo de Inisde Higher Ed más abajo].

Puede complementarse la lectura de este comentario e informa con el artículo Out of the Loop, publicado tamnbién hioy en Inside Higher Ed, en el cual se da cuenta de la percepción que tienen los académicos de diferentes paíoses del mundo, en especial en EE.UU., Canadá e Inglaterra, sobre su declinante poder dentro de las universidades y su baja influencia sobre las decisiones en diversos aspectos institucionales de sus universidades.

Por su parte, Philip Altbach, en el foro que actualmente se desarrolla en la Red en preparación de la próxima Conferencia Mundial de la Educación Superior, formula la siguiente observación sobre la profesión académica en países en desarrollo:

Lis Lange makes a very important point by focusing on the qualifications of the academic profession. Globally, we are in many ways moving in a negative direction. More university teachers are part-time and have little time to devote to their teaching or their students. It is very likely (we have no firm data) that the average academic qualifications of lecturers is declining--in many developing countries, many have only a bachelors degree.

Generally, university teachers are given no preparation at all in how to teach or in assessment. In short, mass higher education has produced a cadre of increasingly poorly prepared and badly paid teachers. Without a well qualified and committed academic profession, there is no possibility at all of high quality instruction or learning.

Philip Altbach

Ver artículo completo "Desarrollos recientes en torno a la profesión académica en el mundo"

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La investigación educacional en Chile: Una aproximación bibliométrica no convencional

En la sección Publicaciones del Centro de Políticas Comparadas de Educación de la Universidad Diego Portales se encuentra ahora el Documento de Trabajo Nº 1, La investigación educacional en Chile: Una aproximación bibliométrica no convencional, de J. J. Brunner y F. Salazar.

Bajar el documento aquí 832 KB

Abastract
En este artículo, los autores se proponen cuantificar los resultados de la investigación educacional en Chile. Con tal este propósito revisan las prácticas de medición bibliométrica en boga, basadas en la contabilidad de artículos registrados en las bases de Thomson-ISI, y describen sus efectos sobre la organización del trabajo científico, la reputación de los investigadores, su carrera académica y la asignación de fondos nacionales a la investigación. Tan poderosos son dichos efectos que los autores sugieren podría hablarse de un proceso de ISIficación de la producción científica, también en Chile. Luego los autores muestran las fallas y falencias que presenta este tipo convencional de medición en el caso de las ciencias sociales, las humanidades y la investigación educacional, y revisan la literatura que aborda estos déficit y algunas de las alternativas de medición que se proponen. Por último, los autores realizan un ejercicio empírico de cuantificación de la producción en el caso de la investigación educacional en Chile, usando la tecnología del Google Scholar on Google Académico e índices de medición de nueva generación, en particular el Índice h, según los datos obtenidos durante Marzo 2008.

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Preguntas y breves respuestas sobre el término del paro de profesores

Preguntas de un medio de prensa y mis breves respuestas sobre el término del paro de profesores:

1. ¿Fue un buen acuerdo el que se logró entre los profesores, alcaldes y Gobierno?

El paro fue negativo para los alumnos. Desde este punto de vista, el acuerdo que pone fin al paro será tan bueno como buena sea la capacidad de los profesores y los colegios para efectivamente recuperar el tiempo perdido y así reestablecer la continuidad de los procesos de enseñanza y aprendizaje. De lo contrario, como suele ocurrir, los más perjudicados serán los estudiantes de los sectores vulnerables.

2. ¿El Gobierno le debió haber pagado la subvención escolar a los municipios por los días de paro?

La subvención debería pagarse únicamente en función de la asistencia de los alumnos y por tanto, en este caso, en relación a horas efectivamente recuperadas por los colegios. Los Municipios y el Mineduc tienen la responsabilidad de supervisar las horas recuperadas y su efectividad en el plan docente del año.

3. ¿Esta situación no sienta un precedente futuro de que los profesores pueden dejar sin clases a los alumnos más de un mes y además de no ser castigados son compensados?

Lo importante ahora es no dar una señal equívoca y defender el derecho de la parte más débil: los alumnos. Los profesores se han comprometido a recuperar las clases perdidas. Los colegios deberían suscribir este compromiso con su sostenedor y éste --junto al Ministerio-- velar por el cumpliento de aquel. Si no se cumple fielmente el compromiso, deben aplicarse los correctivos y sanciones que corresponda.

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Boletín de Políticas de Educación Superior - PPES

Se encuentra en circulación el Boletín de Políticas de Educación Superior - PPES Nº 4, del Programa Anillo en Políticas de Educación Superior, esfuerzo asociativo de las Universidades Diego Portales, Alberto Hurtado, de Talca y Nacional Andrés Bello.

El presente número, editado por Andrés Bernasconi, está dedicado al tema de la gestión del personal académico y responde a las siguientes preguntas:

¿Qué desafíos enfrentan hoy las políticas de educación superior y cuáles son sus tópicos y áreas prioritarias?
¿Qué orientaciones y procedimientos emplean de preferencia las políticas?
¿Cómo se estructuran los mercados y qué papel juegan las regulaciones públicas?
¿Cuáles políticas se emplean para el financiamiento de la educación terciaria?
¿Cómo se adapta el gobierno de las instituciones?
¿Cuáles lecciones pueden resultar de interés en Chile?

Ver números anteriores:

Nº 1 Qué desafíos enfrentan hoy las políticas de educación superior

Nº 2 Los desafíos de la equidad para el acceso a la educación superior

Nº 3 Financiamiento de las universidades mediante el uso de convenios de desempeño

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