Jose Joaquin Brunner

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Julio 31, 2007

Responsabilización de las escuelas por su desempeño

Artículo publicado en por J. Puryear y L. Moodey en Viewpoints Americas, una publicación de la Americas Society y el Council of the Americas, sobre un tópico --la responsabilización de las escuelas por su desempeño-- de máximo interés para el debate en curso en Chile.

Concluyen los autores*:

Latin America is a long way from establishing meaningful accountability in its school systems. To move forward, policymakers and specialists must learn from other countries, identify approaches that best match their circumstances, experiment, and evaluate the results. Most importantly, they will need to demonstrate enormous political resolve to confront vested interests that fiercely resist losing power.

Ver texto competo más abajo

*Jeffrey M. Puryear is vice president for social policy at the Inter-American Dialogue, and directs its Partnership for Educational Revitalization in the Americas (PREAL). He previously served as head of the Ford Foundation's regional office for the Andes and the Southern Cone, and has been a research scholar at New York University and at Stanford University.

*Laura Moodey is the Director for Educational Policy at Fundación IDEA, a Mexican think tank. Previously, she was a director in the national office of Teach For America, an elementary school teacher in New York City and an English grammar and conversation teacher in Guanajuato, Mexico.

Recursos asociados

Accountability en educación, 1 enero 2007

Accountability educacional: posibilidades y desafíos para América Latina a partir de la experiencia internacional, 4 agosto 2006

Sistemas de supervisión escolar: selección de materiales, 22 julio 2006

Accountability Rare in Latin American Schools
By Jeffrey M. Puryear and Laura Moodey
July 24, 2007

Promoting accountability is at the center of current debates on educational policy in Latin America. With the region’s education quality poor by every available measure, research suggests that accountability is a critical tool for improvement. Efforts to promote accountability in education are underway elsewhere—particularly the United States—and have not gone unnoticed among Latin American policymakers. Several initiatives are underway in Argentina, Chile, El Salvador, Mexico, and Brazil, but the concept is relatively new—and poorly understood.

One problem is that few understand what accountability means. No literal translation of the term exists in Spanish—rendición de cuentas being the closest equivalent. The standard definition — setting goals and holding people (students, parents, teachers, principals, and ministry officials) responsible for achieving them—describes a dynamic that is largely unfamiliar to the region’s public schools. Traditionally, education systems in Latin America have been a public monopoly managed by highly centralized and hierarchical national agencies. Emphasis has been on inputs (money, schools, and enrollments) rather than on outputs (learning). In the end, education providers and students have not been asked to achieve the proper goals or held responsible for attaining them.

Most experts agree that accountability in education requires at least four conditions: standards, information, consequences, and authority. Countries need to establish comprehensive education standards so that the public knows what schools are supposed to do and achieve. They need to produce reliable information so that the clients of education—students, parents, community leaders, and employers—can determine whether standards are being reached. To achieve these standards, there must be appropriate consequences for meeting (or failing to meet) certain benchmarks. Finally, schools, communities and parents should have the authority necessary to make decisions and implement changes. If not, it makes little sense to sanction them for shortcomings.

Last month, the Partnership for Educational Revitalization (PREAL) and Fundación IDEA, in collaboration with Mexicanos Primero, organized the international seminar “Accountability: An Opportunity for Quality Education” to discuss the state of educational accountability in the region. Held in Mexico City and opened by Mexico’s Secretary of Public Education Josefina Vázquez Mota, the 150 researchers, government officials and members of civil society concluded that, despite considerable progress, many of the building blocks essential to accountability in
education are not yet in place. This conference was yet another wake-up call for improving education.

No country has yet succeeded in establishing, disseminating and fully implementing national education standards that set high expectations for all students. Even when standards do exist, they have seldom been aligned with curriculum or national tests.

A few countries, notably Chile, Colombia, Argentina, Brazil, Honduras, and El Salvador, are taking important steps in this direction and others have indicated their intention to begin the process.

The outlook is more positive in the case of public information. Nearly every country has established national student achievement tests that regularly monitor learning and publish the results for subjects such as reading and mathematics. At least eight countries have participated in global tests and some, including Argentina, Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, and Chile, have done so repeatedly. Still, national testing systems remain underdeveloped and poorly funded, and test results are not widely publicized.

Very few countries evaluate the skills and performance of teachers (Colombia, Chile and Peru are notable—and recent—exceptions). At the same time, national education statistics and research programs are weak, making it difficult to monitor progress and evaluate new interventions. Too much of the information needed to assess school progress either does not exist or is not easily accessible.

Perhaps most noteworthy is the general absence of consequences in the region’s education systems. Good teachers are not paid more than bad teachers. Bad teachers are neither identified for remedial training nor sanctioned if they fail to improve. Students do not have to demonstrate mastery of subjects to graduate and schools are funded regardless of success or failure. Incentives for better performance are almost non-existent in the region’s schools.

Education authority is a more mixed picture. A number of countries, particularly Chile, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, and several states in Brazil have given communities varying degrees of authority over local education. Chile’s voucher system lets parents “vote with their feet” by choosing whether to send their children to a traditional public school or to a publicly financed private school. The government of Bogotá, Colombia, has contracted prestigious private schools to develop highquality schools for the poor. Still, the scope of schools’ authority is generally limited.

Most principals cannot select and manage their staff or make spending decisions. Teachers have limited authority to innovate in the classroom, while parents and communities have little say regarding the administration of local schools. Schools that lack authority to make fundamental changes important for improving performance cannot be held accountable for the results.

Mexico is near the bottom of the list in all four categories. Without public standards for measuring student achievement by grade level or subject, Mexico is hard-pressed to evaluate meaningfully or understand the performance of its students. Despite recently completing its second year of national standardized testing in certain grades—a huge leap forward—the results so far have been difficult to analyze and not widely accessible. Even if Mexico were to have valid, understandable evaluation tools, it lacks the proper incentives to inspire teacher and administrator improvement. Principals have no control over the hiring process at their school, and it is nearly impossible to fire a teacher, even for poor performance. They also lack authority over pedagogical and managerial decisions that could produce improvements in student achievement.

Latin America is a long way from establishing meaningful accountability in its school systems. To move forward, policymakers and specialists must learn from other countries, identify approaches that best match their circumstances, experiment, and evaluate the results. Most importantly, they will need to demonstrate enormous political resolve to confront vested interests that fiercely resist losing power.

Accountability is a revolutionary concept in public education, and revolutions are tough to create.

Posted by jjbrunner at 10:43 PM | Comments (0)

Julio 30, 2007

¿Acuerdo para sustituir la LOCE por fin?

La prensa informa durante las últimas horas en sus páginas electrónicas sobre el acuerdo alcanzado entre el Gobierno, los partidos de la Concertación y de la Oposición, para iniciar el estudio conjunto de las bases de la legislación que podría conducir al reemplazo de la LOCE por una nueva Ley General de Educación.

Registro de la prensa hoy

Gobierno quita urgencia a LGE y activa diálogo para consensuar cambios, La Nación, 31 julio 2007

Búsqueda de acuerdos: Gobierno quita urgencia a proyecto de Educación y negociará con Alianza , El Mercurio, 31 julio 2007

Ministra de Educación anuncia trabajo político legislativo junto a la alianza para abordar proyectos en materia educacional, sitio de noticias del MINEDUC, 30 julio 2007 (ver noticia completa más abajo)

Retiran urgencia a proyecto que reforma la LOCE: Gobierno y Alianza conforman comisión para alcanzar acuerdo en educación, El Mostrador, 30 julio 2007

Ejecutivo quita urgencia a proyecto de Educación, La Nación, 30 julio

Gobierno retira urgencia a Ley de Educación, La Segunda, 30 julio 2007

Gobierno quitará urgencia a proyecto de Educación para estudiar propuesta opositora, La Segundo, 30 julio 2007

Gobierno quitará urgencia a proyecto de Educación para estudiar propuesta opositora, Emol, 30 julio 2007

Recursos asociados

Preguntas y breves respuestas sobre el Proyecto de Ley General de Educación presentado por la Alianza, 18 julio 2007

Comentarios personales en torno al proyecto que sustituye la LOCE

Anuncios de política educacional: Ley General de Educación - Registro de Prensa día a día

Exposición ante la Comisión de Educación de la H. Cámara de Diputados sobre el Proyecto de Ley General de Educación, 21 junio 2007

La reforma al sistema escolar: aportes para el debate, 15 mayo 2007. Libro publicado por Mariana Aylwin, Harald Beyer, José Joaquín Brunner, Abelardo Castro, Cristián Cox, Loreto Fontaine, Jorge Manzi, Alejandra Mizala, Claudio Orrego, Carlos Peña, coordinado por José Joaquín Brunner y Carlos Peña, como un aporte para el debate sobre la nueva Ley General de Educación que se discute en el Parlamento.

Ministra de Educación anuncia trabajo político legislativo junto a la alianza para abordar proyectos en materia educacional

o La Secretaria de Estado anunció la creación de una comisión de trabajo “político –legislativa” que busca consensuar distintos puntos de vista y analizar las diversas propuestas educacionales presentadas para mejorar la calidad de la educación en nuestro país.

o La Ministra Provoste destacó que con el fin de establecer plazos convenidos, se le quitará la urgencia simple al proyecto de Ley General de Educación.

o “Estamos frente a la gran oportunidad de mejorar efectivamente la calidad de la educación de nuestros niños”, manifestó la titular de Educación.

o Por su parte el senador Larraín señaló que “hemos convenido con el gobierno trabajar en un acuerdo político legislativo, que nos permita darle a Chile una respuesta sólida de que la situación de la calidad de la educación en el país va a mejorar sustancialmente".

o Asimismo la vicepresidenta de RN, Lily Pérez, manifestó que “tenemos la mejor voluntad. Hoy es una expresión de voluntad tener la posibilidad de llegar a un acuerdo político-legislativo donde todos puedan confluir”.


La Ministra de Educación, Yasna Provoste Campillay, sostuvo en el día de hoy una reunión de trabajo junto a miembros de la Alianza y al Ministro Secretario General de la Presidencia, José Antonio Viera Gallo, para abordar el mecanismo de trabajo de la futura comisión político - legislativa que analizará el proyecto de Ley General de Educación y estudiará la propuesta presentada por la oposición.

El anunció lo realizó hoy la Secretaria de Estado, acompañada del presidente de la Unión Demócrata Independiente (UDI), el senador Hernán Larraín y de la secretaria general de Renovación Nacional (RN), Lily Pérez. A la cita acudieron además, la Subsecretaria de Educación, Pilar Romaguera, el senador Baldo Prokurica (RN), el senador Andrés Chadwick (UDI), el senador Andrés Allamand (RN) y la sociologa Patricia Matte. Además estuvo presente el jefe del Departamento Jurídico del MINEDUC, Rodrigo González y el jefe Técnico del departamento de Currículo y Evaluacióndel MINEDUC,Pedro Montt.

Los equipos de la comisión político –legislativa van a ser integrados por los mismos grupos parlamentarios que trabajan en la Cámara Baja y en el Senado analizando los diversos proyectos de ley, a los que se sumarán los equipos técnicos de ambos sectores. En la medida que se vayan produciendo los acuerdos se van a ir alimentando los proyectos legislativos que se van a seguir tramitando en el Congreso, y por es motivo, la sede donde trabajará el recién creado equipo técnico legislativo será el propio Congreso Nacional.

La Ministra Provoste destacó en la oportunidad que con el fin de establecer los plazos convenidos, se le quitará la urgencia simple al proyecto de Ley General de Educación. “Lo hacemos con el objetivo de poder escuchar los distintos planteamientos, poder analizar las diversas propuestas, y poder buscar los espacios para alcanzar acuerdos, entendiéndose que entre ambas iniciativas hay amplias convergencias”, afirmó la titular de Educación.

Asimismo manifestó que el trabajo legislativo no se verá interrumpido por el trabajo de esta comisión. “Porque hemos señalado que vamos a buscar consensos por grandes áreas de interés y donde hay amplias convergencias, independiente del trabajo que seguirá realizando el parlamento al respecto”.

Finalmente la Ministra Provoste recalcó que estamos frente a una gran oportunidad de mejorar la calidad de la educación. “Estamos frente a la gran oportunidad de mejorar efectivamente la calidad de la educación de nuestros niños. La creación de esta comisión “político-legislativa” con la oposición busca lograr un sólido acuerdo nacional en materia de educación. Ya es tiempo de buscar esos importantes acuerdos, hay amplias convergencias entre las partes y no hay excusa para no lograrlos”, señaló Provoste.

Por su parte, el senador Larraín señaló que nadie puede restarse a realizar los mejores esfuerzos por mejorar la calidad del servicio educativo, y ayudar así a que miles de niños enfrenten el futuro con mejores expectativas y oportunidades. “Nosotros hemos preparado una iniciativa alternativa al la Ley General de Educación, que esperamos se analice minuciosamente en la comisión de trabajo, de todas maneras, no es nuestro afán ni el de ningún miembro de este recién formado equipo de trabajo, imponer nuestro proyecto por sobre el de la Concertación. Nadie puede imponer su proyecto al otro”, afirmó el presidente de la UDI.

En este sentido manifestó que “hemos convenido con el gobierno trabajar en un acuerdo político legislativo que sin suspender la tramitación de los diversos proyectos en el Congreso puedan buscar las convergencias que nos permitan darle a Chile una respuesta sólida de que la situación de la calidad de la educación en el país va a mejorar sustancialmente", agregó el senador.

Finalmente señaló que un acuerdo de esa naturaleza no sólo resuelve esas diferencias, sino que además le da una señal al país, de que cuando se trata de aspectos de esa importancia y envergadura, la Alianza está disponible para trabajar por el bien del país.

Asimismo la vicepresidenta de RN, Lily Pérez, manifestó que "hoy tenemos una buena noticia, porque nos hemos sentado a la mesa en conjunto Alianza-Gobierno a discutir sobre un asunto que es la calidad de la educación".

En este sentido Pérez recalcó que “tenemos la mejor voluntad. Hoy es una expresión de voluntad tener la posibilidad de llegar a un acuerdo político-legislativo donde todos puedan confluir, tanto los parlamentarios de la Alianza como nuestros técnicos, con las autoridades del MINEDUC y sus técnicos”.

Posted by jjbrunner at 07:50 PM | Comments (1)

Julio 29, 2007

Reflexiones para políticas de educación superior: Exposición ante el Consejo Asesor Presidencial

Transcripción resumida de la exposición verbal realizada en la Sesión del día 25 de junio 2007 ante el Consejo Asesor Presidencial de Educación Superior, exposición que fue acompañada por un conjunto de láminas de apoyo contenidas en la correspondiente presentación.

Bajar documento aquí. 40 KB

Recursos asociados

Actas y Avances del Trabajo del Consejo. Incluye:

-- Resúmen de avance Consejo Asesor Presidencial por la Educación Superior
-- ACTA Consejo Asesor Presidencial 28 mayo 07
-- ACTA Consejo Asesor Presidencial 24 mayo 07
-- ACTA Consejo Asesor Presidencial 17 mayo 07
-- ACTA Consejo Asesor Presidencial 10 mayo 07

Visión de los estudiantes: Acta CONFECH, Atacama, junio 2007 400 KB

Acta 8° Sesión
Consejo Asesor Presidencial Educación Superior
Fecha: Lunes 25 de junio de 2007

Horario: 9:30 a 13:30 hrs.
Lugar: Sala de Consejo, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile.

La sesión contó con la asistencia de los siguientes miembros: Carlos Peña, quien preside la sesión, Julio Castro, Víctor Pérez, Sergio Bravo, Mónica Jiménez, Alfonso Muga, Juan Pablo Rosso, Agustín Squella, Sergio Torres, Manuel Krauskopf, Andrés Bernasconi, José Rodríguez Jorge Carvajal, Juan Pablo Prieto, Fernando Montes, Sol Serrano, Matko Koljatic, Carlos Mujica, Marcelo Von Chrismar, Marcela Espinoza, Víctor Gonzalez, Pablo Cuevas, Giorgio Boccardo, Juan Cristóbal Palma, Claudio Muñoz, Javier Candia, Myriam Barahona y por parte de la secretaría técnica los abogados Maria Francisca Jimenez y Cristian Inzulza.

Posted by jjbrunner at 01:14 PM | Comments (0)

Julio 28, 2007

Más sobre blogs académicos en dos partes

Hace unos días informábamos sobre Blogs académicos: una realidad, el liderazgo de los economistas y ejemplos de interés en el mundo e Ibero América.

PARTE I. ¿Qué son los blogs académicos?

En un reciente posting (27 julio 2007) en The Chronicle of Higher Education, Thomas Bartlett se pregunta: What Is an Academic Blog Anyway?.

Ver texto completo, comentarios iniciales y vínculos interesantes más abajo.

PARTE II. ¿Riesgos asociados a blogs académicos?

Otro interesante artículo publicado por The Chronicle of Higher Education el día 28 de julio 2006, se refiere a los potenciales riesgos del blogging académico.

En efecto, aquí un grupo de destacados académicos norteamericanos (cada uno, además, un bloggista), discute sobre el efecto que sobre la carrera académica de Juan R. I. Cole, professor of modern Middle East and South Asian history at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and president of the Middle East Studies Association, podría haber tenido su polémico Blog, Informed Comment - Thoughts on the Middle East, History, and Religion. donde ha expresado sus opiniones críticas a G.W. Bush sobre la Guerra de Irak.

Artículo completo y debate entre los académicos

Comment, four years ago, Juan R.I. Cole became arguably the most visible commentator writing on the Middle East today. A professor of modern Middle East and South Asian history at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and president of the Middle East Studies Association, Cole has voiced strong opposition to the war in Iraq and to the treatment of the Palestinians, garnering him plaudits from the left and condemnation from supporters of Israel and President Bush's foreign policy. In the words of a colleague, Cole has done something no other scholar of the region has done since Bernard Lewis: "become a household word."

In the spring, Informed Comment took center stage in another arena — Cole's own career. After two departments recommended him for a tenured position at Yale University, a senior committee decided last month not to offer him the job after all. Although Yale has declined to explain its decision, numerous accounts in the news media have speculated that Cole's appointment was shot down because of views he expressed on his blog. We asked seven academic bloggers to weigh in on Cole's case and on the hazards of academic blogging.

The Lessons of Juan Cole, by Siva Vaidhyanathan

The Politics of Academic Appointments, by Glenn Reynolds

The Trouble With Blogs, by Daniel W. Drezner

Exposed in the Blogosphere, by Ann Althouse

The Invisible College, by J. Bradford DeLong

The Attention Blogs Bring, by Michael Bérubé

The Controversy That Wasn't, by Erin O'Connor

Juan R.I. Cole Responds

What Is an Academic Blog Anyway?

Is it any blog written by an academic, even if the posts are about the messiness of the blogger’s house (warning: The language is a little, um, rough)?

Is it a sober blog written by academics about their particular discipline – like this one.

Something in-between? All of the above?

And, as long as I’m asking rhetorical questions, does it make a blog better if you throw in a liberal dose of personal information? Do you, for example, care that I’m eating a sandwich right now? What if I told you it was a peanut-butter-and-honey sandwich?

I don’t know. I’m asking. Also, I’m eating.

Thomas Bartlett | Posted on Friday July 27, 2007 | Permalink

Comments

Hmmm…. According to the FAQ at Academic Blogs (for which Henry Ferrell is using a wiki, BTW),

What are the necessary qualifications for a blog to be listed? They’re pretty simple – the blog has to be written by an academic. That is to say, the author should be either a member of a third level institution’s faculty (i.e. community college, college, university, technical institute or whatever), or pursuing a doctoral degree, or employed by a third level institution to do academically relevant work (such as working as a university librarian).

Hence, my blogs (e.g., EBDBlog.com) apparently qualify, even though I treat them more as a public service than as an academic outlet.

I don’t know either, and I’m out of snack crackers.

— John Lloyd Jul 27, 04:05 PM #

How about a member of the Motion Picture Academy?

— Parker Jul 27, 04:30 PM #

Academic blogs differ from other blogs in that they can be just as stupid, but they will have letters after the writers (or school affiliations) name that will mislead a tiny fraction of the real world into thinking they are worth reading as opposed to the Left-nut bag blogs, the teenage sex blogs, and the predator lying blogs, and the pseudo politico blogs, the gamer blogs …urp.

A new concept: the blog clog created by a food dude eating McCrap while abandoning life for virtual gluttony.

— Muap Conners Jul 27, 05:16 PM #

Posted by jjbrunner at 01:42 PM | Comments (0)

La discusión sobre el pago por mérito a los profesores en los Estados Unidos

Un artículo de Vaishali Honawar, publicado en la revista Education Week el día 26 de julio, informa sobre el debate que está teniendo lugar en los Estados Unidos sobre el pago por mérito a los profesores del sistema público de enseñanza. Se trataría, en breve, de vincular los premios salariales de los docentes al rendimiento de los alumnos, especialmente aquellos más vulnerables.

Según informa Education Week (ver artículo completo más abajo):

The measure would require states to set up data systems to track students’ academic progress. The systems would, among other things, link student-achievement data to teachers, allowing states to measure teacher effectiveness.

The bill also would give grants for programs that change teacher compensation, which could include better pay for more effective teachers, and incentives for the best teachers to teach in high-need schools. To close the achievement gap, the proposal also calls for a school-based rewards system for teachers, administrators, and other staff members that work to improve the most disadvantaged schools.

Por su lado, los críticos señalan que no existe evidencia que apoye la conveniencia de introducir este tipo de esquema de remuneraciones por mérito.

Critics say no evidence yet exists that paying teachers for performance actually leads to gains in student achievement. Some research is under way, including a three-year study of the merit-pay system in Texas and a few other locations that began earlier this year at Vanderbilt University.

States have also not rushed to adopt such plans. So far, only Florida, Minnesota, and Texas have done so, but many districts in those states have been reluctant to join in, despite the lure of additional funds.

Recursos asociados

Evaluación del desempeño docente, Alejandra Mizala (Presentación), junio 2007 790 KB

Incentivos por Responsabilidades, Larry Lashway, ERIC Digest 152 - 2001

Remuneracion alternativa para los profesores (Alternative Teacher Compensation), Brad Goorian, ERIC Digest, ED469316 - 2000

Long Reviled, Merit Pay Gains Among Teachers , The New York Times, June 18, 2007

Gerstner Commission Endorses Teacher Merit Pay, Robert Holland, School Reform News, April 1, 2004

Stand by Me: What Teachers Really Think About Unions, Merit Pay and Other Professional Matters, Steve Farkas, Jean Johnson and Ann Duffett with Leslie Moye and Jackie Vine, 2003

Teacher Salary and Merit Pay, American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)

Merit Pay for Teachers: A Meritorious Concept or Not?, Kathy A. Johnson, 2000

Merit Pay Gaining Bipartisan Favor in Federal Arena
By Vaishali Honawar

Performance pay for teachers appears to be gaining favor with federal lawmakers of all political stripes.

Sens. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., Mary L. Landrieu, D-La., and Joseph I. Lieberman, IConn., put forth a proposal this month on major changes to the No Child Left Behind Act that includes incentives for states to look at performance-pay programs to attract teachers to underperforming schools.

Just days earlier, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois made headlines when he supported merit pay before the annual convention of the National Education Association, a majority of whose 3.2 million members are teachers.

Observers say the deepening interest from federal policymakers in the concept at a time when the NCLB law is due for reauthorization is significant and reflects the intense national discussion among educators on the topic.

But what is also shifting is the blurring of the political divide. In the past, supporters of performance pay have tended to be largely Republican, including the Bush administration, which has given out several Teacher Incentive Fund grants to districts that have implemented such programs.

Gary Huggins, the director of the Aspen Institute’s NCLB commission, said policymakers, regardless of political affiliation, appear to be attracted to performance pay in increasing numbers “because you want to use every tool on board” to attract new teachers to the profession and to improve troubled schools.

“This is one of the fascinating ways in which NCLB has changed the world,” Mr. Huggins added.

The Coleman-Landrieu-Lieberman bill, the All Students Can Achieve Act of 2007 , is slated for introduction before Congress starts its August recess. Its proposals are based largely on a list of changes to the federal education law that the bipartisan NCLB panel crafted for the Aspen Institute, a Washington-based nonprofit organization.

The measure would require states to set up data systems to track students’ academic progress. The systems would, among other things, link student-achievement data to teachers, allowing states to measure teacher effectiveness.

Degrees of Opposition
The bill also would give grants for programs that change teacher compensation, which could include better pay for more effective teachers, and incentives for the best teachers to teach in high-need schools. To close the achievement gap, the proposal also calls for a school-based rewards system for teachers, administrators, and other staff members that work to improve the most disadvantaged schools.

“We are not trying to set up a merit-pay system. We are trying to give states an option,” said Stephanie Allen, a spokeswoman for Sen. Landrieu.

But Joel Packer, the chief NCLB lobbyist for the NEA, said the union is firmly opposed to the federal government getting involved in merit pay, even with a proposal that makes it voluntary for states or districts to join.

Even value-added models that track student growth over a period of years, he pointed out, are based on test scores and do not take into account the differences between individual students.

“Our position is that one or two test scores based on the NCLB test [requirements] are not comprehensive and a fair way to evaluate teachers,” Mr. Packer said.

The federal government should instead focus on providing hard-to-staff schools with a variety of tools and resources, such as high-quality mentoring programs and professional development for teachers, good working conditions, and smaller classes, he added.

How far the bill will advance in a field already crowded with pieces of legislation seeking changes to the No Child Left Behind Act also remains to be seen. Along with the powerful teachers’ unions, several members of Congress remain opposed to the concept of performance pay in varying degrees.

“You have to be careful with merit pay,” Edward J. McElroy, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, said recently, adding that he does not support systems in which principals decide which teachers are rewarded, or those that use student test scores.

Prominent Democrats such as Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., the chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, have opposed performance pay based on student test scores.

After Mr. Obama’s speech to the NEA this month, Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, D-Conn., another contender for the Democratic presidential nomination, issued a statement saying a performance-pay system would “encourage teaching to the test and discourage teachers from working in schools with large numbers of disadvantaged students.”

Critics say no evidence yet exists that paying teachers for performance actually leads to gains in student achievement. Some research is under way, including a three-year study of the merit-pay system in Texas and a few other locations that began earlier this year at Vanderbilt University.

States have also not rushed to adopt such plans. So far, only Florida, Minnesota, and Texas have done so, but many districts in those states have been reluctant to join in, despite the lure of additional funds.

On the other hand, the idea has gained support from some unlikely quarters: For instance, some local union leaders, particularly those belonging to the Teacher Union Reform Network, a network of affiliates from the NEA and the AFT, have touted such plans. And in districts such as Denver and Minneapolis, the locals worked hand-in-hand with the districts to create performance-pay systems.

Heather Peske, the director of teacher quality for the Education Trust, a Washington group that favors changing teacher compensation said the grants proposed by Sens. Coleman, Landrieu, and Lieberman would give states the option of looking at differentiated pay.

“We have a lot of evidence now that teachers leave the profession because they feel they are not recognized for their efforts,” she said. “There are effective teachers in high-poverty schools who are wondering why there are teachers in low-poverty schools whose salaries are the same.”

“At some point,”Ms. Peske said, “we … are going to have to respond” to those concerns.

Vol. 26, Issue 44, Pages 20-21

Posted by jjbrunner at 12:52 PM | Comments (2)

Julio 26, 2007

Publicaciones académicas: cambios en el horizonte para las editoriales universitarias y para los investigadores

Ithaka, un grupo non-profit de los Estados Unidos, viene de publicar un interesantísimo informe titulado University Publishing in a Digital Age.

Bajar el documento aquí 475 KB

Como se señala en el Resumen Ejecutivo del Informe (ver completo más abajo), la revolución digital está transformando la empresa editorial de las universidades y las prácticas de comunicación académica.

Al lado de las publicaciones científicas formales, aquellas que usualmente utilizan las "ciencias duras" y aparecen en revistas registradas por Thomson-ISI, se está extendiendo rápidamente el sector de la grey literature, empleada tanto por las ciencias naturales como por las ciencias sociales y las humanidades, que utilizan como soporte la Red y están dando lugar a una revolución de proporciones en las prácticas de la comunicación académica.

El Report de Ithaka explora estas transformaciones y analiza la forma como las universidades y sus editoriales pueden adapatarse al nuevo entorno emergente.

Sobre el Informe, The Chronicle of Higher Education del 26 de julio escribe:

Written by Laura Brown, a former president of Oxford University Press USA, and two members of Ithaka's Strategic Services group, Rebecca Griffiths and Matthew Rascoff, the report draws on research conducted in late 2006 and early 2007. It began as an in-depth look at the current state of university presses, but as its title suggests, it grew into "a broader assessment" of university-based publishing.

The report was sponsored by JSTOR, a widely used nonprofit archive of scholarly journals, and Ithaka. So it is likely to raise some eyebrows with its suggestion that "a powerful technology, service, and marketing platform" -- like JSTOR's -- might solve many of the problems it describes. JSTOR could play a role in creating such a platform, as Ithaka's president, Kevin M. Guthrie, lays out in the report's preface. But, Mr. Guthrie stresses, "this report has not been written, nor has the research been conducted, in an effort to provide justification for any JSTOR effort."

Resumen Ejecutivo

This report began as a review of U.S. university presses and their role in scholarly publishing. It has evolved into a broader assessment of the importance of publishing to universities. By publishing we mean simply the communication and broad dissemination of knowledge, a function that has become both more complex and more important with the introduction and rapid evolution of digital and networking technologies. There is a seeming limitless range of opportunities for a faculty member to distribute his or her work, from setting up a web page or blog, to posting an article to a working paper website or institutional repository, to including it in a peer-reviewed journal or book. In American colleges and universities, access to the internet and World Wide Web is ubiquitous; consequently nearly all intellectual effort results in some form of “publishing”. Yet universities do not treat the publishing function as an important, mission-centric endeavor. Publishing generally receives little attention from senior leadership at universities and the result has been a scholarly publishing industry that many in the university community find to be increasingly out of step with the important values of the academy.

As information transforms the landscape of scholarly publishing, it is critical that universities deploy the full range of their resources – faculty research and teaching activity, library collections, information technology capacity, and publishing expertise – in ways that best serve both local interests and the broader public interest. We will argue that a renewed commitment to publishing in its broadest sense can enable universities to more fully realize the potential global impact of their academic programs, enhance the reputations of their specific institutions, maintain a strong voice in determining what constitutes important scholarship and which scholars deserve recognition, and in some cases reduce costs. There seems to us to be a pressing and urgent need to revitalize the university’s publishing role and capabilities in this digital age.

We began this project with a set of hypotheses and views based on our own experience and prior discussions with people in the community. These hypotheses were tested through an extensive series of interviews with administrators, press directors, librarians, and other stakeholders on campus. We also conducted a survey of press directors to understand better their relationships to their host institutions, progress in getting online, and ability to develop new programs. Some of what we learned through this process confirmed our sense of how the world is changing, but we also heard views that we had not expected, particularly how critical many were of university presses and the difficulties they have had in adapting.

What the world looks like and where we are headed

Formal scholarly publishing is characterized by a process of selection, editing, printing and distribution of an author’s content by an intermediary (preferably one with some name recognition). Informal scholarly publication, by comparison, describes the dissemination of content (sometimes called “gray literature”) that generally has not passed through these processes, such as working papers, lecture notes, student newsletters, etc. In the past decade, the range and importance of the latter has been dramatically expanded by information technology, as scholars increasingly turn to preprint servers, blogs, listservs, and institutional repositories, to share their work, ideas, data, opinions, and critiques. These forms of informal publication have become pervasive in the university and college1 environment. As scholars increasingly rely on these channels to share and find information, the boundaries between formal and informal publication will blur. These changes in the behavior of scholars will require changes in the approaches universities take to all kinds of publishing.

Universities have traditionally participated in the formal publication of their intellectual output through a network of presses, but most publishing of this output has long taken place outside the university sector, especially in the sciences. For a variety of reasons university presses have become less integrated with the core activities and missions of their home campuses over the years — a drift that threatens to widen as information technology transforms the landscape of scholarly publishing. The responsibility for disseminating digital scholarship is migrating instead in two directions – towards large (primarily commercial) publishing platforms and towards informal channels operated by other entities on campus, mostly libraries, academic computing centers, academic departments, and cross-institutional research centers. While these entities all play a critical role in scholarly communications2, university presses have developed publishing skills and experience over many years that are also very valuable in this new context and that would be costly, if not impossible, to replicate. We hope to highlight those skills in this report and suggest how they can be adapted to the digital age.

Publishing in the future will look very different than it has looked in the past. Consumption patterns have already changed dramatically, as many scholars have increasingly begun to rely on electronic resources to get information that is useful to their research and teaching. Transformation on the creation and production sides is taking longer, but ultimately may have an even more profound impact on the way scholars work. Publishers have made progress putting their legacy content online, especially with journals. We believe the next stage will be the creation of new formats made possible by digital technologies, ultimately allowing scholars to work in deeply integrated electronic research and publishing environments that will enable real-time dissemination, collaboration, dynamically-updated content, and usage of new media.

Alongside these changes in content creation and publication, alternative distribution models (institutional repositories, pre-print servers, open access journals) have also arisen with the aim to broaden access, reduce costs, and enable open sharing of content. Different economic models will be appropriate for different types of content and different audiences. It seems critical to us that there continue to be a diverse marketplace for publishing a range of content, from fee-based to open access, from peer reviewed to selfpublished, from single author to collaboratively created, from simple text to rich media. This marketplace should involve commercial and not-for-profit entities, and should include collaborations among libraries, presses, and academic computing centers.

What will, or should, the future scholarly communications system look like? First, every university that produces research should have a publishing strategy, but that does not mean that it should have a “press”. Much of the content produced in the future will be disseminated electronically, and a new constellation of skills (including some that currently reside in presses, as well as those from libraries and IT groups) will be required to do this most effectively. Second, in the digital environment certain activities and assets (e.g. technology development, marketing) will be consolidated onto large scale platforms. These new digital publishing activities are central to the research and teaching missions of universities, and it therefore seems critically important that the university community be able to influence strongly the development of these platforms to insure that they support long held university values, rather than allowing them to be driven primarily by commercial incentives. And third, as the environment evolves, university presses will no doubt change. Some universities will encourage and enable their presses to grow and take more of a leadership role. Other institutions may decide to open new presses. Others may close their presses or let their presses evolve into more specialized enterprises with a focus on editorial and credentialing services while depending on others for core infrastructure and marketing services. What seems clear is that to succeed presses are going to need to be a more important partner in helping their host institutions to fulfill their research and teaching mission.

What needs to be done

In our interviews we detected significant detachment from administrators about publishing’s connection to their core mission; a high level of energy and excitement from librarians about reinventing their roles on campus to meet the evolving needs of their constituents; and a wide range of responses from press directors, from those who are continuing to do what they have always done, to those who are actively reconnecting with their host institutions’ academic programs and engaging in collaborative efforts to develop new electronic products. Many press directors have a sense of what needs to be done to jumpstart their new enterprises, but lack the financial capital, technical staff, and technological skills to pursue this kind of agenda. Librarians and press directors acknowledge that they have limited experience in collaborating effectively with one another and operate on different business models that make collaboration challenging, but at the same time we found that they have an appreciation for the unique skills and experience that each brings to the table. Finally, there was a strong sense that a new third-party enterprise or at least a catalytic force is needed to: facilitate the investment of capital; lead the community toward a shared vision of the scholarly communications landscape; help institutions find their place in that new system; marshal the necessary ongoing resources; and help motivate collaboration both within campuses and across institutions.

Administrators, librarians and presses each have a role to play (as do scholars, though this report is not directed at them). Senior administrators must provide strong leadership and embrace the fact that in this digital era, publishing, broadly defined, is a centrally important activity of any university. They will have to manage university assets and resources strategically if universities are to continue to exert the appropriate level of influence on the assessment and dissemination of knowledge and scholarship. Press directors and librarians must work together to create the intellectual products of the future which increasingly will be created and distributed in electronic media. Their efforts should be closely and intelligently connected to their campuses’ academic programs and priorities in order to ensure their relevancy and institutional commitment. All three parties should work together to create a shared electronic publishing infrastructure that will save costs, build scale, leverage expertise, promote innovation, and integrate the productive resources of universities to maintain a robust, diverse and collaborative university publishing environment.

Clearly this is too ambitious an agenda for institutions to pursue individually. Creating these sorts of platforms requires scale and investment of substantial capital, and commercial entities are far ahead of the university sector in investing the necessary level of resources. Each institution must determine what it can do locally, and if and when it should combine forces with other institutions. One of the objectives of this study was to gauge the community’s interest in a possible collective investment in a technology platform to support innovation in university-based, mission-driven publishing. This infrastructure could serve as the foundation for new forms of university-centered academic publishing in the digital age.

Notas
1 Please note that throughout this paper we use the term “university” as shorthand for both universities and colleges.

2 In the past, terms such as scholarly communications and scholarly publishing were often used to depict research outputs that met
certain criteria, such as certification, selection, and preservation. We argue here that the lines between formal and informal
publication are breaking down, and thus the definitions of these terms are in flux. We use them in this paper to refer to the broad
spectrum of ways that scholars share their research with one another.

Posted by jjbrunner at 08:08 PM | Comments (0)

Julio 25, 2007

Mercados Universitarios: conceptos, enfoques y resultados

Presentación usada como base para una discusión, en el Instituto de Investigación Social de la Universidad Diego Portales, del libro (en prensa): Mercados Universitarios: El Nuevo Escenario de la Educación Superior, el día 25 julio 2007. Este libro es producto de un proyecto FONDECYT.

Bajar la Presentación aquí 620 KB

Recursos asociados

Mercados universitarios: Bibliografía y referencias de la literautura reciente, marzo 2007

Escenarios futuros de la educación superior, septiembre 2006

Diversificación y diferenciación de la educación superior chilena en un marco internacional comparado, agosto 2006

El mercado avanza sobre la educación superior: un Reader dinámico, noviembre 2005

Guiar el Mercado. Informe sobre la Educación Superior en Chile, 2005

Posted by jjbrunner at 08:54 PM | Comments (0)

Educación Superior en Iberoamerica: Informe 2007

Se aquí pone a disposición de los interesados el libro Educación Superior en Iberoamerica: Informe 2007, cuyo lanzamiento se realizó hace pocos días en Seminario Internacional CINDA: "La Educación Superior: Antecedentes y Perspectivas"

Bajar texto completo del libro aquí 3,15 MB

Nota: Dos primeras páginas en blanco.

Ver más abajo los autores e Informes Nacionales.

Presentación del libro

El Centro Interuniversitario de Desarrollo–Cinda, ejecutó durante el año 2006 un proyecto con el propósito de analizar los antecedentes, situación y perspectivas de la educación superior en Iberoamérica.

En el contexto de este proyecto se efectuaron dieciséis informes nacionales sobre los siguientes países: Argentina, Bolivia, Brasil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Chile, Ecuador, España, México, Panamá, Perú, Portugal, Puerto Rico, República Dominicana, Uruguay y Venezuela, y un informe global sobre la Educación Superior en Iberoamérica, que utilizó tanto los estudios nacionales como la literatura más reciente y significativa sobre el tema.

Los informes nacionales estuvieron a cargo de equipos de especialistas integrados por expertos en el tema y autoridades de universidades vinculadas con Cinda, con gran conocimiento
y experiencia de los respectivos sistemas.

La coordinación y preparación del informe global estuvieron a cargo de José Joaquín Brunner, consultor de Cinda.

Cinda agradece a todas las instituciones y personas que participaron en este esfuerzo.

Nuestro especial reconocimiento a Universia y a su Consejero Delegado Jaume Pagès, así como a los expertos y especialistas que participaron en el proyecto.

Iván Lavados Montes
Director Ejecutivo
Cinda
Santiago, Abril de 2007.

Autores del Informe y de los informes nacionales

Coordinador: José Joaquín Brunner, con la asistencia de Felipe Salazar.

José Joaquín Brunner, Chileno, Profesor Titular e Investigador de la Escuela de Gobierno de la Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez. Especialista en sistemas y políticas comparadas de educación superior. Ha trabajado en diversos países de América Latina, África, Europa del Este y Asia Central. Fue Presidente de la Comisión Nacional de Acreditación, del Consejo Nacional de Televisión y Ministro Secretario General del Gobierno de Chile. Autor de 16 libros. Premio Kneller – 2004 de la Comparative and International Education Society.

Felipe Salazar, Chileno, economista de la Universidad de Chile. Miembro del equipo de investigación de políticas
educacionales de la Escuela de Gobierno de la Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez. Ha participado en la elaboración de diversos informes nacionales e internacionales relacionados con el diseño, implementación y evaluación de resultados de políticas educacionales.

Argentina
Informe Nacional 210 KB

Carlos Alberto Marquís (especialista principal), Argentino, Licenciado en Sociología de la Universidad de Buenos Aires. Magíster en Sociología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM). Investigador del Sistema Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Tecnológicas de Argentina. Director Ejecutivo de FOMEC 1995–2000. Consultor de organismos internacionales en el área de educación, ciencia y tecnología.

María Victoria Gómez De Erice, Argentina, Doctora en Letras, Universidad París viii – Saint Denis. Especialista en Gestión Universitaria. Rectora Universidad Nacional de Cuyo 2005–actual.Jorge FloresArgentino, Magíster Universitario en Gestión Pública, Universidad Complutense de Madrid; Candidato a Doctor en Ciencias Políticas. Vicerrector Universidad Nacional de Quilmes 2004 –actual.

Bolivia
Informe Nacional 812 KB

Ramón Daza Rivero (especialista principal), Boliviano, Bachiller Universitario en Filosofía y Letras, Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca, España. Magíster en Planificación y Desarrollo de la Educación, Universidad Simón Bolívar, Venezuela. Profesor titular en varias universidades de América Latina. Viceministro de Educación Superior, Ciencia y Tecnología, 2001–2002. Especialista y Consultor Internacional en temas universitarios.

Vanya Mónica Roca Urioste, Boliviana, Magíster en Administración de Empresas, Universidad Privada de Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia. Especializada en Administración Universitaria. Directora Académica UPSA, 1997–actual.

Brasil
Informe Nacional 275 KB

Roberto Leal Lobo (especialista principal), Brasileño, Ingeniero Eléctrico, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Río de Janeiro, Brasil. Doctor Universidad de Purdue, USA. Profesor Titular Universidad de Sao Paulo, Brasil. Ex Director del CNPq / Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología. Rector USP hasta 1993. Consultor Internacional en desarrollo e innovación tecnológica y política y gestión universitaria.

Chile
Informe Nacional 382 KB

Luis Eduardo González (especialista principal), Chileno, Ingeniero Civil, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Doctor en Educación, Harvard University. Consultor permanente de Cinda.

Julio Arturo Mora Cerna, Chileno, Doctor en Ciencias Matemáticas, Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Director de Estudios Estratégicos, Universidad de Concepción.

Ester Fecci PérezChilena, estudiante del Programa de Doctorado Nuevas Tendencias – Dirección de Empresas, Universidad de Valladolid, España. Pro Decana, Facultad Ciencias Económicas y Administrativas, Universidad Austral de Chile.

Juan Pablo Prieto Cox, Chileno, Doctor en Ciencias, Ohio State University, USA. Ex Vicerrector Académico Universidad de Talca, Chile.

Olaya Ocaranza Manterola, Chilena, Ingeniero Civil Industrial, MBA. Directora de Análisis Institucional y Desarrollo Estratégico, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso, Chile.

Vladimir Marianov, Chileno, Ingeniero, Doctor en Filosofía, John Hopkins University. Director Académico, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile.

Colombia
Informe Nacional 480 KB

Luis Enrique Orozco (especialista principal), Colombiano, Diplomado en Sociología del Desarrollo y Doctor en Filosofía, Universidad de Lovaina, Bélgica; Vicerrector Académico Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá 1989–1996; Director del Magíster en Dirección Universitaria de la Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá (actual).

Alberto Roa Varelo, Colombiano, Magíster en Investigación y Desarrollo Educativo y Social. Ex Miembro del Consejo Nacional de Acreditación (CNA). Vicerrector Académico, Universidad del Norte de Colombia (actual).

Javier Medina Vásquez, Colombiano, Magíster en Administración de Empresas, Doctor en Ciencias Sociales, Pontificia Universidad Gregoriana. Profesor Titular en Ciencias de la Administración, Universidad del Valle.

María Dolores Pérez, Colombiana, Master en Política Social, Universidad Externado de Colombia. Secretaria de Planificación Pontificia Universidad Javeriana (actual).

Costa Rica
Informe Nacional 320 KB

Gabriel Macaya Trejos (especialista principal), Costarricense, Doctor en Ciencias, Universidad de París. Premio Nacional de Ciencias de Costa Rica. Ex Rector Universidad de Costa Rica. Ex Presidente Junta Directiva de Cinda. Presidente Academia Nacional de Ciencias de Costa Rica.

Ecuador
Informe Nacional 450 KB

Gaudencio Zurita (especialista principal), Ecuatoriano, Master en Matemáticas y en Ciencias Estadísticas, Universidad de South Carolina, Columbia, USA. Miembro de la Academia Nacional de Ciencias. Director del Centro de Estudios e Investigaciones Estadísticas de la Escuela Superior Politécnica del Litoral, ESPOL.

Washington Macías, Ecuatoriano, Especialista en Planificación Estratégica, Asesor del Rectora de la Escuela Superior Politécnica del Litoral, ESPOL.

México
Download file 315 KB

Manuel Gil Antón (especialista principal), Mexicano, Doctor en Ciencias. Asesor Académico de la Rectoría General de la Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana de México. Profesor del área de Sociología de las Universidades de la UAM.

Panamá
Download file 210 KB

Vielka De Escobar (especialista principal), Panameña, Doctorada en Ciencias de la Educación. Subdirectora de Evaluación y Acreditación de la Universidad de Panamá. Especialista en Docencia Superior.

Perú
Download file 630 KB

La responsabilidad del estudio nacional de Perú estuvo a cargo del Consorcio de Universidades. El especialista principal fue mEduardo Paredes Bodegas, Peruano/Español, Master y Doctor en Medicina de la Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia.

Puerto Rico
Download file 280 KB

Ana Helvia Quintero (especialista principal), Portorriqueña, Doctora en Filosofía, Instituto Tecnológico de Massachusetts, USA. Catedrática del Departamento de Matemáticas, Universidad de Puerto Rico. Ex Subsecretaria de Educación. Ex Director Centro de Investigación e Innovación Educativa, Consejo General de Educación.

República Dominicana
Download file 370 KB

Altagracia López Ferreiras (especialista principal), Dominicana, Doctora en Educación de Nova Southeastern University (NSU). Ex Rectora Instituto Tecnológico de Santo Domingo (INTEC). Directora Centro de Innovación en Educación Superior de INTEC.

Radhamés Mejía (especialista principal), Dominicano, Licenciado en Sociología de la Pontificia Universidad Católica de Río de Janeiro y Master en Investigación Social de la Universidad de Kansas; Vicerrector de la Pontificia Universidad Católica Madre y Maestra y fundador y Director del Centro de Investigaciones de esta universidad.

Uruguay
Informe Nacional 500 KB

Enrique Martínez Larrechea (especialista principal), Uruguayo, Doctor en Relaciones Internacionales (c), Universidad del Salvador de Argentina. Ex Director de Educación, Ministerio de Educación y Cultura de Uruguay.

Venezuela
Informe Nacional 290 KB

Carmen García Guadilla (especialista principal), Venezolana, Doctorado en Estudios Sociales de la Educación, Universidad René Descartes de París. Ha sido Directora de la Revista de Educación Superior y Sociedad de Unesco/Iesalc. Directora del Centro de Estudios del Desarrollo, CENDES, Universidad Central de Venezuela.

Leonardo Montilva Venezolano, Doctorado en Ciencias Médicas Universidad del Zulia, Venezuela. Especialista en Salud Pública y Educación Superior. Vicerrector Universidad Centroccidental Lisandro Alvarado, Venezuela.

María Lourdes Acedo, Venezolana, Doctorado (en curso) Universidad de Sevilla, Área del Conocimiento: Investigación Didáctica y Organización de Instituciones Educativas. Responsable de la Maestría en Educación Superior Universitaria, Universidad Simón Bolívar de Venezuela.

España
Informe Nacional 155 KB
Francisco Michavila (especialista principal), Español, Doctor Ingeniero de Minas, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, España. Director Cátedra Unesco en Gestión y Política Universitaria, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. Rector Honorario Universidad Jaume I de Castellón. Ex Secretario Consejo General de Universidades de España.

Jorge Martínez, Nacido en México. Es Licenciado en Economía especializado en Finanzas Corporativas por la Universidad Autónoma de Guadalajara, UAG (México) con un Master en Gobierno y Administración Pública por el Instituto Universitario Ortega y Gasset. Actualmente es Subdirector de la Cátedra Unesco de Gestión y Política Universitaria de la Universidad Politécnica de Madrid y es autor de diversas publicaciones, ponencias y comunicaciones en coloquios internacionales sobre educación superior.

Cástor Méndez Paz, Español, Doctor en Filosofía y Ciencias de la Educación, Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, España. Catedrático de la Facultad de Filosofía y Letras (Psicología) en la Universidad de Santiago de Compostela. Ex Vicerrector de la Universidad de Santiago de Compostela.

Joan Cortadellas, Español, Licenciado en Sociología y Diplomado en Gestión Pública. Director Técnico Cátedra Unesco de Dirección Universitaria de la Universidad Politécnica de Cataluña, España.

Portugal
Download file 575 KB

La responsabilidad del estudio nacional de Portugal estuvo a cargo del Instituto Superior Técnico, IST.

Posted by jjbrunner at 11:25 AM | Comments (5)

Julio 24, 2007

Cómo enseñar mejor en la escuela

La prensa especializada da cuenta de la aparición del libro Teaching the Best Practice Way de los autores Harvey Daniels and Marilyn Bizar, bajo el sello editorial de Stenhouse Publishers.

Bajar el primer capítulo --How to Teach-- aquí 125 KB

Índice del libro

Contents
Contributed Pieces
Acknowledgments
Prologue
1. How to Teach
2. Reading-as-Thinking
3. Representing-to-Learn
4. Small-Group Activities
5. Classroom Workshop
6. Authentic Experiences
7. Reflective Assessment
8. Integrative Units
Epilogue
References
Index

Autores

Harvey Daniels and Marilyn Bizar teach at the Center for City Schools of National-Louis University in Chicago. Both former public school teachers, Harvey and Marilyn now collaborate with a network of twenty-five schools seeking to implement progressive teaching methods. Along with a team of six full-time teacher-leaders, they offer classroom consulting, staff development workshops, and leadership development for parents and principals. In 1995, they helped found the Best Practice High School, a new 400-student Chicago public school where methods do matter - to kids, teachers, and parents. Between them Harvey and Marilyn have authored or co-authored nine other books, including Best Practice: New Standards for Teaching and Learning in America's Schools, Thinking in Context, and Literature Circles: Voice and Choice in Book Clubs and Reading Groups, second edition. In the summer, Harvey and Marilyn help lead the Walloon Institute in Petoskey, Michigan, which gathers progressive educators from around the country to review and renew classroom practices.

Presentación del libro por la Editorial

Everyone talks about "best practice" teaching—but what does it actually look like in the classroom? How do working teachers translate complex curriculum standards into simple, workable classroom structures that embody exemplary instruction—and still let kids find joy in learning?

In Teaching the Best Practice Way, Harvey Daniels and Marilyn Bizar present seven basic teaching structures that make classrooms more active, experiential, collaborative, democratic, and cognitive, while simultaneously meeting "best practice" standards across subject areas and throughout the grades. Each section begins with an essay outlining one key method, providing its historical background and research results, and then describing the structure's vital features. Next, several teachers representing different grade levels and school communities explain how they adopted the basic model, adapted it to their students' needs, and made it their own.

Fully updating and expanding Methods that Matter (Stenhouse, 1998), Teaching the Best Practice Way adds the stories of twenty more celebrated teachers, including James Beane, Donna Ogle, Franki Sibberson, and others from around the country. A brand-new chapter focuses on reading as thinking, detailing the ways teachers can nurture strategic readers—readers who not only deeply understand the printed materials they encounter in school, but who also bring these cognitive strategies to their "reading" of film, art, music, and their experience of the world. The book also shares new research studies that validate the principles and activities of best practice teaching, along with lists of recommended materials that support each of the seven methods.

Unique in the field, Teaching the Best Practice Way speaks to all teachers, K–12, with stories, examples, and practical classroom materials for the teachers of all children. This is the book for teachers, schools, and districts that believe the big ideas about teaching really do cross all grade levels and subject areas. Education professors will also find this an ideal resource for use in methods courses.

Recurso asociado

The Power of Our Words: Teacher Language that Helps Children Learn

By Paula Denton, EdD

NEFC, 2007, 180 pages

Libro disponible en línea, por capítulos.

Tabla de contenido

Acknowledgement and Dedication
Table of Contents
Introduction
Chapter 1 General Guidelines for Teacher Language
Chapter 2 Envisioning: Language as a Spyglass
Chapter 3 Open-Ended Questions: Stretching Children's Academic and Social
Learning
Chapter 4 Listening: Understanding the Message in the Words
Chapter 5 Reinforcing Language: Seeing Children and Naming Their Strengths
Chapter 6 Reminding Language: Helping Students Remember Expectations
Chapter 7 Redirecting Language: Giving Clear Commands When Children Have Gone
Off Track
Epilogue Putting It All Together
Appendix A Examples of Effective Teacher Language
Appendix B The Process of Developing More Effective Teacher Language

Ver presentación de este libro más abajo

The Power of Our Words: Teacher Language That Helps Children Learn
An adapted excerpt from NEFC's new book, The Power of Our Words: Teacher Language That Helps Children Learn, by Paula Denton, EdD.

Language is one of the most powerful tools available to teachers. We can use language to stretch children’s curiosity, reasoning ability, creativity, and independence. One effective way to do this is by asking open-ended questions—those with no single right or wrong answer. Instead of predictable answers, open-ended questions elicit fresh and sometimes even startling insights and ideas, opening minds and enabling teachers and students to build knowledge together.

In this article, I give examples of open-ended questions, explain what makes them so powerful, and offer some tips on how to use these questions to bolster children’s learning.

Open-Ended Questions in Action

Ms. Nunn’s class is about to read a new story, and the children have opened their books to the first page. To spark their curiosity about the story, she asks a series of open-ended questions (shown here in italics) that draw out their thoughts, knowledge, and feelings.

“Before we start,” Ms. Nunn says, “take a look at just this page. What interesting words do you see?” After a few quiet moments, hands go up.

“Castle!” shouts Raymond. “Castles are cool! I have a model castle.”

“I can tell that’s an important word for you, Raymond. What clues does this word give you as to what the story might be about?”

“Knights? Usually castles have kings and knights.”

“Maybe it’s a fairy tale,” Keira adds.

“Hmm. Interesting,” Ms. Nunn muses. “What makes you think it might be a fairy tale?”

After the children have shared some thoughts on the nature of fairy tales, Ms. Nunn brings them back to her original question. “What are some other interesting words on this page?” she asks.

“Milkmaid,” offers Arnie. “What’s a milkmaid?”

“Hmm, what might a milkmaid be? Any guesses?”

“My grammy tells me a story about a milkmaid. It’s a girl and she works hard and she’s poor.”

“Oh, those might be some clues,” says the teacher. “What other clues could help us understand this word?”

The conversation continues with the children deeply engaged. Fifteen minutes later, the group has discussed context clues, compound words, historical jobs, fairy tales versus historical fiction, gender roles, and more. The students have been prompted to think, share their knowledge, analyze information, and connect ideas. Their interest in the story has grown, and their teacher has learned a great deal about what they know. Much of this richness derived from Ms. Nunn’s use of open-ended questions.

What Makes Open-Ended Questions So Powerful?

Children’s learning naturally loops through a cycle of wonder, exploration, discovery, reflection, and more wonder, leading them on to increasingly complex knowledge and sophisticated thinking. The power of open-ended questions comes from the way these questions tap into that natural cycle, inviting children to pursue their own curiosity about how the world works.
Open-ended questions show children that their teachers trust them to have good ideas, think for themselves, and contribute in valuable ways. The resulting sense of autonomy, belonging, and competence leads to engagement and deep investment in classroom activities.

Tips for Crafting Open-Ended Questions

Learning any new language habit takes reflection, time, and much practice. The Power of Our Words: Teacher Language That Helps Children Learn offers comprehensive guidelines on how to frame open-ended questions and make them a regular part of your classroom vocabulary. Here you’ll find just a taste of these guidelines.

Genuinely open up your curiosity about students’ thinking. For open-ended questions to be effective, it’s critical that we ask them with real curiosity about children’s thinking. Once I asked some fourth graders, “How might you use the colored pencils to show what you know about butterflies?”

“You could draw a butterfly and show the different parts,” one child said. Others suggested, “You could make a map of Monarch butterflies’ migration paths,” and “You could make a chart showing the butterfly’s life cycle.” Then another student offered, “You could write a story about a butterfly’s life and use different colors for different times in its life.”

Truly surprised by this last suggestion, I realized that if I hadn’t felt and conveyed genuine curiosity in all reasoned and relevant answers, that child probably wouldn’t have done the creative thinking that led to such a great idea. Because of it, students’ learning was stretched and our butterfly projects were richer.

Children can tell when their teachers are genuinely interested in their ideas. If we’re truly interested, over time children learn to trust that we really do want to know what and how they think. When they know this, they’re more willing to reason and reflect, they gain more practice in thinking for themselves, and they gradually become more skillful, creative thinkers.

Clarify the boundaries. Suppose when I asked, “How might you use the colored pencils to show what you know about butterflies?” a child had answered, “You could pretend that the colored pencils are butterflies and make a play about them.” Making such a play would have met the goals of this lesson, and in terms of the question I asked, this response is just as valid as the others. But because of the potential chaos and safety issues, having students “fly” colored pencils around the room was more than I wanted to deal with.

Fortunately, no student really gave such an answer. But the way to prevent such a response would have been first to clarify to myself the boundaries of what I wanted the children to think about, and then articulate these boundaries to the children. The resulting wording might have been “How could you use these colored pencils to draw or write something that shows what you know about butterflies?” This is still an open-ended question; it just has boundaries based on what I might see as appropriate options for a particular group of students.

Use words that encourage cooperation, not competition. Sometimes an open-ended question leads to competition to see who can give the best answer. Although well-managed competition has a place in certain school arenas, teachers usually use open-ended questions when the goal is for students to collaborate, to learn from and with each other, not to compete.

To keep discussions from turning into competitions, phrase your questions carefully. Competition often arises from questions beginning with “who” or “whose” (“Who knows a good way to use clay?”); using words such as “better,” “best,” or “most” (“How can we make this graph the most beautiful?”); or somehow elevating some students above others (“Kerry, what strategies for writing neatly can you show the class?”). These natural-seeming ways of talking assume some answers will be better than others, which encourages competition.

A simple rephrasing helps. Instead of “Who can tell me a good way to use the clay?” try “What are some good ways we could use the clay?” Replace “How can we make this graph the most beautiful?” with “What are some different ways to make this graph beautiful?”

Watch out for pseudo open-ended questions. These sound open-ended but have behind them the teacher’s desire for a certain answer. I once had a student who loved magenta. Everything she colored, painted, or modeled in clay prominently featured magenta. Perhaps because I’m not crazy about magenta, or because I wanted her to buck the “girls are pink, boys are blue” stereotype, one day, seeing another magenta-infused drawing, I asked, “What do you think would happen if you used a different color?” Only when she replied, “I think I wouldn’t like it as much” did I realize I had wanted her to say, “I think it would look better.” It took me a moment to resist the urge to explain my thinking and to become genuinely curious about hers. “Hmm. Why do you say that?” I managed to ask.

“This color stands out,” she replied. “You can see it from far away, not like pink or yellow.”

“Not like pink,” I repeated to myself. I was so wrong, thinking this student was going for “girly” pink when she was going for standing out. Her explanation gave me real insight into her thinking.

Fortunately, in this instance, I caught myself after the student said “I think I wouldn’t like it as much.” But what if a teacher doesn’t catch herself? When we fish for specific answers, children soon realize we’re not really asking for their thoughts, knowledge, or perceptions, but for them to articulate our own. Many then stop thinking and become less engaged. Or they respond by guessing wildly at the answer the teacher wants. Except for the child who guesses correctly, the children—and their teacher—will likely feel discouraged after such an interaction. Not much will have been learned, or taught. All would have turned out differently if the question had been truly open-ended and the teacher’s intention truly to hear what the children thought.

Leading the Way to True Learning

Open-ended questions power academic and social learning. Such questions encourage children’s natural curiosity, challenging them to think for themselves, and inviting them to share their view of the world. The result: engaged learners who are motivated to learn and whose responses enlighten their classmates and their teacher.

Paula Denton has taught since 1985 and has been a Responsive Classroom workshop presenter and consultant since 1990. She is currently manager of program development for NEFC. Paula is the author of Learning Through Academic Choice and The Power of Our Words, and co-author of The First Six Weeks of School.

Posted by jjbrunner at 07:59 PM | Comments (1)

Innovación: Requerimientos de capital humano

Presentación empleada para una exposición de este tema ante la Comisión de Innovación Tecnológica y Desarrollo del Instituto de Ingenieros de Chile, el día 24 de julio 2007.

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La Comisión de Innovación Tecnológica y Desarrollo es presidida por el Sr. Juan Carlos Barros. Su labor principal es debatir y concluir respecto a las barreras que existen actualmente para el desarrollo de la Innovación Tecnológica en Chile. El resultado del trabajo de la Comisión se materializará en la presentación de proposiciones que permitan fortalecer el desarrollo de la innovación en el país y en su posterior difusión y discusión pública.

Algunos de los principales temas que ha abordado la Comisión son los siguientes: Antecedentes Generales del Proceso Innovador, Ciclo de desarrollo de proyectos de innovación, Relación entre Innovación y Desarrollo País e Indicadores de Gastos de I+D, Comparaciones Internacionales, Vínculo Universidad-Empresa, El rol del Estado en la innovación, El rol de la empresa privada en la innovación, Financiamiento de la innovación, Recursos Humanos para la Innovación, Barreras sicológicas a la innovación.

Durante 2007 la Comisión centra sus actividades en lo siguiente:

Realización de Seminario de Difusión y Discusión: Si el Instituto desea que sus propuestas sean consideradas, es necesario que ellas sean difundidas y discutidas al más alto nivel. Se propone para ello la realización de un Seminario a fines de 2007.

Preparación de Libro con Presentaciones y Discusiones del Seminario: Las diferentes posturas planteadas por el Instituto y los relatores en el Seminario quedarán reflejadas en un documento.

Recursos asociados

Innovación para la Competitividad, Informes del Consejo Nacional de Innovación Para la Competitividad, añpo 2006 y 2007, marzo 2007

Hacia una estrategia de desarrollo basada en capacidades tecnológicas, capítulo de libro, J.J. Brunner, 2002

Chile: Informe de capacidades tecnológicas, J.J. Brunner, 2001

Posted by jjbrunner at 03:56 PM | Comments (0)

Julio 23, 2007

Nuevo estudio pone en duda la politica de mejoramiento de la calidad educacional en los Estados Unidos

Un reciente estudio publicado por los economistas Derek A. Neal y Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach de la Universidad de Chicago muestra que los estudiantes pertenecientes al 20% más rezagado, así como los del grupo más talentoso, no se han visto favorecidos por la política del Gobierno impulsada la No Child Left Behind (NCLB). Incluso, sostienen, el primer grupo, el más vulnerable, podría haber haberse visto negativamente afectado.

Título del estudio: “Left Behind by Design: Proficiency Counts and Test-Based Accountability"

La revista Education Week resume de la siguiente forma los resultados del estudio:

To measure the impact of the new systems, the researchers compared reading and mathematics scores for students in 5th, 6th, or 8th grades in the year, or years, after the changes had taken place with those made by similar cohorts of students a few years earlier. The idea was to determine whether the changes in students’ tests scores were larger or smaller than what might have been expected had the school system conducted business as usual.

The post-reform pattern, in all cases, was consistent: Students in the middle of the pack made the largest test-score gains, compared with students in previous years. The bottom 20 percent of students made the least progress and, in some cases, even lost ground. The top 10 percent of students made either no academic gains or improvements that were smaller than those of students in the middle, depending on the subject matter.

For the least-able students, the situation was only slightly better in the post-1998 reform period. Those students’ scores improved more then, the researchers believe, because the standards had been set at lower levels. They speculated that teachers may be more likely to write off low-achieving students when the likelihood that they will ever meet the achievement target is more distant.

Ver texto completo del artículo de Education Week más abajo.

Obtener el estudio completo de Neal y Schanzenbach aquí

Abstract
Many test-based accountability systems, including the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB), place great weight on the numbers of students who score at or above specified proficiency levels in various subjects. Accountability systems based on these metrics often provide incentives for teachers and principals to target children near current proficiency levels for extra attention, but these same systems provide weak incentives to devote extra attention to students who are clearly proficient already or who have little chance of becoming proficient in the near term.

We show based on fifth grade test scores from the Chicago Public Schools that both the introduction of NCLB in 2002 and the introduction of similar district level reforms in 1996 generated noteworthy increases in reading and math scores among students in the middle of the achievement distribution. Nonetheless, the least academically advantaged students in Chicago did not score higher in math or reading following the introduction of accountability, and we find only mixed evidence of score gains among the most advantaged students. A large existing literature argues that accountability systems built around standardized tests greatly affect the amount of time that teachers devote to different topics. Our results for fifth graders in Chicago, as well as related results for sixth graders after the 1996 reform, suggest that the choice of the proficiency standard in such accountability systems determines the amount of time that teachers devote to students of different ability levels.

Recursos asociados

¿Mejoran los resultados de aprendizaje en los Estados Unidos?, 17 jubio 2007

Informe de la Comisión No Child Left Behind, 14 febrero 2007

El discurso del logro académico, 16 diciembre 2006

NCLB Seen as Curbing Low, High Achievers’ Gains
By Debra Viadero

A new study of Chicago students suggests that the federal No Child Left Behind Act may indeed be leaving behind students at the far ends of the academic ability spectrum—the least able students and those who are gifted.

The study by University of Chicago economists Derek A. Neal and Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach lends some empirical support to the common perception that schools are focusing on students in the middle—the so-called “bubble kids”—in order to boost scores on the state exams used to determine whether schools are meeting their proficiency targets.

“The whole point is that the details of how you calculate `adequate yearly progress’ matter for how teachers will allocate their effort across students,” said Mr. Neal, who presented his paper today at a conference hosted by the American Enterprise Institute, a think tank based here. “Anytime you keep score by looking at the number of kids who pass some proficiency standard, that will shape whom teachers teach.”

But Doug Mesecar, the acting assistant secretary in the Office of Planning, Evaluation, and Policy Development at the U.S. Department of Education, said it’s too soon to conclude that the law’s accountability mechanisms aren’t working as they were intended.

“I don’t think it tells enough of the whole story to support the generalizations that were made,” said Mr. Mesecar, who was part of a panel formed by the AEI to discuss the report. “We need to know more, to continue to study, and have more data to do these kinds of analyses, and then, if we do find it is a problem, we need to go in and rectify it.”

‘The Irony’
For their study, the Chicago researchers zeroed in on two time periods during which the 421,000-student school system was changing its testing-and-accountability system. The most recent period was 2002, when the school system, seeing that passage of the NCLB law was imminent, made the Illinois Standards Achievement Test a high-stakes exam and set proficiency cutoffs that students would be expected to meet.

The earlier period was 1998, after city school officials tried much the same approach with the Iowa Test of Basic Skills. While the ITBS cutoff points were considered lower, the 1998 accountability system also upped the stakes in a slightly different way by requiring 8th graders who did not pass the tests to attend summer school.

To measure the impact of the new systems, the researchers compared reading and mathematics scores for students in 5th, 6th, or 8th grades in the year, or years, after the changes had taken place with those made by similar cohorts of students a few years earlier. The idea was to determine whether the changes in students’ tests scores were larger or smaller than what might have been expected had the school system conducted business as usual.

The post-reform pattern, in all cases, was consistent: Students in the middle of the pack made the largest test-score gains, compared with students in previous years. The bottom 20 percent of students made the least progress and, in some cases, even lost ground. The top 10 percent of students made either no academic gains or improvements that were smaller than those of students in the middle, depending on the subject matter.

For the least-able students, the situation was only slightly better in the post-1998 reform period. Those students’ scores improved more then, the researchers believe, because the standards had been set at lower levels. They speculated that teachers may be more likely to write off low-achieving students when the likelihood that they will ever meet the achievement target is more distant.

Also, while the federal law mandates that schools ensure that all students reach proficiency levels by the 2013-14 school year, “there’s no evidence to show that schools are taking that seriously,” Mr. Neal said.

"This is the irony of the `soft bigotry of low expectations,`” he added, quoting a line from President Bush. “Having lower standards is actually beneficial to low-advantage children."

Teaching to the Middle
Another panelist, Charles Murray, AEI’s W.H. Brady scholar, said he found Mr. Neal’s finding “persuasive.”

“This strikes, I hope, a major blow to the chest of proficiency counts as a measure of progress in education,” added Mr. Murray, who recently published studies suggesting that achievement gaps between children of different races may be immutable. “To ask children to perform at levels at which they are incapable is one of the cruelest things you could ask a child to do.”

A more pointed critique of the study, however, came from Susan L. Traiman, the director of education and workforce policy at the Washington-based Business Roundtable and a supporter of the NCLB law. Like Mr. Mesecar, she said more years of data are needed to determine if the patterns Mr. Neal found in the early years of testing-and-accountability changes are consistent.

“Teaching to the middle is nothing new,” she added. “It’s what most beginning teachers do.”

While the law requires most states to gauge students’ academic progress by counting the number of students who reach proficiency targets, U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings in recent years began to allow some states and districts to experiment with other accountability models. Currently, for example, nine states have waivers to try so-called “growth models,” which typically give schools credit for gains that students make toward proficiency.

A better variant on that model, Mr. Neal said, might be one that takes into account previous achievement differences among students, their peers, and other factors in the same way that golfers are assigned handicaps to account for differences in golf courses or in their ability levels.

“You need some handicapping system that allows you to say that teacher A had a bad year or teacher B had a good year, regardless of whether they taught in New Trier, Ill., or some inner-city school in New Jersey,” he said.

Posted by jjbrunner at 08:37 PM | Comments (0)

Julio 21, 2007

Northwester introduce radical reforma al curriculum de enseñanza del periodismo

El Chronicle of Higher Education anuncia hoy que la Universidad de Northewestern ha aprobado, tras un año de intensa discusión y un conflictivo debate, un nuevo curriculum para su carrera de periodismo en la Medill School of Journalism, que pone al centro las actividades multimediales y el marketing.

Según comenta The Chronicle, el nuevo modelo adoptado por Medill busca responder a los cambios que se están produciendo en el entorno de los medios de comunicación, al declive de la prensa escrita y el surgimiento de la Red.

Los cambios adoptados por la Escuela han provocado una fuerte controversia entre sus alumnos y profesores y entre académicos y observadores externos.

Ver el comentario completo del Chroncile of Higher Education más abajo.

Puede leerse la visión del Decano reformista aquí.

Journalism Dean at Northwestern U. Develops Curriculum With Increased Emphasis on Multimedia and Marketing
By KATHERINE MANGAN
The Chronicle of Higher Education
Friday, July 20, 2007

At a time when newspaper readership is steadily declining and many readers are bouncing from blogs to Internet video to get their news, the new approach will send student reporters out into the field with video iPods and digital camcorders, as well as spiral notebooks. The most controversial change, though, is the increased emphasis on marketing. This fall, lessons in audience behavior and motivation will be taught alongside drills in crafting leads and meeting deadlines. Students will be encouraged to connect with readers by writing out of storefront newsrooms in diverse Chicago neighborhoods.

Some praise the changes as long overdue; others dismiss them as a sellout. But what irks critics the most is the way they were devised. Last year Northwestern's president and provost announced that they were suspending faculty governance in the journalism school for three and a half years to give the new dean "free rein" to revamp the school.

At the center of the controversy is John Lavine, who became dean in January 2006 after founding and directing Northwestern's Media Management Center, a center that provides media research and executive education.

He says the faculty has, in fact, spent hundreds of hours working with him to remake the curriculum and that the changes will make Medill's training more relevant to the 21st century. The curriculum will integrate multimedia techniques and the study of "audience understanding" throughout core courses, and it will focus more heavily on online content.

"It's not enough to train reporters to write for the evening broadcast news show or for the features section of a daily newspaper," says Mr. Lavine. "Our job is to create journalists who can win and hold the attention of media consumers faced with limited time and abundant media choices."

A New Era for Journalism

When he was editor of a daily newspaper in 1964, "nearly 90 percent of the households in that town subscribed to the paper, and people would get up in the morning and read it," Mr. Lavine says. With one radio station and one television station nearby, he says, "there were only three places you could go to find out whether the world had survived overnight. We assumed that what we were doing was right because everyone turned to us."

But those days are gone. Now journalists must understand what their audiences are interested in, as well as the best way to grab their attention. The dean believes that Medill is uniquely poised to straddle the line between journalism and marketing since it consists of both a school of journalism and a program in integrated marketing communications.

Critics contend the changes, which affect both undergraduate and graduate-level programs, will dilute the schools' focus on strong writing and reporting -- a charge the dean disputes. They bristle at the informal name change: Since Mr. Lavine took over, the Medill School of Journalism is now referred to simply as the "Medill School."

Medill's transformation is being closely watched by journalism schools nationwide, says Thomas Kunkel, dean of the University of Maryland's Philip Merrill College of Journalism and the incoming president of the Association of Schools of Journalism and Mass Communication.

"Medill has always been one of the nation's leading journalism schools, and the introduction of substantive change is going to be traumatic," he says. "Every responsible journalism program is trying to ratchet up what it does in the realm of digital journalism and multimedia platforms, but it's very tricky. Journalism educators don't have any better idea of where this is heading than the industry does."

The blending of journalism and marketing is more controversial and viewed by some as "a mingling of priorities that wouldn't be healthy for journalism," he says. "Journalists hold that journalists do the content, and the business people do the business, and to the extent possible, they need to work on their own side of the wall so there isn't a sense that newspapers are writing stories to make advertisers happy and that the publisher isn't dictating the stories."

Free Rein Given to Dean

Many faculty members read, in the fall 2006 issue of the university's alumni magazine, that Mr. Lavine had been granted considerable power at Medill at the same time that faculty oversight was suspended.

The university's General Faculty Committee unanimously approved a resolution last month calling that move "unacceptable and in violation of the University Statutes."

The resolution stated that major curricular changes should require deliberation and a vote by the faculty, and it predicted that the suspension would demoralize professors, damage the school's national reputation, and make it difficult to recruit faculty members. Both the president and provost have declined to comment on the resolution.

Mr. Lavine cites several examples of faculty involvement in the plan, Medill 2020. It was based on a report that the faculty voted on in 2005 that called for, among other things, more emphasis on real-world experience and a better understanding of the audience, he says. Twelve faculty committees each examined a piece of the curriculum last year, and their recommendations shaped the new version. Last spring, all Medill faculty members participated in a 10-week course on producing multimedia reports and integrating the technology into their courses.

"We've managed to make enormous, sweeping changes in the past 18 months, and the faculty made it happen," the dean says.

Objections From Faculty

Skeptics say the committees may have examined small pieces of the puzzle, but the faculty as a whole never had an opportunity to vote on the entire curriculum.

Clarke Caywood, who served on the faculty governing body when the resolution was drafted, believes the dean's ideas for revamping the curriculum aren't the problem. "The changes are probably going to be good for the school. What I object to is the process," says Mr. Caywood, director of Medill's graduate program in public relations.

But the dean has plenty of support from other professors. David L. Nelson, an associate professor, says his only complaint is that the changes "should have happened a long time ago."

"Lavine's on a limited time frame. I wish he would move with as much dispatch as possible and not worry about bruised egos," Mr. Nelson says. "This is an audience that you can't win over, so I think he should just go ahead and do it."

Mr. Nelson says some senior faculty members who have objected to the changes "don't get the technology" and don't want to expend the effort learning it. "This is a very interesting time to be a teacher," he says, "and to put your head in the sand and ignore the changes is wrong."

In an article published on Northwestern's Web site last year, Mr. Lavine outlined the goals of Medill 2020, and dealt with questions about whether marketing should have any place in a journalism course.

"Marketing is a tool that can be used for ill if it allows advertisers to influence the news, or it can be used for good if it tells consumers about important news and information they would not otherwise know about," he wrote.

He expanded on that idea in a lengthy interview with The Chronicle in which he defended the notion that journalists need to understand their audiences: "You can have the finest news story in the world, but if no one reads it, what good is it? No journalist is going to say, 'I've written this great story, but I don't care if anyone reads it.'"

Meanwhile, alumni and student blogs and listservs have been burning with comments -- many of them scathing -- about the change in focus at Medill. The dean admits there were bumps in the road as faculty and students learned to navigate the new multimedia equipment, "and we're taking the complaints seriously."

Mixed Response From Students

Steve Aquino, a journalism major who will be a senior at Medill this fall, says some students cringe at the dean's marketing-oriented language, including references to readers and viewers as "consumers."

"Reporters like to think of themselves as writers rather than manufacturers of goods, and that kind of language is kind of a punch in the gut," he says. He has mixed feelings about Medill 2020. He likes the idea of learning how to be adept at technology and understanding what makes readers tick, but he objects to the way the plan is being carried out.

"When I first heard about it, it left a sour taste in my mouth," he says, "but I can see the value of being as versatile and employable as possible when we graduate." He also objects to the requirement that all incoming students purchase their own laptops, software, video iPods, and digital camcorders, which he says cost around $3,600. The school does not reimburse students for that equipment but considers those expenses when allocating financial aid.

Peter Sachs, who received his master's degree from Medill in December and is working as a reporter for a daily newspaper in Bend, Ore., , says some of the school's new emphasis may be misplaced: "The key to my getting a job was not that I could handle an iPod, video camera, and tape recorder all at one time. It was being able to write a complete story on deadline."

Focus on Versatility

Some professors share his concern, despite the fact that the new version calls for more writing labs for freshmen, as well as more hands-on reporting experience.

"In the sophomore news-writing class I taught, it took the whole 10 weeks to get students to write clearly, without any obviously clumsy constructions," says Robert McClory, a professor emeritus who still teaches an occasional magazine-writing class at Medill.

"When you throw in all this other stuff -- students are not only writing the story, but filming it, editing it, and putting it on the Web -- that's extremely stressful for many professors."

But Mr. Lavine and his supporters insist that versatility is key in today's media industry. "Employers are saying, 'We're not going to hire people who can only do one of those things when we're going to do all of those things," Mr. Lavine says.

"The focus is not the technology," he continues. "We could be wizards at technology, and it would be a loss if we didn't tell better stories and have better marketing."

That doesn't mean pandering to readers' basest instincts about what makes a juicy story, according to Mary Nesbitt associate dean for curriculum.

"If you really listen to people, you soon learn that they are not stupid," says Ms. Nesbitt, managing director of the Media Management Center's Readership Institute, a think tank that helps daily newspapers increase their readership. People "do want to know about important things," she says. "They just don't want it presented in a way that makes it difficult to assimilate."

Fred Barbash, a lecturer at Medill who spent his career as a reporter and editor at The Washington Post, doesn't see anything wrong with asking what readers want.

"I don't think of it as marketing. I think of it as the questions we used to ask in news meetings: Who are we writing this for? Is it intelligible?" That approach isn't new, he says.

"When I was covering the Supreme Court, my editor would say 'Barbash, take off your robe.' That had to be pounded home to me -- that I'm not writing for judges and lawyers. I'm writing for the people who have to live with these decisions."

That message is even more important today, he says. If readers are bored or confused, he says, "all they have to do is Google the topic and five more versions of the same story will appear. You won't get another chance."

Copyright © 2007 by The Chronicle of Higher Education

Posted by jjbrunner at 11:43 PM | Comments (0)

Julio 19, 2007

Blogs académicos: una realidad, el liderazgo de los economistas y ejemplos de interés en el mundo e Ibero América

Suele estimarse en nuestro medio (chileno) que los blogs académicos (ver más abajo tres artículos de interés sobre estos blogs), esto es, aquellos blogs producidos por miembros de la academia y dirigidos de preferencia a públicos universitarios y profesionales, son una actividad que se hallaría por debajo de la 'seriedad' propia del quehacer intelectual y de sus productos típicos: publicaciones en revistas con editores exigentes, libros y capítulos de libros, presentaciones en congresos científicos, etc.

Por el contrario, la cada vez más amplia difusión de este otro medio --el del blog académico-- revela que la comunicación esotérica de conocimientos está siendo complementada por la presencia de los profesores universitarios en la red, así como, crecientemente, en los espacios de prensa, televisión y radio.

En los Estados Unidos, los economistas parecen llevar la delantera en este nueva ola de comunicación y expresión académica.

Van aquí algunos blogs de refrerencia y la manera como sus autores, economistas reputados, los presentan:

Dani Rodrik's weblog - Unconventional thoughts on economic development and globalization

Greg Mankiw's Blog - Random Observations for Students of Economics

Grasping Reality with Both Hands: Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal

The Becker-Posner Blog - A blog by Gary Becker and Richard Posner (ese último, Senior Lecturer in Law, Universidad de Chicago, y judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit)

Freakonomics - Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner

Blogs académicos iberoamericanos

Simon's Blog, de Simón Schwartzman, en combinación con su sitio de publicaciones

Roberto Rodríguez Gómez, blog sobre temas educación superior

Tiscar.com, Tíscar Lara, profesora ayudante de Periodismo en la Universidad Carlos III de Madrid en las asignaturas de Producción Audiovisual y Tratamiento de la Información en Televisión

Otros Blogs académicos de interés

Crooked Timber - Out of the Crooked Timber of Humanity no Straighyt Thing was Ever Made Blog colectivo de un grupo de académicos de diversas nacionaloidades y disciplinas:

-- Chris Bertram, Professor of Social and Political Philosophy at the Department of Philosophy, and Head of the School of Arts at the University of Bristol

-- Michael Bérubé, Teaches American literature and cultural studies at Penn State University

-- Harry Brighouse, Professor of Philosophy and Affiliate Professor of Educational Policy Studies at University of Wisconsin, Madison

-- Daniel Davies

-- Henry Farrel, Assistant Professor at the Department of Political Science and Elliott School of International Affairs of the George Washington University.

-- Maria Farrel, Brussels office of ICANN

-- Eszter Hargittai, Assistant Professor, Department of Communication Studies, Department of Sociology, Institute for Policy Research, Northwestern University and Fellow, Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Science(Stanford, CA)

-- Kieran Healy

-- John Holbo

-- Scott Mc Lemee, Columnista, Inside Higher Ed

-- John Mandle, Chair, Departmen of Philosophy, University at Albany, SUNY

-- Monatgu Norman, (psuedónimo)

-- John Quiggin

-- Ingrid Robeyns, Senior Researcher in Political Theoy, Radboud University, Nijmegen

-- Belle Waring

-- Brian Weatherson

ACADEMIC PRODUCTIVITY is a survival guide for the 21st century researcher. Written by a small team of academics focusing on the topics on knowledge acquisition, production and dissemination, new technologies and productivity strategies. Autores: Jose Quesada, Department of Psychology, Sussex University; Sjane Lindsay, DPhil Student in Psychology, University of Sussex; Dario Taraborelli, Postdoctoral fellow at UCL, editor of the European Review of Philosophy

Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog
News and views about philosophy, the academic profession, academic freedom, intellectual culture...and a bit of poetry Brian Leiter holds the Hines H. Baker and Thelma Kelley Baker Chair in Law at the University of Texas at Austin, where he is also Professor of Philosophy and Founder and Director of the Law and Philosophy Program.

Lessig Blog Lawrence Lessig is a Professor of Law at Stanford Law School and founder of the school's Center for Internet and Society. Prior to joining the Stanford faculty, he was the Berkman Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, and a Professor at the University of Chicago.

PressThink - Ghost of Democracy in the Media Machine Jay Rosen teaches Journali