President Benson addressed the recent tuition hike at the College of Charleston in an op-ed in today’s Post and Courier.

In recent days, there have been several media reports on the increase in tuition at South Carolina public universities, including the College of Charleston. We welcome public scrutiny and careful examination of our tuition policies. However, because some recent articles about the College have been incomplete, I am writing to set the record straight.

First, it has been said the College of Charleston has increased tuition for the next academic year without considering the financial needs of our students. Recognizing that higher tuition poses real challenges for many South Carolina families, our Board of Trustees and senior leadership struggled with the decision to raise tuition. Our commitment of an additional $3 million to need-based and merit-based financial aid for the coming academic year and for future years is meant to partially address the affordability issue. This is a 25 percent increase in the funds the College devotes to financial aid.

A significant amount of press coverage has focused on the percentage of the College of Charleston’s tuition increase rather than the actual dollar increase or the cost of tuition as a whole. The average cost of tuition for the state’s 13 four-year public institutions is $9,958. The College of Charleston’s tuition for in-state students is $10,314. If we exclude the unique undergraduate programs at MUSC, the most costly institution in the state is Winthrop University, with a tuition of $12,176, 18 percent higher than the College’s. The second most costly is Clemson University, with a tuition of $11,908, 15 percent higher than the College’s.

South Carolinians also should consider that some public universities in the state receive a larger percentage of their budgets from the state than others, ranging from a low of 6.27 percent to a high of 21.25 percent. The College falls near the bottom of this range with only 8.5 percent of its budget coming from the state. This disparity helps explain why some universities are better able to hold down tuition increases.

For decades, we have worked to offer a superior education and to make a College of Charleston education affordable relative to our peers. This is confirmed by the latest edition of The Princeton Review, which praised our “relatively low tuition” and the “great value” of the education we offer.

Second, some have said that tuition increases at the College of Charleston have gone beyond the College’s actual losses in state support over the past decade. That’s true, and it’s true for other public universities in South Carolina. But this comparison oversimplifies the complicated financial realities facing universities today. Fixed costs at the College of Charleston have grown at a much faster rate than inflation over the past decade. For example, over the past 10 years, our institutional contribution to our employees’ health insurance has grown by over 72 percent.

Keeping pace with 21st century technology also contributes significantly to our costs. Today’s college students have grown up in wired classrooms, and their future success in our competitive knowledge economy demands that they experience a fast-paced, digital learning environment.

Simply put, as state support of higher education continues to decline and the College’s costs continue to rise, tuition must go up. The alternative is a downward spiral to mediocrity.

Third, it has been written that the College of Charleston has added staff, new buildings, and debt over the past 10 years. The erroneous suggestion is that the College has been purchasing luxuries at the expense of South Carolina students and taxpayers.

A decade ago, the College of Charleston had just completed several years of enrollment growth that increased our student body to about 10,000. (Today, we still have about 10,000 students.) After the enrollment growth of the 1990s, we had to face the fact that our facilities and infrastructure were designed for a much smaller student body. An outside consulting firm documented these very serious deficiencies in a 2003 report. The needed improvements were in the planning stages for years. Fortunately, our facilities and infrastructure are beginning to catch up with the needs of our students.

But, like most public universities in this state, the College has considerable deferred maintenance. Our maintenance is complicated by the historical significance of most of our buildings. We are entrusted with the care of these national treasures, and that duty comes with significant costs.

The College’s unique urban setting in Charleston’s Historic District carries a myriad of building and zoning restrictions that other universities do not contend with. Most South Carolinians don’t realize that the College of Charleston is the largest historic preservationist in Charleston, and we bear this burden for the good of the entire state. Our presence in the Historic District complicates everything we do, by adding to our costs and constraining our ability to grow.

Regarding the size of the College’s staff, the reported comparison between 2000 and 2010 is misleading. Following our enrollment expansion a decade ago, we found ourselves without enough staff in place to adequately serve our students. Our studies of peer institutions in South Carolina and elsewhere still find that the College has a relatively small staff and relatively low salaries.

We appreciate and welcome public scrutiny of our decisions. Discussions about our state’s educational priorities and challenges are beneficial. We ask only that South Carolinians judge us on the totality of the evidence, not on the basis of a few isolated data points. The College of Charleston is eager to be a part of this conversation.

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Tags: Hike, President Benson, Tuition Hike

Rebecca Panter (left) and Jasmyn Wright, who moved from out of state to teach at Evans Elementary School, set up for the first day of class.

First-year Memphis City Schools teacher Jasmyn Wright, 21, grew up in South New Jersey, studied a semester in Africa and graduated a semester early from Spelman College with a 3.7 GPA.

She’s OK with Monday, the first day of classes; the thought of Tuesday makes her hands sweat.

“I’m extremely nervous. … I’m nervous for the other days after Monday.”

Understandable. By Tuesday, when the introductions are over and the desks assigned and filled, Wright will be in charge of the progress 20 third-graders make toward their eventual lives in a global economy.

Their test scores will become her résumé and the basis of her paycheck. While nothing in the homes they come from or the streets outside them has changed, their outcomes must.

“Now, it’s starting to be physical; it’s tangible,” Wright said, looking over the debris of unpacked boxes and walls still sticky with last year’s tape in her classroom at Evans Elementary.

One of 100 new Teach for America teachers at MCS, bringing the district’s total to 150, Wright arrives at a time of unprecedented opportunity — as well as pressure — at the Memphis system.

She and hundreds of other hires moved here over the summer in part because Memphis in the last year has received more federal and philanthropic support for schools than any city in the nation.

Memphis was one of four recipients of $290 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to improve teacher effectiveness last fall.

Memphis will receive $90 million over seven years. Only Hillsborough County Public Schools in Tampa received more.

On top of the Gates grant and the $68 million that will flow to Memphis as a result of Tennessee’s winning $500 million in Race to the Top stimulus dollars for innovation, the city schools also received nearly $600,000 last week in federal money to improve the quality of its principals.

“Yes, the funding is coming in,” said Jon Schnur, founder of New Leaders for New Schools. “But there is also the recognition that not all the places that get the investment will emerge.”

For Memphis to move from pockets of success — White Station High and Richland Elementary, for instance — to a city of excellent schools will take enormous effort, he said.

“The outcome is not inevitable. With hard work, Memphis has a shot to be at the forefront of education reform.”

The windfall, coupled with what educators and politicians call “an unprecedented aligning of the stars” — new laws tying teacher evaluations to test scores, union buy-in, bipartisan unity and a president determined to reward innovation in education — makes the start of the school year a rare moment for public education in Memphis.

“Other than people being envious, Memphis has a tremendous opportunity to put in place some of the reforms a lot of districts are talking about,” said Kate Walsh, president of the National Council on Teacher Quality.

The acid test? “Look for changes in the rates teachers earn tenure; look at teacher dismissal rates, retention rates and what happens to effective teachers.”

Nationally, economists say the quality of the current teacher workforce looks like a bell curve: 15 percent are highly effective; 15 percent are ineffective and the rest are in the middle.

At Evans, Wright has no idea who will be assigned to her class. But she does know that many students at the school on Cottonwood near Perkins will speak Spanish and Vietnamese as their first language. Another percentage will be special education children, which law mandates must be educated with their age peers.

If she succeeds in moving the bar — giving her students more than one year’s academic gain per year — she may be eligible for a bonus in her first year.

With Gates’ help, the strongest teachers in Memphis, Wright included, can expect to earn close to six-figure salaries, the best way reformers know to apply marketplace principles to education.

Meantime, the district is also working on exit strategies for the less-talented and ways to make tenure more difficult.

About 93 percent get tenure, which until now has been considered a “pass-through” for those who last three years.

“It’s very clear that, come fall, principals will make harder decisions about non-renewal of teachers,” said Supt. Kriner Cash.

“I don’t expect a huge difference, but I do expect change.”

Starting this year, Memphis teachers can expect more frequent observations by a team of their subject/grade peers and the school principal.

A new teacher evaluation format will be tested in 15-25 schools, based on input from the Memphis Education Association and a task force of teachers. Dozens of envoys (students and teachers trained in ways to change school culture) will fan out in the city’s middle schools, hoping to tamp down the violence and destructive behavior that sociologists tie to poverty, negative neighborhoods and the culture of failure.

“It takes a bold vision to be the first to say ‘we’ll try it,’” said Walsh.

“But you can’t get that much money and not have people watching carefully.”

Cash feels the tension. “When steering a big ocean liner, it’s the hidden icebergs that keep you up at night,” he said.

Evans Elementary is a good example. The school did not not make the progress last year required by federal No Child Left Behind rules.

But for three years, its teachers have earned A’s for imparting more than a year’s worth of knowledge to their students.

“By the time we get them to fifth grade, they are off the charts,” said Evans principal Cynthia Alexander.

The measure is called value-added and is based on the the trajectory of students’ previous test scores.

Reformers say value-added is the fairest way to judge teachers because it shows how much they advance learning.

In Tennessee, a third of teachers and principals get less than one year’s gain in the classroom.

Unless they make progress, the climate is shaping up to remove them.

Gates has been clear that the money will stop if the district does not meet its goals.

MEA president Keith Williams says district administrators spent much of the summer fighting to keep eight of the most severely under-performing schools out of state control.

“Had that happened, we would have stood to lose 300 teachers and 6,000 students,” he said, gutting the spirit of the Gates work.

Two weeks ago when district officials met in Seattle to discuss progress with the Gates foundation, much of the talk centered on getting public buy-in, Williams said.

Nancy Coffee, president of The Leadership Academy, says the public is beginning to understand the magnitude of the attention.

“The piece they need to understand even more is we also have the accountability measures in place with Race to the Top and Gates.”

One measure of awareness may be contributions to the MCS Foundation.

To date, $14.7 million has been pledged since spring, when Memphis philanthropists got on board. The goal is $21.3 million by the end of the year

“People are thinking, yes, we dare to hope,” Coffee said. … “I think there is a sense that now may be the moment.”

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Tags: City Schools, Memphis City, Memphis City Schools, Schools

Most students have heard somewhere that their extracurricular activities are important when it comes to applying and getting into college.  What they may not have heard are the reasons why.  Consequently, some students mistakenly believe that when it comes to extracurricular activities, the more you do, the better your chances of admission to college. But that’s not really what colleges are looking for……

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College admissions people know what it takes to be successful on their campus.  While good grades and challenging classes in high school are a big piece, they’re not the whole story.  Colleges look for students who have something special to bring to their student body besides just their good grades.  So, how do they get that from the list of activities you put on your application?  Here are a few things they can learn about you just by looking at that list:

Leadership.  There’s more to leadership than just being elected to a position.  It’s about consistency and commitment.  A person who’s been a club or sport team member through thick and thin is leading by example whether they know it or not. The leadership skills you’ve learned in high school, while in the in the spotlight or behind the scenes, have helped prepare you to be involved and make a difference at the college you decide to attend.

Responsibility and empathy.  All the time you’ve spent volunteering speaks volumes about your dedication, generosity and willingness to keep coming back even when it’s not easy or fun.  Whether you’ve assisted the elderly, walked dogs, or tutored younger students, people have depended on you to use your best judgment and to be responsible.  Someone who can be depended on like that tends to make a good classmate because they know how to put the needs of someone else before their own.

Cooperation. Whether you’re a member of an athletic team, cheer squad, choir or band, you have had to learn how to cooperate with others in order to reach a goal.  You have learned how to do your part to contribute to the success of everyone.  College is all about cooperation.  Whether it’s in the classroom, the lab, planning an activity or playing intramural sports, a student who knows how to work well with others is an asset to a college’s student body.

Diversity of perspective.  Theater, anime, hip hop, politics, rodeo, youth group, GSA.  Whatever they may be, your activities tell a story about how you are different from your classmates and how you will contribute to the diversity of a campus.  By getting involved in activities that are important to you, you develop your own individuality and unique perspective.  The uniqueness students bring to campus tends to make a college vibrant with lively discussion and new ideas.

Passion.  The most successful college students tend to be passionate about something.  They aren’t afraid to put their heart into things and rarely watch from the sidelines.  Whether their passion is about  academics, the arts, sports, a certain subject, career path, or something else, a student with passion can be contagious.  They fire people up and make them think.  Pursuing things you’re interested in outside your high school classroom, prepares you to do the same in college.

In all of this, it is crucial to remember that the real value of extracurricular activities is in how they help you discover your strengths, expand your skills and explore your interests.  So, when choosing what to be involved in, don’t worry about what colleges will think.  If you get involved in something you really enjoy, the things listed here will follow naturally.

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Tags: College, Get College

Preparing for a Cisco Certification solely with Practice exams is a method that many candidates follow, however I do not recommend this study method at all. My intention in this article is not to slam practice exams. I just want to address the phenomenon among Cisco certification candidates who use practice exams solely as an attempt to pass their exams with the least possible effort. Practice exams should be used in your study strategy as a complimentary option together with other study resources such as books, video trainings, practice labs etc. When you are in the field in front of a rack of routers and switches trying to implement a network design, there is no A, B, C, or D choice like the practice exams. You’ve got to know what you are doing.

The current Cisco certification exams are designed in such a way as to weed out those candidates who just memorized hundreds of possible exam questions in their attempt to pass the exam. If those candidates used only practice tests for preparation, they will just be disappointed on exam day. The certification exams will not only test if you possess the requited knowledge, but also if you have the ability to apply that knowledge in real world cases. Thats why the current Cisco exams are full of practical scenario questions. By taking one practice exam after the other will certainly not develop this skill.

Practice simulators are also fine up to a certain extent, but also do not depend very heavily on them. The most common network simulators I’ve seen do not let you make any mistakes on the router or switch configuration, so you do not actually learn from your mistakes. Remember that making mistakes on a Cisco configuration, observing them and then fixing them is what really helps to actually learn what you are doing.

When preparing for a Cisco Certification (especially for an entry level certification such as CCENT and CCNA) you are not just studying for an exam. Rather, you are building and fortifying your base and foundation for the upper layer certifications and for your career as well. Try to make your study efforts as effective as possible by building a solid foundation. You will achieve this by learning all possible networking theory and fundamental concepts, rather than memorizing hundreds of exam questions. Especially when studying for CCNA, the knowledge that you will acquire will be the most important from all and will be the corner stone for future certifications such as the CCNP and CCIE.

The best preparation for Cisco certifications is to stick to a well-rounded study plan which includes books, lab networking equipment (real or virtual) and practice exams. A recommended training package for Cisco certification exams is this computer based training here. If you combine it with a relative book from CiscoPress then you will have a complete well-rounded study package for passing your Cisco exam.

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Tags: Cisco, Practice Exams