Mountain West higher ed in the news

Big article in Aug. 22's CHE on the challenges faced by higher ed in the "Mountain West" which includes Nevada, Idaho, Utah, Arizona, Colorado, Montana, Wyoming, and New Mexico. Chancellor Dan Klaich's picture and several quotes from him are prominently featured (see sections on "A time to heal" and "College-completion goals"). The article reports that "States in this region account for four of the five fastest-growing states, in terms of high-school graduates. Nevada, Arizona, Utah, and Idaho, in that order, are projected to have the greatest growth in high-school graduates from 2010 to 2020, according to the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education." The budget picture is grim, as mentioned in an earlier post; Nevada is projected to have the biggest budget gap of any state in 2011 (as a percentage of its general-fund budget). according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

New report on public school revenues and expenditures: 2007-2008

"This brief publication contains basic revenue and expenditure data, by state, for public elementary and secondary education for school year 2007-08. It contains state-level data on revenues by source and expenditures by function, including expenditures per pupil."
The full report is linked here: http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2010326

New Blog link--CHE Campus Cuts

Not sure how long I will leave this blog linked (see right hand side of the page) but thought some might be interested to see what programs are being cut at other campuses.

A tally of possible program cuts

Someone's been doing their homework! The Chronicle put together a list of universities and the programs slated for possible cuts. UNLV and UNR are among them.

Arizona universities share the pain

Arizona universities are being asked to cut payroll and are also increasing student tuition. They have already eliminated 2,000 positions and instituted furloughs. More in this article from the Arizona Daily Star.

I'm all for accountability...

but you have to give people the skills, knowledge and resources to succeed. Governor Gibbons new proposal for education requires accountability but doesn't provide support. If teachers' retention, salary, etc. are based solely on student performance, how will we ever get good teachers to work in the schools most in need of help? There was a good article in Education Week on turning around poorly performing schools in Chicago by helping the teachers focus on shared learning outcomes. They worked with the Strategic Learning Initiatives organization which also provided a report on this work.

State funding for higher education: Fiscal year 2007

The fifth annual SHEEO State Higher Education Finance (SHEF) study of state support
for higher education was issued today. There is an article summarizing the reports findings in today's Inside Higher Education; it includes a table comparing public higher ed institutions in all states. Nevada has higher than the national average for per student appropriations but appears to net considerably less of the tuition.