Tuition hikes was the theme our class focused on today. In the UK a string of recent protests was triggered by similar tuition hikes (albeit extreme ones). The protestors however, were unable to get the government officials to compromise on a reasonable tuition rate. The UK offers cheaper tuition in many schools and despite the massive increase in tuition there rates are still noticeably lower than most college tuitions in the United States. It will be interesting if tuition rates increase similarly in the United States if there would be protests.
As good as we have public education in America, there are certainly signs that we are in need of reform. According to the Associated Press the United States ranks 14th among 34 developed countries in reading, 17th in science and 25th in math ^{(http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40544897/ns/us_news-life/).} Compared to other developed countries the United States is average at best. This is something that quite frankly doesn’t bug me too much. The problem I have with public education in America is what Robert Balfanz, a John Hopkins University researcher termed "dropout factories" (
Dropout factories are high schools where no more than 60 percent of the students who start as freshmen make it to their senior year. They are neglected schools in neighborhoods where graduation is not the norm. Most dropout factories are in large cities in the urban core. According to Balfanz’s research at John Hopkins about 1 and 10 high schools in America are dropout factories and this is a trend that is continuing to rise. These schools are often a real task for the teachers and can be beyond their capacity to deal with, particularly because many of these students have received poor education before high school. 

In line with the drop out factories it was sad to read the Subprime Opportunities article.  I found the analogy between for-profit predatory education systems and subprime mortgage lending very compelling.  It is sad that these predatory education systems reach out to those in low socio-economic status yet give back little in return.  It is also disturbing to see the tremendous growth in these predatory institutions.  I almost the federal government shouldn't be giving out these grants to people who clearly cannot afford high costs and low returns of for-profit education.  It is a clear analogy to the federal government and the HUD extending housing loans to people who clearly cannot afford them.
There is one other problem with public education that particularly bothers me. I feel as though teachers are not given adequate evaluations in terms of their performance in the classroom. While the vast majority of teachers give so much to their students, there are still many poor performing teachers. Often times the turnover rate for public teachers is much lower than for other professions, as they are protected by pensions. While a doctor or lawyer can be fired for mal-practice this generally doesn’t apply to public teachers. It generally takes a sexual harassment allegation, not poor teacher performance, to get a public teacher fired. Teachers should be more adequately evaluated on the basis of how effectively they teach their class. The problem, however, is that there is often not an adequate pool of teachers to replace a bad teacher. Who is to say that if one fires a poor performing teacher that the replacement will be of better quality?  Teaching is not as glorified a career choice as it should be. A far more daunting problem is the teacher unions and the tenure program. The National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers are the most well organized and powerful voices in education politics. It is often very difficult for reform particularly with such a powerful teachers lobby, which funds the Democratic Party. Often times when officials push for reform, to purge teachers that are inadequate they end up losing their job. The text book example of this is Michelle Rhee, the former chancellor of the Washington D.C. public school district. Rhee would lay off teachers and principals, whom she viewed as giving poor performances, the obstacle was the often easily attainment of tenure, which would give many teachers seniority in the system (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21531704/ns/us_news-education/).  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelle_Rhee). I feel as though Rhee really had good ideas and that had the teachers unions agreed to her proposal they would have received much higher pay in exchange for weakening the seniority protections. Really it’s a good tradeoff because it allows for adequate evaluations while increasing teacher’s pay at the same time. Rhee however, ultimately lost her job in 2010 because of incoming mayor Vincent Gray (http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/District_Dossier/2010/10/michelle_rhee_resigns_as_dc_sc.html).