ED Invites Ideas to Improve Federal Recordkeeping and Reporting Requirements

The U.S. Department of Education reached out to education leaders and stakeholders last week inviting them to offer ideas to reduce the burden of some administrative recordkeeping and reporting requirements tied to federal funding and to better promote existing flexibility that can reduce burden in low-income schools.

State, local and tribal governments that administer federally funded programs must follow federal recordkeeping and reporting requirements intended to ensure the proper use of federal dollars. One example of these requirements is time-and-effort reporting, which verifies that an individual whose salary is supported by a federal program is spending the appropriate amount of time carrying out allowable activities of that program. Completing these requirements can often be time consuming and provide little information on the impact of services supported through the program.

In an effort to reduce administrative burdens while still ensuring the proper use of federal funds, the Department is seeking ideas to improve administrative recordkeeping and reporting protocols regarding the use of federal funds, including those pertaining to time-and-effort reporting. Ideas submitted should consider alternative evidence that could replace applicable recordkeeping and reporting requirements, increase the use of data and development of data systems, or encourage reforms that create long-term improvements around efficiency and productivity. For example, within the context of time-and-effort reporting, interested education leaders and stakeholders may wish to offer suggestions that will improve the quality and content of the information reported, such as demonstrating the valuable impact federally funded positions have on improving student achievement, school services and community involvement in education.

The Department is also interested in ideas to better promote existing flexibility called “Schoolwide schools” that can permit schools with large numbers of low-income students to reduce requirements associated with time-and-effort reporting, in addition to providing other benefits. Yet, districts and schools rarely take advantage of this flexibility. Last March, the Department released promising practices for productivity and flexibility, encouraging States to take advantage of this available alternative. To help further these efforts, the Department invites education leaders and stakeholders to offer ideas that will help promote or improve guidance around existing flexibility.

In a memorandum sent to federal departments last February, the President urged federal agencies to work with state and local officials on increasing efficiency and reducing costs of protocols tied to federal dollars while maintaining accountability. Soliciting ideas from local, tribal and State governments as well as the general public as part of the Department’s ongoing outreach to engage local officials in an open dialogue about ways the federal government can better serve their needs.

To submit an idea or learn more, visit http://www.ed.gov/blog/2011/10/granting-administrative-flexibility-for-better-measures-of-success.

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6 Ways To Improve Your Portfolio Returns Today

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A Secured Loan Could Improve Your Life

Life can put people in difficult situations - losing a job, losing a beloved one etc. But they must all deal with them however they can and move on, without being judged by anyone. The awful things that happen to them and they have control over are usually the ones which imply finances, and the secured loan is an option that is worth looking into.

People who have applied for secured loans have usually been very happy with this choice, as they have come to found it to be a way in which they ultimately escaped debt. These programs often revolve around debt consolidation loans. There are several ways to get a loan that is secured and which would help resolve one's financial difficulties and they are provided by expert companies with professional financial advisors.

If people have encountered difficulties making their monthly repayments or everyday expenses, if they want to transform their high rates of interest into smaller ones, if they want to stop receiving harassing collection calls and if they want to reduce their stress levels and get a better sleep at night, then these people should take the secured loan option into account and put an end to their worries.

The Types of Programs

A secured loan means having to place a personal property as collateral (usually, one's home). This brings the benefit of a longer term, lower annual fees, a lower rate of interest and a minimisation of risks, by going from a variable rate to a fixed rate loan. People find all these perks more appealing, in spite of having to make a collateral placement of their home, because they find it easier to put aside the money they need to meet monthly deadlines after making their household expenses. This is possible through secured loans.

There are many specialised companies who offer solutions with secured loans, no matter if the debtor has a good credit score or not - refinancing an old debt, getting a mortgage loan, applying for an Individual Voluntary Agreement or filing a home equity loan (that is similar to a second mortgage, which has a tax-deductible interest, where someone can ask for a large sum of money - up to 80% of the equity in a home).

The secured loan provides a financial solution and it is definitely worth taking into consideration. Most people who have opted for this method have been very satisfied because their needs were met and in the end they have become debt-free.

These are the reasons why Charles Bradbury recommends the secured loan programs as a solution for your financial problems.

http://www.securedloan.org.uk/

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Panel Unveils Ways to Improve New Jersey’s Public Universities

The recommendations came in a report halfway through a fiscal year in which Mr. Christie cut state operating aid for higher education by $130 million as he sought to close an $11 billion budget gap. But he has pledged to increase financing for the state’s colleges and universities as the economy improves.

“In many ways, this report confirms what we all know: New Jersey’s higher education system is in need of focused improvement if it is truly going to serve our students and prepare our state for the future,” the governor said in a statement. He appeared with the task force chairman, former Gov. Thomas H. Kean, in a news conference in Trenton on the recommendations.

In an echo of a battle just waged and lost in New York, the New Jersey task force urged the state to let Rutgers and the other public colleges and universities set their own tuition levels “appropriate to raise the funds needed to support their operations and maintain educational excellence.” In New York, Gov. David A. Paterson and officials of the state university system had sought such a change, but it was blocked by the Legislature.

A spokesman for Mr. Christie, Kevin Roberts, said after the news conference that the governor would evaluate the issue. The governor has already endorsed a plan to give college administrations authority to negotiate labor agreements. “It needs to be addressed in a holistic way that gives college presidents more control and flexibility over management of their institutions,” Mr. Roberts said.

Other recommendations in the 140-page report, which was given to Mr. Christie on Dec. 1 but made public on Tuesday, included the creation of a five-member council on higher education. While acknowledging the current budget crisis, the task force also called on the state to increase financing as soon as possible, by issuing bonds. The report did not specify a sum.

Mr. Christie signed two executive orders during the conference, one to create the council and another to form an advisory committee focused solely on graduate medical education.

The task force proposed merging some schools of the University of Medicine and Dentistry with Rutgers, a move that has previously been rejected. As the United States attorney for New Jersey, Mr. Christie pursued criminal fraud charges against the University of Medicine and Dentistry, which was faced with financial and Medicaid abuses. But the school agreed to a federal monitor to avoid prosecution.

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Chicago News Cooperative: Economist’s Plan to Improve Schools Begins Before Kindergarten

J. B. Pritzker, a prominent Chicago businessman, says he wakes up each day mulling the best way to get a return on his investments. The most valuable resource he can find is “smart people with character.”

It explains why, last week, Mr. Pritzker, a liberal Democrat, introduced a person he described as a University of Chicago supply-side economist at a gathering that might have benefited mayoral candidates concerned about Chicago’s public schools performance.

At the gathering, James J. Heckman, who has won the Nobel in economic science, offered a provocative idea for reducing spiraling budget deficits and strengthening the economy: investing in early childhood development.

Mr. Heckman marshals ample data to suggest that better teaching, higher standards, smaller classrooms and more Internet access “have less impact than we think,” as he put it at the Spertus Institute. To focus as intently as we do on the kindergarten to high school years misses how “the accident of birth is the greatest source of inequality,” he said.

He urges more effectively educating children before they step into a classroom where, as Chicago teachers tell me, they often are clueless about letters, numbers and colors — and lack the attentiveness and persistence to ever catch up. Matters are as bleak with many students entering the City Colleges system.

Mr. Heckman is not really a supply-sider, but he is big on return on investment, just like Mr. Pritzker, who sponsored the Spertus event with the McCormick Foundation and is also a contributor to my wife’s nonprofit group.

He contends that high-quality programs focused on birth to age 5 produce a higher per-dollar return than K-12 schooling and later job training. They reduce deficits by reducing the need for special education and remediation, and by cutting juvenile delinquency, teenage pregnancy and dropout rates.

With charts and references to long-term studies, Mr. Heckman underscored why families matter and attributed the widening gap between the advantaged and disadvantaged to deficits in skills and abilities that begin with inadequate early childhood development.

One slide juxtaposed achievement test scores with a mother’s education. If you come from a single-parent home with a mother who dropped out of school, your scores lag far behind throughout your academic life.

Test scores may measure smarts, not the character that turns knowledge into know-how. “Socio-emotional skills” or “character,” which we don’t often measure, are critical, and include motivation, the ability to work with others, attention, self-regulation, self-esteem and the ability to defer gratification.

There are few more influential thinkers than Mr. Heckman on the impact of social programs and methods used to assess them.

“He’s one of the great labor economists of all time, a pioneer of empirical analysis of labor markets, human capital and education,” said Austan Goolsbee, chairman of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers and a University of Chicago colleague.

In the mayoral race, only the freshly certified (to run) Rahm Emanuel and Gery Chico offer extensive plans for education reform. Mr. Emanuel’s ideas strike some nonpartisan folks as more innovative, but Mr. Chico puts early learning front and center.

To their credit, both encourage parental participation, though that’s a complex topic. It’s especially knotty for poor parents who don’t have computers, easy transportation or time to be involved in their child’s school.

Finally, each seems more tactical than strategic, with neither arguably offering a compelling answer to a simple question: What exactly is the purpose of a Chicago public school education?

Many politicians jabber about “preparing our children for a global high-tech economy.” That’s a projection of the present onto a future we stumble to imagine, let alone predict.

But if Mr. Heckman is correct, the purpose of education is what it has always been: to develop a well-rounded, knowledgeable and adaptable person; to create upward mobility through smarts and character.

Imagine more young adults going off into the world to make it better — and fewer coming home to sleep on the couch. If a candidate forced a real debate on such a vision, and a plan to pay for it, parents might pony up even in tough times.

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