by Watson Scott Swail, CEO, Educational Policy Institute/EPI International In the United States, Americans will celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday tomorrow, which is basically an opportunity to watch football, eat and drink too much, and spend time with relatives that you have desperately tried to avoid for the previous 364 days. Okay, not always true: sometimes you don’t eat too much. Thanksgiving has traditionally been held … Continue reading Being Thankful
by Watson Scott Swail, CEO, Educational Policy Institute/EPI International This past Wednesday, British higher education students took to the streets of London to decry the Conservative government’s plans to significantly raise tuition fees. It has been reported that the government plans to raise the fees by as much as three times the current price to £9,000, or about $14,000 US/CDN. The protest involved an estimated … Continue reading Taking it to the Streets: Student Protests and Higher Education Policy
I was going to write on the MESA project findings in Canada this week, a project led by EPI over the past five years in partnership with Queens University. However, I’ll put that off for another week due to an article in yesterday’s Globe and Mail.
It seems billionaires Bill Gates and Warren Buffett are in China on their international tour to recruit the richest people in the world to join the “Giving Club” (my coin, not theirs). Continue reading Learning to Give
It is of better valor to stay outside of the political arguments, and I most often heed that advice. But events of last week are forcing me to reconsider said advice.
Last week, the DREAM Act was voted down in the Senate on a party-line vote. The DREAM Act allows students who are, by birth, illegal immigrants to gain access to in-state tuition and financial aid for college. As well, it allows them to fast-track for citizenship. Continue reading The DREAM Act and the Party of “No”
By Watson Scott Swail, President and CEO of Educational Policy Institute and EPI International On May 20, The Texas State Board of Education voted to what some people have called “whitewashing” the history and social studies curriculum in the state to counterbalance “liberal-leaning academics.” Some of the changes debated included adding and deleting current political figures from third-grade social studies standards, dismissing the “socialist” United Migrant Workers, … Continue reading Leading by (a Bad) Example
The Swail Letter on Higher Education 