Thread regarding Corinthian Colleges Inc. layoffs

Research conducted (and published) in higher education does not link high graduation rates to high course completion rates. Jenkins should stop spouting opinions and instead be honest: the leadership is unwilling to entertain facts and engage in thoughtful discussion which may challenge their beliefs. Thank God the public members of Heald College's board of trustees do not allow for instructor evaluations to include attrition rates. WASC would not tolerate this either, for it leads to the erosion of academic standards. Perhaps, ironically, treating Heald instructors like professionals and allowing them to set academic standards has contributed to the value of the college?

647, I've never heard of an instructor getting fired for low retention rate. The normal retention rate is 40% to 60% with the best instructors. Anyone who claims higher is lying.

Jenkins did lie. What he said was untrue. You can argue semantics or not, but he's still an ass who lies.

Does anyone know if we can access our students' Wonderlic scores on Talisma? That would give a good indication of the quality of students Everest attracts. You double the Wonderlic score and add 60 to get a good estimate of a person's IQ. I imagine that there a good number of students with Wonderlics of 7 and under.

Jenkins wasn't "lying." To lie means to intentionally misstate something. I think Jenkins actually believes that it's the instructor who is to blame when a student fails. The instructors could be partly at fault if students were first tested and there was some reasonable expectation that they could learn the material or would do the work. There isn't, but nevertheless, I think Jenkins actually believes that. We all know of instructors who were fired because not enough of their students passed.

Cci's New, New motto: F is for Failing Instructors!! Students Fail, You Fail!!! I've taught many other schools. The quality of student is not high. And it's not the instructors fault. They know this. Hell, even Jenkins knows he was lying. He probably threw up a little in he was as he was putting us down!!!

Hmmm, Ken...way to lay it on thick! He purposely chose the one type of college with the lowest grad rate, community colleges. Why do they have a low grad rate? Because most of their students move on to a 4-year university. They alos have a lot of students who enroll to take a few courses to gain some skills (e.g. IT skills) and just matriculate to qualify for aid while they're there. Everyone in the industry knows their grad rates are irrelevant. 61% is pretty damn low when you consider that most of our students are in extremely short-term programs, and even more when you consider the hand-holding and outreach we do. Students in other colleges don't grad because they flunked out. We don't have that at CCi.

26598 - that's what I'm worried about. They can save a lot of money firing instead of laying off. Brace yourself.

CCi students unable to do college level work? They can't even do grade school level work! Don't worry, Jenkins has everything under control. It's the instructor's fault.

Okay, so at least we know where this is headed. There's a shitball coming down the alley aimed at instructors. This is very convenient timing to starting cutting instructors due to "performance"

Anonymous26593- Your feathers a little ruffled over the 'asses in classes' motto?

Hell, I'm on board. I haven't given a F in years.

Everest's new motto: "Don't give an F."

It's been posted on this board that recruiting leadership uses 'asses in the classes.' CCI does NOT do any evaluation to determine whether a student can even read and write prior to getting those loan docs signed. I am so sick of leadership dumping students in our classes who are unwilling and unable to handle college level class work and then blaming US.

"If you give a student an F, it is YOU who have failed THEM. You have given yourself an F as a teacher." (actual quote I was subjected to while at EU)

I would be insulted, but I don't even care enough to be.

Ken Jenkins: "The problem is our poor quality faculty is not passing everyone."

BULLSHIT, Ken Jenkins. Get in the classroom and meet the students cci recruits! F*** you, jackass! You have no right to insult us like that. Bring us students who aren't in it for a payout, and see what real education is. What a dick.

How weird with everything else going on that he decides to go on TV and basically threaten the jobs of faculty who give a bad grade or neglect the ridiculous outreach. I think it's just desperation. They've seen attrition going higher and higher due to the bad publicity. They will do anything to stem the tide to keep things going just a little longer.

WOW. This makes me so angry. First, the fact that instructors are "evaulated on a regular basis." How about all the ECPO adjuncts who did NOT RECEIVE ONE SINGLE EVALUATION last year, for all four terms? I was being asked to "meet requirements" and never once got evaluated, although the Instructor Requirements changed every term. And how dare he correlate student failure with instructor performance. Perhaps if we were actually permitted to teach instead of doing outreach 70% of the time, our students might actually succeed. Or, how about recruiting students that are actually prepared to handle college level work? OMG.

This should read, "Corinthian evaluates STUDENTS on an ongoing basis to determine whether their STUDIES are effective. The clearest indicator of ineffective STUDIES is an unacceptably LOW rate of student attrition over time. We have found that two factors are consistently associated with POOR QUALITY STUDENTS: high absenteeism and unusually poor grades. . . . We believe that this ongoing evaluation of STUDENTS is in the best interest of our QUALITY PRODUCT and is one of the factors that enable Corinthian to achieve a HIGH QUALITY GRADUATE that is far higher than that of traditional community colleges. Corinthian has a companywide PLACEMENT rate of 80 percent OR MORE."

Why is Jenkins not addressing the interview aired yesterday where the same station essentially said that no one who goes to Everest gets a job? Talking about instructor evaluations seems, at best, to be a secondary issue.