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  • “Politically correct”, “druggies” and “weirdoes”: Review of ‘Storming the Ivory Tower’ by Richard Corcoran

    “Politically correct”, “druggies” and “weirdoes”: Review of ‘Storming the Ivory Tower’ by Richard Corcoran

    • This blog is a review by HEPI’s Director, Nick Hillman, of Storming the Ivory Tower: How a Florida College Became Ground Zero in the Struggle to Take Back Our Campuses

    The tone of this new book by Richard Corcoran on ‘Florida’s most left-wing public university’ is set at the very start with a tribute to the New York Times, the Washington Post and other newspapers for their ‘unshakeable commitment to ignoring any fact that does not support their predetermined narrative’. It continues into the Foreword, contributed by the US conservative Christopher Rufo, which argues for ‘institutional recapture’ and ‘reconquest’.

    The main text begins, however, with a paean to ‘liberal education’, a defining feature of western education but also a particularly good way of describing some higher education in the US. It then recounts how, in early 2023, the Republican governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, appointed six new trustees (including Rufo) to oversee the New College of Florida, which is the smallest institution in the State University System of Florida. The institution had only a few hundred students but was also a place that the American right thought had lost its way and needed saving.

    Oversight versus autonomy

    It is easy to forget on the UK side of the Atlantic, where we tend to associate university success with university autonomy, how much power state governors have over university systems in the US. The American model is akin to letting Andy Burnham decide who should govern the various universities in Greater Manchester. Or more pertinently perhaps, given the politics of the people involved, letting Andrea Jenkyns, the Reform mayor of Lincolnshire and former Minister for Universities, choose the board members of Lincoln University and Bishop Grosseteste University (soon to be renamed Lincoln Bishop University).

    Those who choose the trustees of an institution indirectly choose who should manage that institution as it is trustees who hire and fire leaders and hold them to account.  And in the case of the New College of Florida, DeSantis’s six new trustees helped to install the author of this book, Richard Corcoran, as the institution’s President in 2023.

    Corcoran’s core argument is that the changes wrought by DeSantis were necessary to rescue a failing institution to which those students who did enrol struggled to feel a sense of belonging. Admitted students (some of whom never actually enrolled) told researchers that the New College of Florida’s social culture was ‘politically correct’ and shaped by ‘druggies’ and ‘weirdoes’. Corcoran (rightly) points out this is ‘the exact opposite’ characterisation that ‘any rational organisation would adopt if it was trying to appeal to a broad swath of students and parents.’

    At just 650 students, the New College of Florida was only around half the size the local legislature had expected and, indeed, was smaller than the average secondary school in either the UK (1,000+ pupils) or the US (c.850), rather than boasting the typical enrolment of a higher education institution. That made a quick turnaround more feasible and Corcoran claims victory near the end of the book, arguing that, ‘In a mere 10 months, New College of Florida went from one of the most progressively captured universities in the country to the freest university in the nation.’ (This claim is caveated a little though, when Corcoran takes a dig at some of New College’s longer-serving staff: ‘I still have a small handful of faculty members who believe in leftist indoctrination.’)

    DEI, gender studies and 7 October

    The story of the takeover / recovery of New College is told via chapters looking at:

    • DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion), which we are told was costly and ineffectual or even counter-productive;
    • gender studies, which we are told has no place within the liberal arts; and
    • the campus battles after the 7 October attack by Hamas, which we are told exposed the power of ‘unseen, unknown, unelected people who reside in large part in and around academia.’

    The chapter on gender studies looks at the growth of the discipline and its arguably un-evidenced approach – especially towards the treatment of children with gender dysphoria. A succinct way to summarise it would be to say JK Rowling would likely approve of the chapter. But Corcoran ends with an important thought about why the way such issues are treated in academia matters: ‘The real concern is not just the suppression of free speech, but what happens in society when dialogue around important issues is summarily dismissed.’

    A later chapter focuses on the changes wrought Corcoran and his allies, such as changing curricula, adding sports and improving campus facilities. He and his team clearly have the institution’s and its students’ interests at heart. But the level of public expenditure for such a small college seems extraordinary and some of it seems to have been spent unnecessarily. For example, some neglected student dorms were renovated at large expense only to be declared still unfit for humans to live in, meaning hotel beds had to be requisitioned.

    It is striking that the reconquest of the institution was done via the actions of the state governor, the spending of considerable public money and the enforcement of strict rules. In other words, the tactics were interventionist rather than libertarian, even if the agenda was right-wing rather than left-wing. This helps explain why Corcoran is, unlike some other Republicans, opposed to abolishing the Department of Education, urging the American right to copy the left by using federal bodies to effect real change.

    The other thing that really sticks out is how big a battle was fought over a college that educates something like 0.003% of America’s college students (or 0.15% of Florida’s). In terms of size relative to the rest of the higher education sector, the New College of Florida is the US equivalent of something like the Dyson Institute here in the UK. So it is worth asking whether the campus battles are a trailblazer akin to Ronald Reagan taking on the University of California or whether they are more like the skirmishes seen here in the UK over institutions like Regent’s University London, the New College of the Humanities (now Northeastern University London) and Buckingham (where, to declare an interest, I sit on the Council). Corcoran himself seems unsure which they will turn out to be.

    I. Did. Not. Give. A. F***.

    At one point, Corcoran tells a story about his negotiations to eject a car museum which was on the New College campus and occupying much-needed space at a rent level that was far below the market value. This leads to some negative media coverage about which Corcoran writes, ‘As to the press: I. Did. Not. Give. A. F***.’ But there is an element of protesting too much here as there is page after page of settling scores and putting the record straight after numerous attacks on New College from many sides (including some parts of the media, staff and students and the Governor of another state [California]).

    While it makes sense to discuss the media attacks on the New College of Florida’s leaders in a book on the institution, the author can’t resist the temptation to broaden his text out to include earlier battles he fought with the media about COVID during his previous job as Education Commissioner of Florida, before delving even further back to recount his time as the 100th Speaker of Florida’s House of Representatives. It is all diverting and somewhat interesting as a study of state-level politics, but it is not really on what the book professes to be about.

    I don’t blame the author for responding to the attacks; educational institutions that profess to be objective can sometimes struggle to accommodate members that hold anything other than the standard left-wing views that predominate in education. But as a reader on this other side of the Atlantic, I’d have preferred more higher education strategy and less tittle-tattle. When you’re trying to work out what lessons the battles over New College might hold for higher education outside the US, the settling of old scores with various local, national and specialist media outlets is less interesting.

    Nonetheless, the book ends with a nine-point ‘roadmap’ for transformation, from ‘Leadership is everything’, through ‘Litigate, litigate, litigate’ to ‘Presidents should have CEO capabilities’. Given it is so hard to find out what a Farage Government might mean for higher education over here, then this book may provide a bigger hint than Reform’s last manifesto.

    Parting thought

    When I’ve previously posted my assessment of books that are relevant to higher education and written from a right-of-centre perspective, I’ve received pushback. My far-from-adulatory review of one of Matt Goodwin’s books, for example, won an excoriating comment from a former vice-chancellor: ‘HEPI was set up as a serious evidence based think tank. It was not set up to dabble in phoney party political “culture wars”.’

    It is hard to disagree with the general sentiment on HEPI’s purpose, but I do disagree with the notion that we should ignore books written from the right. It is important to understand the right’s approach to higher education (on both sides of the Atlantic). If you draw a thick boundary around those books that are deemed acceptable to read and review and if that line excludes books like Corcoran’s, there are two problems.

    1. First, you play into the hands of – and give succour to – those who regard higher education as both insufficiently ideologically diverse and unwilling to engage with the full range of mainstream ideas.
    2. Secondly, you fail to draw a distinction between a right-wing stance, like Corocran’s, which (whether you agree with it or not) is aimed at raising educational standards, and other right-wing educational escapades that are much less clearly about improving education.

    Having also just finished reading Trump U: The Inside Story of Trump University by Stephen Gilpin, which lays bare the horror that was ‘Trump University’ and its get-rich-quick-at-the-expense-of-the-poor schemes which have nothing to do with academia, I am reinforced in my view that we should engage with all mainstream educational ideas irrespective of whether they emerge from potentially divisive Republicans such as Corcoran or somewhere else.

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  • Child care centers often reject kids with disabilities. Ohio and other states are trying to change that

    Child care centers often reject kids with disabilities. Ohio and other states are trying to change that

    This story about children with disabilities was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.

    COLUMBUS, Ohio — When Selina Likely became director of the Edwards Creative Learning Center six years ago, she knew there was one longstanding practice that she wanted to change. For as long as she had taught at the thriving child care center, it had turned away many children with disabilities such as autism and Down syndrome. The practice was even encoded in the center’s handbook as policy.

    Likely, the parent of a child with a disability, wanted to stop telling families no, but she knew that to do that she and her staff would need more support. “I said, ‘Let’s start getting training and see what we can do.’” 

    Not too long after, her effort received a big boost from a state-funded initiative in Ohio to strengthen child care teachers’ knowledge and confidence in working with young kids with disabilities and developmental delays. That program, Ohio PROMISE, offers free online training for child care workers in everything from the benefits of kids of all abilities learning and playing together to the kinds of classroom materials most helpful to have on hand. It also offers as-needed mentorship and support from trained coaches across the state.  

    Related: Young children have unique needs, and providing the right care can be a challenge. Our free early childhood education newsletter tracks the issues. 

    Child care providers across the country — including large, established centers and tiny home-based programs — struggle to meet the needs of children with disabilities, according to a 2024 report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office. More than a quarter of parents of children with disabilities said they had a lot of difficulty finding appropriate care for their kids. And even those who do find a spot regularly encounter challenges, like having their children excluded from extracurricular activities such as field trips and even academic instruction. 

    “It’s really hard to find child care for this population, we heard that loud and clear,” said Elizabeth Curda, a director on the GAO’s Education, Workforce and Income Security team and a coauthor of the report. Even the most well-resourced centers report that they struggle to meet the needs of children with disabilities, according to Curda. 

    There’s a lot of desire at the grassroots level to change that. Ohio PROMISE and a few other recent initiatives provide models for how to expand the capacity — and the will — of child care centers to serve the more than 2 million U.S. children age 5 or below who have a disability or developmental delay.

    Cards on the walls at Edwards Creative Learning Center display the signs for different letters so students — whether nonverbal or not — can all learn sign language. Credit: Sarah Carr/The Hechinger Report

    In Vermont, for instance, officials hope to soon unveil a free, on-demand training program aimed at helping child care teachers have more inclusive classrooms. And officials in Ohio’s Summit County, home to Akron, report growing interest from other counties in creating programs based on Summit’s more than decade-old model that provides in-person training for child care operators in inclusion of children with disabilities. 

    “We’re helping to create child care centers that feel they can handle whatever comes their way, especially when it comes to significant behavior concerns,” said Yolanda Mahoney, the early childhood center support supervisor for Summit County’s disabilities board.

    The federal government until recently encouraged the creation of such models. In 2023, the federal Department of Education and Department of Health and Human Services issued a joint statement urging states to take steps to support inclusion in early childhood settings, including strengthening training and accountability. 

    Also, a year-old provision of the Child Care and Development Fund, the primary federal funding source for child care, requires that states increase the availability of child care for children with disabilities as a prerequisite for receiving funds. (However, 43 states have received waivers allowing them to delay implementation of that provision.) 

    Under the current president, federal momentum on the issue has largely stalled. While the administration of President Donald Trump hasn’t directly attacked inclusion in the context of special education, the president has criticized the term more broadly — especially when it comes to diversity, equity and inclusion. That can create uncertainty and a chilling effect on advocates of inclusion efforts of all kinds.   

    Funding for some inclusion efforts is also in jeopardy. States rely on Medicaid, which faces nearly $1 trillion in cuts over the next decade, to pay for early intervention programs for children birth to age 3 with developmental delays and disabilities. Trump has also proposed eliminating Preschool Development Grants, which states such as Vermont and Illinois have used to expand support of young children with disabilities. 

    That means over the next few years, progress on inclusion in child care settings could hinge largely on state and local investment. It helps that there’s a “real desire” among providers to enroll more children with disabilities, said Kristen Jones, an assistant director on the GAO’s education, workforce and income security team, who also worked on the report. “But there’s also a concern that currently they can’t do that in a safe way” because of a lack of training and resources.

    Related: For kids with disabilities, child care options are worse than ever

    In Ohio, the idea for Ohio PROMISE came after an appeal in 2022 from Republican Gov. Mike DeWine. He reported that families were coming to him saying they couldn’t find child care for their kids with disabilities. 

    “He said, ‘Come to me with ideas to solve that problem,’” recalled Wendy Grove, a senior adviser in the Ohio Department of Children and Youth who spearheaded development of the program.

    Grove and her colleagues had already been working on a related effort. In 2020, Ohio won a federal grant that included help exploring how well — or not — children with disabilities were being included in child care and early education settings. DeWine liked the idea Grove’s team presented of morphing that work into a state-led effort to strengthen training and support for child care teachers. They also proposed more direct support to families, including the extension of child care vouchers to families with incomes above the poverty level, with a higher reimbursement rate for children with disabilities. 

    The training, which debuted about two years ago, is provided in three levels. Jada Cutchall, a preschool teacher at Imaginative Beginnings, an early learning center just outside of Toledo, recently completed the third tier, which for her included customized coaching. Cutchall’s coach helped her create communication tools for a largely nonverbal student, she said, including a board with pictures children can point to if, for example, they want to go to the bathroom or try a different playground activity. 

    As a result, Cutchall said, she has watched kids with disabilities, including those with speech impairments and autism, engage much more directly with their classmates. “They have the courage to ask their peers to play with them — or at least not distance themselves as much as they usually would,” she said. All of the children in the classroom have benefited, she added, noting that kids without disabilities have taken an interest in learning sign language, strengthening their own communication skills and fostering empathy. 

    Child care programs where one teacher and one administrator have completed some of the training earn a special designation from the state, which may eventually be tied to the opportunity to get extra funding to serve children with disabilities. In Ohio PROMISE’s first year, 1,001 child care centers — about 10 percent of the total number in Ohio — earned that designation, according to Grove.

    For the last six years, Selina Likely has overseen the Edwards Creative Learning Center, where she’s steadily tried to enroll more children with disabilities and developmental delays. Credit: Sarah Carr/The Hechinger Report

    The effort costs a little over $1 million in state dollars each year, with most of that paying for several regional support personnel who work directly with centers as mentors and advisers. Over the last two years, Ohio has seen a 38 percent increase in the number of children in publicly funded centers who qualify for the higher voucher reimbursement rate for children with disabilities, which can be double the size of the standard voucher.

    Grove hopes that ultimately the effort plays a role in narrowing a critical and stubborn gap in the state: about 27 percent of children without disabilities show readiness on state standards for kindergarten; only 14 percent of children with disabilities do. Since so few disabilities exhibited at that age are related to intellectual or cognitive functioning, “we shouldn’t see that gap,” said Grove. “There’s no real reason.”  

    One goal of the new efforts is to reduce the number of young children with disabilities who are expelled from or pushed out of care. Those children are frequently asked to leave for behaviors related to their disability, the GAO report found.

    Several years ago, a child care center in Columbus expelled Meagan Severance’s 18-month-old son for biting a staff member. The boy has several special needs, including some related to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Severance brought him to Edwards Creative Learning Center, where not too long after Selina Likely shifted into the role of director. The boy also bit a staff member there — not uncommon behavior for toddlers, especially those with sensory sensitivities and communication challenges. 

    Likely was determined to work with the child, not expel him. “They put in time and effort,” said Severance. “The response wasn’t, ‘He bit someone, he’s gone.’” 

    Likely empathized. Decades earlier, her own daughter had been expelled from a child care center in her hometown of Mansfield, Ohio, for biting.

    “I was so angry and mad at the time — how are you going to kick out a 1-year-old?” she said. The center director didn’t think at all about how to help her child, Likely recalled, instead asking Likely what might be happening at home to make the child want to bite. She said she got no notice or grace period to find a new placement. “That left me in a disheartened place,” she said. “I was like, ‘I still have to go to work.”

    Seventeen years old at the time, she was inspired by the injustice of the situation to quit her job in a factory and apply to be an assistant in a child care program. She’s been in the industry ever since, gradually trying to make more space for children like her daughter, who was later diagnosed with autism.  

    Meagan Severance, a parent and teacher at the Edwards center, has worked in recent years to make her classroom more inclusive for children with all different abilities. Credit: Sarah Carr/The Hechinger Report

    As director, Likely displays the nameplate “chaos coordinator” on her desk. And she’s taken the stance that the center should at least try to work with every kid. She and some of her teachers have completed the first two tiers of the Ohio PROMISE training, as well as some related sessions available from the state. Likely estimates that about 10 percent of the children in her center have a diagnosed disability or developmental delay.

    Liasun Meadows, whose son has Down syndrome, chose Edwards several years ago for her then 1-year-old over another program better known for its work with children with disabilities. She has not been disappointed.

    Parents of kids with disabilities watch their children like a hawk, she said. “There are certain things you notice that you don’t expect others to notice, but they do at Edwards. They’ve been growing and learning alongside him.”  

    Severance, whose son is now 8, works at the center these days, leading the 3-year-old room, which includes two children who are largely nonverbal. She’s made the classroom more inclusive, adding fidget toys for children with sensory issues, rearranging the classroom to create calming areas, providing communication books to nonverbal children so they can more easily express needs and wants, and teaching everyone some sign language. 

    “For a while there was segregation in the classroom” between the kids with disabilities and those without, Severance said. But that’s lessened with the changes. “Inclusion has been good for the kids who are verbal — and nonverbal,” she said.

    Related: Where do kids with disabilities go for child care?  

    As in Ohio, state officials in Vermont turned to online training to help ensure young children with disabilities aren’t denied quality care. The state should soon debut the first parts of a new training program, focusing on outreach to child care administrators and support for neurodivergent children. The state wanted to focus on center leaders first because “directors that are comfortable with inclusion lead programs that are comfortable with inclusion,” said Dawn Rouse, the director of statewide systems in Vermont’s Child Development Division.   

    One tool for supporting and calming children with sensory issues is keeping a healthy supply of fidget toys and Pop-Its on hand. Credit: Sarah Carr/The Hechinger Report

    Vermont also pumped millions of dollars into a separate program, known as the Special Accommodations Grant, that supports young children with disabilities. Since 2009 the state has set aside $300,000 a year that child care centers can tap to provide services for individual children with disabilities. It might help buy specialized equipment for a child with cerebral palsy, for instance, or be used to hire a full- or part-time aide.

    The $300,000 has been maxed out every year, Rouse said. And after the pandemic, the need — and the number of applications — surged.

    As a result, the state allocated some federal American Rescue Plan and Preschool Development Grant dollars to increase spending on the program by about sevenfold — to between $2 million and $2.5 million annually — an amount Rouse still describes as a “Band-Aid.” Without access to the grants, “we see a lot of children being asked to leave programs,” Rouse said. “That’s not good for any child, but for children with specialized developmental needs it’s particularly bad.” 

    Over time, Likely hopes, her Ohio center can play a small role in reducing that instability, although the center hasn’t yet been able to work with all such children it wants to. Likely recalls one toddler with a severe disability who climbed up anything he could. There wasn’t enough money to pay for what the child really needed: a full-time aide. “It’s hard when you know you’ve tried but still have to say no,” she said. “That breaks my heart more than anything.” 

    On one June morning, the center’s teachers acknowledged and celebrated several milestones in its work on inclusion, big and small. One child in the 3-year-old classroom with fine and gross motor challenges was drinking independently from a bottle. The preschool classroom held its first graduation ceremony, translated partly into sign language. All of the kids, no matter their challenges, were set to go on field trips to Dairy Queen and the zoo.

    Likely dreams of someday running a center where about half of the children have a disability or delay. It may be years off, she said, but as with the milestones she sees scores of children at the center reach every day, “There’s a way — if there’s a will.” 

    Sarah Carr is a fellow at New America, focused on reporting on early childhood issues. 

    Contact contributing editor Sarah Carr at [email protected].   

    This story about children with disabilities was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.

    The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.

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  • Life vs. Education: The Empath Edition – Faculty Focus

    Life vs. Education: The Empath Edition – Faculty Focus

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  • Life vs. Education: The Empath Edition – Faculty Focus

    Life vs. Education: The Empath Edition – Faculty Focus

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  • Gen Z craves purpose. Universities must catch up – Campus Review

    Gen Z craves purpose. Universities must catch up – Campus Review

    Speak to young university students today and a picture emerges of deep concern for justice, hunger for real-world connection, and an urgent desire to belong to something bigger than themselves.

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  • Students call for AI art class cancellation – Campus Review

    Students call for AI art class cancellation – Campus Review

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    UNSW says the course explores creative and ethical questions about the use of gen AI in art

    NCA NewswireAugust 4, 2025Last Updated: August 4, 2025

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    The University of New South Wales has come under fire for offering a new subject that asks students to explore how to use generative AI to create art.

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  • How do we gain and measure social licence? – Campus Review

    How do we gain and measure social licence? – Campus Review

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    Martin BettsAugust 4, 2025Last Updated: August 4, 2025

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  • Is peer review of teaching stuck in the past?

    Is peer review of teaching stuck in the past?

    Most higher education institutions awarded gold for the student experience element of their 2023 Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) submissions mentioned peer review of teaching (PRT).

    But a closer look at what they said will leave the reader with the strong impression that peer review schemes consume lots of time and effort for no discernible impact on teaching quality and student experience.

    What TEF showed us

    Forty out of sixty providers awarded gold for student experience mention PRT, and almost all of these (37) called it “observation.” This alone should give pause for thought: the first calls to move beyond observation towards a comprehensive process of peer review appeared in 2005 and received fresh impetus during the pandemic (see Mark Campbell’s timely Wonkhe comment from March 2021). But the TEF evidence is clear: the term and the concept not only persist, but appear to flourish.

    It gets worse: only six institutions (that’s barely one in ten of the sector’s strongest submissions) said they measure engagement with PRT or its impact, and four of those six are further education (FE) colleges providing degree-level qualifications. Three submissions (one is FE) showed evidence of using PRT to address ongoing challenges (take a bow, Hartpury and Plymouth Marjon universities), and only five institutions (two are FE) showed any kind of working relationship between PRT and their quality assurance processes.

    Scholarship shows that thoughtfully implemented peer review of teaching can benefit both the reviewer and the reviewed but that it needs regular evaluation and must adapt to changing contexts to stay relevant. Sadly, only eleven TEF submissions reported that their respective PRT schemes have adapted to changing contexts via steps such as incorporating the student voice (London Met), developing new criteria based on emerging best practice in areas such as inclusion (Hartpury again), or a wholesale revision of their scheme (St Mary’s Twickenham).

    The conclusion must be that providers spend a great deal of time and effort (and therefore money) on PRT without being able to explain why they do it, show what value they get from it, or even ponder its ongoing relevance. And when we consider that many universities have PRT schemes but didn’t mention them, the scale of expenditure on this activity will be larger than represented by the TEF, and the situation will be much worse than we think.

    Why does this matter?

    This isn’t just about getting a better return on time and effort; it’s about why providers do peer review of teaching at all, because no-one is actually required to do it. The OfS conditions of registration require higher education institutions to “provide evidence that all staff have opportunities to engage in reflection and evaluation of their learning, teaching, and assessment practice”.

    Different activities can meet the OfS stipulation, such as team teaching, formal observations for AdvanceHE Fellowship, teaching network discussions, microteaching within professional development settings. Though not always formally categorised within institutional documentation, these nevertheless form part of the ecosystem under which people seek or engage with review from peers and represent forms of peer-review adjacent practice which many TEF submissions discussed at greater length and with more confidence than PRT itself.

    So higher education institutions invest time and effort in PRT but fail to explain the benefits of their reasoning, and appear to derive greater value from alternative activities that satisfy the OfS. Yet PRT persists. Why?

    What brought us to this point?

    Many providers will find that their PRT schemes were started or incorporated into their institutional policies around the millennium. Research from Crutchley and colleagues identified Brenda Smith’s HEFCE-funded project at Nottingham Trent in the late 1990s as a pioneering moment in establishing PRT as part of the UK landscape, following earlier developments in Australia and the US. Research into PRT gathered pace in the early 2000s and reached a (modest) peak in around 2005, and then tailed off.

    PRT is the Bovril of the education cupboard. We’re pretty sure it does some good, though no one is quite sure how, and we don’t have time to look it up. We use it maybe once a year and are comforted by its presence, even though its best before date predates the first smartphones, and its nutritional value is now less than the label that bears its name. The prospect of throwing it out induces an existential angst – “am I a proper cook without it?” – and yes of course we’d like to try new recipes but who has the time to do that?

    Australia shows what is possible

    There is much to be learnt from looking outside our own borders, on how peer review has evolved in other countries. In Australia, the 2024 Universities Accord offered 47 recommendations as part of a federally funded vision for tertiary education reform for 2050. The Accord was reviewed on Wonkhe in March 2024.

    One of its recommendations advocates for the “increased, systematised use of peer review of teaching” to improve teaching quality, insisting this “should be underpinned by evidence of effective and efficient methodologies which focus on providing actionable feedback to teaching staff.” The Accord even suggested these processes could be used to validate existing national student satisfaction surveys.

    Some higher education institutions, such as The University of Sydney, had already anticipated this direction, having revised their peer review processes with sector developments firmly in mind a few years ahead of the Accord’s formal recommendations. A Teaching@Sydney blog post from March 2023 describes how the process uses a pool of centrally trained and accredited expert reviewers, standardised documentation aligned with contemporary, evidence-based teaching principles, and cross-disciplinary matching processes that minimise conflicts of interest, while intentionally integrating directly with continuing professional development pathways and fellowship programs. This creates a sustainable ecosystem of teaching enhancement rather than isolated activities, meaning the Bovril is always in use rather than mouldering behind Christmas’s leftover jar of cranberry sauce.

    Lessons for the UK

    Comparing Australia and the UK draws out two important points. First, Australia has taken the simple but important step of saying PRT has a role in realising an ambitious vision for HE. This has not happened in the UK. In 2017 an AdvanceHE report said that “the introduction and focus of the Teaching Excellence Framework may see a renewed focus on PRT” but clearly this has not come to pass.

    In fact, the opposite is true, because the majority of TEF Summary Statements were silent on the matter of PRT, and there seemed to be some inconsistency in judgments in those instances where the reviewers did say something. In the absence of any explanation it is hard to understand why they might commend the University of York’s use of peer observation on a PG Cert for new staff, but judge that the University of West London meeting their self-imposed target of 100 per cent completion of teaching observations every two years for all academic permanent staff members was “insufficient evidence of high-quality practice.”

    Australia’s example sounds rather top-down, but it’s sobering to realise that they are probably achieving more impact for the cost of less time and effort than their UK colleagues, if the TEF submissions are anything to go by.

    And Australia is clear-sighted about how PRT needs to be implemented for it to work effectively, and how it can be joined up with measures such as student satisfaction surveys that have emerged since PRT first appeared over thirty years ago. Higher education institutions such as Sydney have been making deliberate choices about how to do PRT and how to integrate it with other management, development and recognition processes – an approach that has informed and been validated by the Universities Accord’s subsequent recommendations.

    Where now for PRT?

    UK providers can follow Sydney’s example by integrating their PRT schemes with existing professional development pathways and criteria, and a few have already taken that step. The FE sector affords many examples of using different peer review methods, such as learning walks and coaching in combination. University College London’s recent light refresh of its PRT scheme shows that management and staff alike welcome choice.

    A greater ambition than introducing variety would be to improve reporting of program design and develop validated tools to assess outcomes. This would require significant work and sponsorship from a body such as AdvanceHE, but would yield stronger evidence about PRT’s value for supporting teaching development, and underpin meaningful evaluation of practice.

    This piece is based on collaborative work between University College London and the University of Sydney examining peer review of teaching processes across both institutions. It was contributed by Nick Grindle, Samantha Clarke, Jessica Frawley, and Eszter Kalman.

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  • LA Preschool Teacher Closed Her Doors After Almost 20 Years. What It Says About the State of Childcare – The 74

    LA Preschool Teacher Closed Her Doors After Almost 20 Years. What It Says About the State of Childcare – The 74


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    After almost 20 years in business, Milestones Preschool in Inglewood closed its doors this month.

    It was a decision that preschool director Milena Bice had been putting off for years. She’d turned her family home into a small business, transforming the house on a quiet tree-lined street into a playground of childish delights, complete with a sand pit, fruit trees and even a brood of chicks waddling around a small pen.

    Bice loved her preschool. She loved the way it allowed her to care for her own kids when they were little, and how she could continue to apply therapeutic approaches to her work long after they’d outgrown preschool. Over the years, she developed a reputation for her care for children with neurological differences.

    But child care is no easy business. Margins were about as slim as can be. When parents couldn’t afford to pay full tuition, Bice felt it was her duty to keep caring for their kids anyway. The question of closing loomed over her as her business survived the ups and downs of the global economy: first, the 2008 recession, and the COVID-19 pandemic more than a decade later.

    But this month, Bice finally called it quits. She was sick of charging families high fees and still struggling to pay herself at the end of the month. And for the first time this year, she said her preschool didn’t have anyone on her waitlist. One reason is universal transitional kindergarten — or TK — no-cost public kindergarten that becomes an option for all California 4-year-olds this fall.

    “ I can’t compete with free,” she told LAist in a recent interview. “And in this economy, I think a lot of families are hurting.”

    Bice’s predicament mirrors a statewide challenge. As families sign their 4-year-olds up for TK, some childcare and preschool providers say they’re losing enrollment and it’s threatening their businesses. While teachers struggle to adjust, childcare remains an unaffordable and unmet need for many families across California, especially with very young children.

    Child care is still a major need for CA families

    Even as transitional kindergarten expands, there’s no shortage of need for child care. The California Budget & Policy Center estimates that just 19% of infants, toddlers and preschool-aged children who are eligible for state subsidized care are enrolled. The need is especially great for children age 2 or younger — the most expensive age group to care for.

    A recent report from the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment found that most early education programs will need to pivot to younger kids to meet the need and stay in business, and that centers and home-based childcares are hurting from declined enrollment since the pandemic.

    Anna Powell, the lead author of that report, said early educators struggling to adapt to the changing landscape of their industry are a byproduct of the state’s massive investment in universal TK, but lack of similar investment in others.

    “ If one area, for example TK, receives a lot of resources to scale up to reach demand, in theory, that is positive,” she said. “What happens when you don’t invest in all the quadrants at the same time is that there can be these unintended consequences.”

    Transitioning to younger kids is a challenge

    Powell said that caring for younger kids requires a number of shifts in how child care programs operate. Teaching expertise is different for younger children, and staffing ratios are smaller. The time a provider might expect to have a child enrolled is also shorter, since kids are heading to the public school system earlier. This means early educators could face more turnover.

    There’s also the matter of teaching preferences. Caring for a 3- or 4-year-old is very different from taking care of a 1-year-old. In a survey of nearly 1,000 early educators, just 20% said they’d be interested in teaching infants and toddlers.

    David Frank, who runs a preschool in Culver City, told LAist in April that he’s also closing his doors this year. He said that 4-year-olds used to make up a third of the school’s students, and his enrollment was down from 34 to 13. His preschool already took 2 -year-olds, but he didn’t want to go any younger. One reason is it would require him to reconfigure the school to create a separate space for the youngest children.

    Frank said he’s not against TK, but he couldn’t keep making it work.

    “ I’m happy that children will have good, free education,” he said. “But as a person trying to run a business … it’s just no longer a viable plan to stay open anymore.”

    Advocates say even more investment is needed

    California’s transitional kindergarten is a plan years in the making, and, despite kinks, it has achieved a big goal: offering a free option for every family with a 4-year-old in the state.

    That program runs through the public school system, but child care and early education offerings for the state’s youngest children continue to be a patchwork of different types of care with no similar central system. The state funds a public preschool program for 2- to 5-year-olds for low-income families, which has received more money in recent years. Many private programs receive state subsidies for serving low-income families, and the state has increased the number of seats it funds in recent years.

    It also bumped up reimbursement rates for 3-year-olds to entice more providers to take younger kids.

    Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office pointed to these changes, telling LAist that it has invested heavily in a universal Pre-K program that extends beyond transitional kindergarten.

    Some advocates and childcare providers say still more game-changing investment is needed. The state has promised the childcare providers that receive its subsidies to overhaul its payment system to reflect the “true cost” of care, but this year deferred offering them pay bumps. The union representing those workers is currently bargaining with the state, saying providers can’t wait for a raise.

    Patricia Lozano, the executive director of advocacy organization Early Edge California, said TK’s ripple effect on early education programs shows that the state needs to do more to provide for its youngest children.

    “ TK was one of the key things we’ve been advocating since it was passed,” she said. “But that’s just one piece. I think the whole system itself is problematic. It’s underfunded.”

    Lozano pointed to New Mexico as a potential model for California. The state has boosted teacher pay and expanded eligibility for free care by directing gas and oil revenue to state childcare programs. She said this type of consistent source of money is especially important amid threats to federal funding and state budget cuts.

    “The  bottom line is we need to have that source of funding protected,” she said.

    In the meantime, Milena Bice’s preschool in Inglewood is closed. She’s not sure exactly what happens next. She can’t go work at a public school. Despite decades in the business, she doesn’t have a bachelor’s degree or teaching credential.

    While she debates the future, Bice is holding onto her childcare license. Who knows? Maybe she’ll want to reopen someday.


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  • How a Rhode Island Teen’s $1M Changed the State’s 6th Largest City – The 74

    How a Rhode Island Teen’s $1M Changed the State’s 6th Largest City – The 74


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    When then-16-year old Mariam Kaba won $1 million through the Transform Rhode Island scholarship three years ago, she saw it as her opportunity to create the change she wanted to see in her nearly 45,000-person community of Woonsocket. 

    “I don’t see much positive representation from our community all the time,” Kaba said. “I was thinking ‘my scholarship won’t get picked.’ But it did … and I was able to bring something so big to my community, a community that already doesn’t have the most funding in the world.” 

    The scholarship, funded by the Papitto Opportunity Connection Foundation, asks students to answer, “if you had $1 million how would you target the lives of those in Rhode Island and how would you create change?”

    Kaba’s investments resulted in a number of youth-centered spaces and opportunities popping up across the city, including 120 calm corners in elementary classrooms to support students’ sensory functions, new physical education equipment for all Woonsocket elementary schools, job fairs, hundreds of donated books, and field trips to local colleges & universities, among others.

    Kaba, who is now a rising sophomore at Northeastern University, describes the experience of winning the scholarship as surreal.

    “It didn’t occur to me that I was the last person standing and I won $1 million,” Kaba said. “But when I won, the first thing I thought was, ‘OK, let’s get to work. I’m given this opportunity to help improve my community. What steps can I take? And when does the groundwork start happening?’”

    When a teen leads, adults follow

    Bringing Kaba’s vision to life meant working alongside adults with experience in project management and community engagement while keeping up with her student life at Woonsocket High School.

    “In high school, I managed both classwork and extracurriculars like student council, being a peer mentor and participating in Future Business Leaders of America,” Kaba said. “Balancing those things with my work with the scholarship came easy to me.”

    Kaba partnered with community organizations across the state like nonprofit Leadership Rhode Island. This collaboration helped lay out a roadmap for Kaba’s proposal, manage the scholarship funds and coordinate meetings with community leaders. 

    The winning student also sits on the board of the Papitto Opportunity Connection Foundation for a year. This provides an opportunity for them to build their network and connect with leaders in Rhode Island. 

    High schoolers can make a difference through spaces and support like this, Kaba said, and also advises teens interested in engaging with their community to “not be afraid to start off small.”

    This “small” gesture, Kaba added, can be as simple as gathering a group of friends to organize a community cleanup or starting a school club or Instagram to advocate for something they’re passionate about.

    “Starting off small is going to give you those steps to leading these big impactful projects,” Kaba said.

    The feedback Kaba received on her community investments, primarily from peers, community members and teachers in Woonsocket, was overwhelmingly positive.

    “People told me, ‘I was able to go to this job fair and I got connected to this job,’ or, ‘I’m going to the Harbour Youth Center to get items from the food pantry you created and it’s been helping my family a lot,’” Kaba said. “Community organizations reached out to me to let me know they would love to find a way to work together and do their part to take action too.”


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