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FYI -- she gets an "A"

-----Original Message-----
From: casey.owens@do.treas.gov [mailto:casey.owens@do.treas.gov]
Sent: Wednesday, October 06, 2010 11:52 AM
To: Owens, Casey
Subject: POLITICO.com: How does Jill Biden rank with students?


Check out this page:

http://www.politico.com/click/stories/1010/how_does_biden_rank_with_students.html

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HOW DOES JILL BIDEN RANK WITH STUDENTS?

By KARIN TANABE | 10/5/10 5:15 PM EDT

Jill Biden led the charge at the White House Summit on Community Colleges on Tuesday, sharing expertise gained from almost three decades of teaching, with more than half of those years spent at community colleges.

"As I work hard every day to inspire students, it is ultimately they who inspire me," Biden said in her remarks. She went on to explain how students impress her, especially those "who overcome significant odds just to show up."

So we wondered: After 17 years at community colleges, do Biden's students find her as inspiring as she finds them?

According to Ratemyprofessors.com, a site that allows students to tell it like it is, Jill Biden is earning an "A." In her role as an English professor at Northern Virginia Community College, Biden has been ranked five times since she started at the school, earning a 4 out of 5 in overall quality. As for how the other numbers stacked up, Biden was rated a 3.8 for helpfulness, a 4.2 for clarity and a 3.2 for easiness. In other words, she's just tough enough. Not a bad set of numbers for a woman juggling two day jobs.

Prior to teaching at Northern Virginia Community College, Biden was an English teacher at Delaware Technical and Community College. With 23 ratings from students there, her average scores are about the same. Biden earned a 3.5 for overall quality, helpfulness and clarity and a 2.9 in easiness.

The main difference between her rankings from students at the two schools? In Delaware, Biden earned a bright red pepper icon next to her name. As the site states, "Is your professor hot? Hot professors get a red chili pepper." But no chili pepper for Biden in Virginia? Perhaps students feel it's inappropriate to label their professor as a hottie now that she's the nation's second lady.

Though Ratemyprofessors.com does not have a section to rate your professor's attendance record, a piece in Tuesday's Washington Post pointed out that Biden seldom lets her role as second lady interfere with teaching.

Jimmie McClellan, a dean at Northern Virginia Community College, told the Post that after a trip to Latin America with the vice president "she was in at 7 a.m. with a stack of graded papers," though her flight had landed at midnight.

The most recent comment Biden received on Ratemyprofessors.com-"Her goal is to pass you NOT to fail you"-is the type of thing that the Obama administration wants to hear all students say about their teachers. The administration aspires to up the number of community college graduates by 5 million by 2020 and eventually claim the highest proportion of college grads in the world.


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