Tag Archive for 'college'

The BA is B-A-D

Published by Robert Pondiscio on October 12, 2008 in Higher Education. 2 Comments

Imagine that you have been made a member of a task force to design America’s post-secondary education system from scratch, writes Charles Murray at Cato Unbound.  One of your colleagues submits this proposal:

First, we will set up a single goal to represent educational success, which will take four years to achieve no matter what is being taught. We will attach an economic reward to it that often has nothing to do with what has been learned. We will urge large numbers of people who do not possess adequate ability to try to achieve the goal, wait until they have spent a lot of time and money, and then deny it to them. We will stigmatize everyone who doesn’t meet the goal. We will call the goal a “BA.”

You would conclude that your colleague was cruel, not to say insane, says Murray.  ”I have taken as my mission to do everything I can to undermine the BA,” Murray announces.  “The good news is that the conditions are right for change. There is a diverse world of work out there, filled with jobs that are interesting, well-paying, and intrinsically rewarding, that do not call for the kind of training that colleges are designed to provide.”

Degrees? We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Degrees!

Published by Robert Pondiscio on September 4, 2008 in Higher Education. 2 Comments

The importance of a bachelor’s degree has been wildly oversold, says Walt Gardner.  More than 90 percent of high school students are steered toward a college-prep curriculum, notes the former L.A. high school teacher and inveterate edupundit in an iconoclastic Christian Science Monitor essay. 

The usual argument put forth in defense of a four-year degree is that it contains a decided wage premium…[But] if Alan Blinder, former vice chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, is correct, the only jobs that will be secure in the next decade will those that cannot be sent abroad electronically. That means plumbers, electricians, and auto mechanics, for example, will be working steadily while many of their degreed classmates will be collecting unemployment checks. Moreover, since wages vary within any occupation, degree holders who are still employed will not necessarily be earning top salaries.

The Wall Street Journal reported last month that some unionized craft workers already earn more than the average college graduate, Gardner notes, and do so without carrying the heavy burden of student debt.

“The total damage inflicted on students by the college-is-for-everyone mentality is incalculable. Students who cannot measure up to the demands for a college curriculum are made to feel like failures,” Gardner concludes. ”What Americans ultimately need to learn is that college is merely the most convenient place to learn how to learn. It is not an absolute determinant.”

Up until the day I left for college, my father, a blue-collar, Depression-era product, tried to convince me to “learn a trade” like TV repair or air conditioning so I would have “a skill to fall back on.”  Gardner would approve.

College Not An “Academic Safety Net”

Published by Robert Pondiscio on August 14, 2008 in Curriculum and Higher Education. 6 Comments

E.D.Hirsch opposed to a core curriculum?  Yes, but in college. In an essay on Forbes.com Hirsch argues against expecting colleges to do work that ought to be done by K-12 schools.  ”The underlying problem is not that our professors are feckless or that our undergraduates are brain-dead addicts of iPods and cellphones who lack curiosity and passion for knowledge, he writes.  “The real problem is that these young men and women, through no fault of their own, are showing up on campuses undereducated and unprepared for college-level work. They should have received a good general education before they arrived on campus.”

They need remedial courses–including “core curriculum” courses in science, history, the arts and civics–at the time in their lives when they want to launch out on their own, exploring, discovering and pursuing interests at a high level. A required core curriculum in college is not something to be devoutly wished for, but rather a concession to the consequences of a third-rate preparation for first-rate colleges and universities….But though we may currently need to do so, the last thing we should want to do is impose a table d’hôte of required classes on undergraduates who are enjoying their first taste of academic freedom and a chance to chart their own educational destinies.

“There is a real danger that in making colleges the academic safety net of last resort, we’ll absolve the public schools of their obligation to provide students with a sound, well-rounded education,” Hirsch cautions. ”It’s damaging to our students, to our country and to our higher education system, which is the lone bright star in our educational firmament. Everyone loses.”

The Innumeracy of Intellectuals

Published by Robert Pondiscio on August 6, 2008 in Core Knowledge and Higher Education. 1 Comment

Inside Higher Ed“I know nothing about art or music,” writes Chad Orzel at Inside Higher Ed. “I don’t know Beethoven from Bach, Renaissance from Romantics. I’m not even sure those are both art terms.” Orzel, is not a high school student, or even a middle school student. He’s a professor of physics at Union College.

Given my line of work, this doesn’t rise to the level of a liability, but it’s awkward. I’m a professor at a liberal arts college, putting me solidly in the “Intellectual” class, and there’s a background assumption that anyone with as much education as I have will know something about history and philosophy and literature and art and classical music….On those occasions when I’m forced to admit my ignorance (or, worse yet, the fact that I don’t even like classical music), my colleagues tend to look a little sideways at me, and I can feel myself drop slightly in their estimation. Not knowing anything about those subjects makes me less of an Intellectual to most people in the academy.

Alas, it’s a one-way street. Intellectuals in the humanities don’t look askance at those who confess an ignorance of math or science. In fact, it’s something of a badge of honor. “Students seeking to avoid math or science classes can expect to get a sympathetic hearing from much of the academy,” Orzel writes, “where the grousing of physics majors is written off as whining by nerds who badly need to expand their narrow minds.”

I’m not exaggerating when I say that I think the lack of respect for math and science is one of the largest unacknowledged problems in today’s society. And it starts in the academy — somehow, we have moved to a place where people can consider themselves educated while remaining ignorant of remarkably basic facts of math and science. If I admit an ignorance of art or music, I get sideways looks, but if I argue for taking a stronger line on math and science requirements, I’m being unreasonable. The arts are essential, but Math Is Hard, and I just need to accept that not everybody can handle it.

“It simply should not be acceptable for people who are ignorant of math and science to consider themselves Intellectuals,” Orzel concludes. “Somehow, we need to move away from where we are and toward a place where confusing Darwin with Dawkins or Feynman with Faraday carries the same intellectual stigma as confusing Bach with Beethoven or Rembrandt with Reubens.”