I guess if Billy and Betty can’t read, can’t do math and know nothing about science and history, might as well fill their heads with crap that sounds like it might mean something since they weren’t taught any critical thinking skills as to recognize it as crap.
Colleges and universities will start their fall semester soon. You might be interested in what parents’ and taxpayers’ money is going for at far too many “institutions of higher learning.”
At Occidental College in Los Angeles, a mandatory course for some freshmen is “The Unbearable Whiteness of Barbie.” It’s a course where professor Elizabeth J. Chin explores ways in “which scientific racism has been put to use in the making of Barbie [and] to an interpretation of the film ‘The Matrix’ as a Marxist critique of capitalism.” Johns Hopkins University students can enroll in a course called “Sex, Drugs, and Rock ‘n’ Roll in Ancient Egypt.” Part of the course includes slide shows of women in ancient Egypt “vomiting on each other,” “having intercourse” and “fixing their hair.”
The academic dishonesty doesn’t end with phony courses and lack of a solid core curriculum; there’s grossly fraudulent grading, euphemistically called grade inflation. For example, Harvard’s Educational Policy Committee found that some professors award As for average work. A Boston Globe study found that 91 percent of Harvard seniors graduated with honors, that means all As and a few Bs.
I just have to say something about this:
1) The employment market will adjust for the education baloney, years from now. Sorry students you loose.
2) The psuedo science behind these courses is pop-science, pop-topic, popular. It is proven that the average/popular income of americans is not that great. Choose this wonderful subject. Sorry students you loose.
3) A great cummulative average will get you an opportunity for graduate school. But once there you will flunk out. Sorry students you loose.
BOTTOM LINE: You can be a smart student and avoid these courses, to get grades in good programs. But you need smart parents, and smart extended friends and family.
A: Stands for Average, right? The scary part is we are generations into goofy academics; the professors teaching the current whacked out courses graduated from the same crap themselves.
It’s just as bad in the High Schools. When I went to school, I was bored out of my mind in classes that I managed to sleep through and still get A’s, but parents would bitch and moan at the teachers that they are attacking their kids when they give them bad grades. These are the same kids who insulted the teachers, never turned in their homework, and never studied for their tests. Too many parents today attack teachers and administrators if their kids don’t get A’s. A’s have become expected of everyone, as if everyone is above average. The whole point of the grading system was to weed out the brilliant A’s, from the above average B’s, from the average C’s, but that’s just not happening. Because of these raised expectations and complaints from parents the teachers are having to teach to the bottom of the class to keep them from failing (becuase it’s not pollitically correct for students to fail). Now admitidly I did come from a small school, but I’ve heard the same complaints from my collegues from larger schools. The smart students are just not being challenged anymore, and the ones who should be failing are skating by because their parents complain. I actually had a friend who managed to get a C becuase her mother called the school and bitched about how the teacher “was not going to ruin her daughter’s senior year by failing her”. Not eveyone was failing. So apparently her daughter did not have the skills needed to pass, but managed to because the mother raised enough of a ruckus about it. That is wrong, and people wonder what’s happening to the education system.
Both of my children were home schooled K-8 and now have completed three and two years at an academy for individual learning styles where the curriculum has challenged both them, my wife and myself. When browsing collage information, this type of pabulum cracks them up and they always teasingly ask if they my attend this worthless school. We point out that only that school would ever provide them with full time employment!
The ratio of bad college courses to good is probably about the same as the ratio of folks who read this blog and do crapy or good work on their own jobs. It makes for easy targets anytime you want to slag an entire system of any type to single out the bottom third and use them to bemoan the whole system.
Read the whole article. This is a Professor’s self puff piece about how the board he sat on didn’t buy into his great idea, and if they only had it would have put an end to all that is evil in the system. What rubbish.
speaking of grading: the widespread practice of teachers grading with a curve shows how phoney the whole education system is.
A biased article. The statistics mentioned are just too over the top to be believable. The author not only has an agenda, but poorly presented it. I expect more from a College Trustee or a Distinguished Professor of Economics.
According to the Department of Education’s 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy, only 31 percent of college graduates were proficient in prose, only 25 percent proficient in reading documents and 31 percent proficient in math.
Proficient to what standards? Is this suggesting that at least 39% of college graduates can’t read or write? What kind of documents, a legal opinion by Antonin Scolia? And what is proficiency in Math, calculating the fuel required to send a rocket to hit Jupiter’s Red Spot on a specific date?
A breakdown of the study may be found at
http://tinyurl.com/fenpx
Another study the author cites is very flawed 1) from an accuracy point, and 2) from a survey methodology point. For example, the survey asks when was the Civil War. The correct answer is 1861 to 1865, yet that answer is not among the choices and there isn’t a “none of the above”. I found several questions fitting that mold and several other open to question as to the correct answer. Also, asking multiple choice questions like this in a phone survey has an extremely high error rate. While I found the questions on-line, I couldn’t find the actual survey results or methodology.
http://tinyurl.com/hos8w
Fusion,
Are you saying that kids graduating from high school ARE “proficient ” Meaning they can read, write, and do calculations that they may need to do in daily life? Do they know how to read a map, a globe? Do they know how to balance their checkbooks? Do they understand how the government is organized…city, state, and federal? Can they engage in conversation and debate?
I see, and hear, kids complaining about how terrible their education has been…and see the results everywhere. The late night shows take great joy in pointing out how incredibly stupid our young are…with the pop questions, on the street interviews. I’m sure you’ve seen these…unfortunately these aren’t some “special” cases..they’re pretty much everywhere. Banks have turned to ChecX systems because many, many, 20somethings have such a NO CLUE about how banking works they never balance their checkbook. (I’ve heard it more than once “how can I not have money, I have checks left…”) The last time I purchased a car (going for that advertised 2% manufacturers loan rate) the dealers tried to make me sign a perfectly dreadful clause (that was bold, highlighted, and a separate agreement from the rest of the document) that basically allowed the agreed upon price and terms to be null and void and for the dealer to have 72 hours to “re negotiate the deal” ..after I’d driven the car off the lot. I refused to sign it. Couldn’t believe anyone signed it. The dealer manager said that no one had ever even read it, and he hadn’t either, not until now. Somehow I don’t think he was lying.
I am finding people to be less educated now than ever before, and I thought the education I received in high school was terrible.
Yet another reason I homeschool.
“speaking of grading: the widespread practice of teachers grading with a curve shows how phoney the whole education system is.”
I liked classes that curved. Of course, I used to be mean and enjoyed seeing peoples faces fall when they heard the curve was only three or four points. Occasionally it would pull my high B to a Low A…..sometimes it would make my A stronger. The whole thing was irrelevant to me. However, watching these peoples hope dashed on the rocks of reality would make my day.
That’s right…blame the institution. Don’t blame the students for taking the classes or the parents of those kids (if they parents pay for it). For get about individual responsibility, it’s all big business (oops, strike that), big university’s fault. This story ranks right up there with “Fat person sues ” Blog dvorak.org supports the lawsuit!
Noting new here; It’s nothing but market mentality.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gresham's_Law
Well, if they mix these idiotic course with advanced math lessons I bet things will be different.
#10: You probably missed the “mandatory course” phrase when you read the article. That means it is the institution that has allowed their wacko professors free reign to teach ultra-left wacko crap.
Um…Uncle Dave…my post was in satire and to read with sarcasm.
#14: Oops! Where are those elusive satire emoticons when we need them!
If you make a group DUMB enough, and dont TELL them their rights and responsibilities….
What do you get?
a group going , “Umm, oh, ya, Dat??”
Whens the last time someone had a GOOD Civics class??
#7 Mr. Fusion….I read through the questions and noted that all questions that required dates had the answers in *ranges* rather than specific dates. This is due to the fact that about 20 years ago they decided that it was unfair to students to have to remember *dates*….so this range type question works better……because it allows people who don’t have a clue a better chance to guess.
The one you cited had a range of 1850 to 1900….see what I mean…damn hard to miss that one, you would have to be a total moron not to get it with a 50 year range. Don’t you just love our educational system?
This is exactly why I and my older brothers were home schooled. And why I choose to go to university in the U.K…..where the ability to *think* , and *reason* is required to pass courses. It’s not that the Britains are smarter, they are having the same problems we are with having to dumb down everything in the last few years. But the better Universities still require you to have all the basics out of the way, speak clearly, able to do math, and think for yourself or sink.
I have no actual classes, I am taught in the old *tutorial* system, a *tutor*(professor, lecturer) and maybe 2 other students in my degree area. I must do all my research, there are no textbooks and I’m required to organize my work to make sense. I am offered a whole book of lectures that I could attend if I wished to help me along, but they aren’t required…..neither is the *terrible whiteness of Barbie*. And I’m completing a degree in 3 years that would take me a minimum of 6 years here at home.
meetsy, Yes, I am. The education system could be better. A lot better. First by not teaching students how to pass the standardized tests. In spite of that, however, children today graduating from High School are as bright and functioning as at any time in history. Sure you may pull out some examples of how stupid some people are today. Your example of the auto sales contract is a good example. Apparently the Sales Manager said no one, including himself had ever read it. That isn’t indicative of kids today, but society in general.
The author of this article passed on a biased, one sided point of view. Not surprising, he alluded that he was smarter then the University President because the President didn’t agree with his suggestion.
He refers to two studies and quotes one of them incorrectly and the other study is wrong before it started. Yet people are praising this guy with anecdotal stories of their own. They are too lazy to even read the damn article or do any research on their own. Of the 18 posts so far, it appears that only three of us even read the article and two went past that to dig deeper. And that is not because we got worse classes in school that made us dumber. It is the same laziness as reading the contract.
If you check out the first study he quoted, The Department of Education’s 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy http://tinyurl.com/fenpx , you’ll find that literacy scores have increased between 1993 and 2003. Not as he suggests, that college graduates are functionally non-proficient.
BTW, in post #8, I erred. I wrote at least 39% of college graduates can’t read or write
That should have been at least 69% of college graduates can’t read or write Please accept that that was a typo and not indicative of my math skills.
>literacy scores have increased between 1993 and 2003.
I must be part of the 60% that failed document reading. From that page,
Changes between 1992 and 2003
o Less than or some high school
o Down 9 points in prose
o High school graduate
o Down 6 points in prose
o College graduate
o Down 11 points in prose and 14 points in document
o Graduate studies/degree
o Down 13 points in prose and 17 points in document
My Alma Mater (UCSD) now has a class. “Are men and women really different” Inter-gender communication. Currently it is an optional course, but since few people take it, I should think it will be required within the next couple of years.
So after thousands of years of human history, we now need a college course to figure out how to talk to women.
AB CD, I guess you are damn well right.
On the OVERALL tab, I get the following quote
Average Scores
No Significant change in prose and document literacy between 1992 and 2003
Increase in quantitative literacy
http://tinyurl.com/gbqpf
Yet when I go to the EDUCATION tab, your numbers come up as well as a graph showing either decreases or no change.
Something isn’t right in the Department of Education.
The one thing I did see, after a hard look, was that Whites, Blacks, and Asians all had increases in scores. Hispanics had significant lower scores. I can only assume that while every one is getting better, illegal immigrants, where English is a second language, is decreasing the scores. No proof on this, just a hunch. A reference is made to this point as well as that older people didn’t do as well on average.
#18….sorry Fusion…thats what I’m seeing as well……no group is making proficient……with grad students falling under intermediate.
All groups dropped in prose, while college grads and grad students have dropped in Document since 1992.
OK, here’s what happened. On the test Proficiency dropped, but proficiency stayed the same. This was because there were fewer low scores to go with the drop in Proficient scores. So schools have improved at teaching to the lower end of students, but are failing the vast majority.
Either it is that OR we are too stupid to read the study OR the study authors are too stupid to write coherently.