Surprise?

The summary of this report was interesting, and I am actually going to read it all. I liked the way the study created the three areas of literacy. Question —is is the students or the teachers that can improve this outcome? And the award for the most obvious research finding—those with higher GPA’s demonstrated higher literacy. Where’s a Golden Fleece or Ignoble Prize when you need it?

Richard, at 8:14 am EST on January 20, 2006

Wanna Bet?

In response to a recent article in Inside Higher Ed, I wrote, “What I’m suggesting is that our institutions of higher education are populated by a great many individuals [faculty and administrators] who are not a whole lot brighter that a randomly chosen plumber (and I don’t mean that as an occupational slur). It’s just that those academics have waaaaay more education than the typical plumber ... and education hides many more intellectual deficiencies than you might imagine.” [http://insidehighered.com/views/2006/01/12/izzy]

Of course we are all chagrined to witness both the level of training and (especially) the level of education of American college and university students. And of course – as Scott Jaschik wrote – “... the report will not be welcome news to college presidents, many of whom are still answering questions about a study last month that found declining levels of literacy among college graduates.”

I realize this is an issue of training (and to a lesser degree education), not intelligence, but on questions like the ones “failed” by an embarrassing percentage of students, I’d certainly bet on the students in a competition between a random sample of them and a random sample of university presidents.

Perhaps it’s noteworthy that my prejudice is based upon forty-five years of teaching mathematics, statistics, and social methodology to a very broad range of college and university students.

RWH, at 9:04 am EST on January 20, 2006

what?

BJ, I don’t quite see your point. My point is that people seem to think that others are stupid, but nobody will admit to deficiencies, themselves.

Last I looked every accredited college taught core math courses. People can get out of taking them if they want, but I am at a loss to find a single school in the country where you can’t take three calculus courses.

I don’t think that education is a monopoly. People can obtain education anywhere they want.

Your Businessweek you sighted does not prove anything you said. In fact, there seem to be no fear on the part of parents that math education is inadequate. (In my limited experience, many parents seem to want their kids not to take math courses, since they feel their kids (usually girls) might get a bad grade.)

RWH, Do any of your friends have a lack of training or educational deficiency? Or is the other people (which, it seems are all plumbers) that are stupid ?

Larry, at 11:25 am EST on January 20, 2006

Just two words ... and some commentary

two words ... “Grade Inflation”

for those of you who don’t know (i am sure most do), grade inflation — the practice of giving a student a higher grade than they deserve — is a trend that seemed to gain ground throughout the 1990’s and has now reached an epidemic level in higher education and seems to be gaining ground in K-12.

grade inflation is driven by any number of factors including “connected parents” of under performing students calling high-level administrators and complaining about their kids low grades, threats of legal action against schools, departments, and faculty, etc etc etc. if everyone gets an “A” (or at least passes their class ) no matter how they perform, is their any wonder that grades are no longer a valid metric? although this “problem” should have been fixed yesterday, it seems to only be getting worse. tragically, we have done this to ourselves by allowing external pressures to have an impact on our assessment of student performance in the first place.

another factor of great concern (to me, at least) is that student course evaluations have now become directly linked to tenure and performance reviews. this is how students themselves achieve can foster “grade inflation”. if you expect your students to do any work outside of class (i.e. “homework” ) or your exams are “too hard", you quite literally take your career in your hands. i am all for using student comments to “optimize/improve” a course but that should be the extent of their use. during evaluations, students are rarely able to be objective during their assessment and are simply not qualified to offer an opinion on teaching quality — especially when that appraisal ultimately carries the weight of a peer review. Trust me, students will band together and all submit unwarranted, scathing reviews in hopes of some administrative action.

as more of these performance studies are published for different content areas, i will wager that the results are similar to those for math and literacy. students and parents see their strong-arm tactics — with a result that pleases them — as a “victory” and if the students and parents were the only losers i would probably shrug my shoulders and say it was their loss; however, these kids will eventually go to work in a global labor market. do you think they have grade inflation in japan? india? i would doubt it as kids from countries like these are kicking our kid’s butts academically. our problem in the united states is not that we CAN’T educate our kids as well as educators in other countries, our problem is that we are not allowed to.

sorry this went so long ... anyone who is interested in collaborating with me on some research in this area please email me.

cheers,

Alan Lott, Professor, at 11:26 am EST on January 20, 2006

Good Post, Alan

It’s a hell of a confluence of forces that we are seeing here. In my bleaker moments, I do not see how schools can salvage education from all of this. But on a (somewhat) amusing note: A friend of mine told me that a student recently wanted to “negotiate” an issued grade that was found wanting. I haven’t seen that. Yet.

Bad English, at 12:51 pm EST on January 20, 2006

Larry

I’ll out myself then: I have a terror of the C+/B- divide. It’s more of a chasm than a divide, and I have learned (the hard way) to fear the abyss. If I want to spare myself sheer heartache from both students and school, when it’s a toss-up between C+ and B-, I often issue the B-.

Bad English, at 1:14 pm EST on January 20, 2006

Poorly Designed Curriculum

This report once again validates what critics have said for decades. Higher education at all levels continues to produce graduates ill prepared to communicate, problem solve and collaborate in the real world. The place to start is in our approach to general education. We need to integrate them into the entire curriculum. Assuming that they will be used is not enough. Skills learned in gen ed if not used will be lost.

Pat Leonard, VPAS at College of the Southwest, at 1:15 pm EST on January 20, 2006

True enough

Yes, teachers have always complained about students, but objectively quantifiable literacy and numeracy skills are a different issue. I wonder if we can correlate those complaints with solid evidence of illiteracy and innumeracy. Is anyone familiar with data in this regard?

Bad English, at 1:27 pm EST on January 20, 2006

Civil War Letters

“Take a look at the writing of many Americans who lived around a hundred years ago, and you may find it more eloquent than even the comments here.”

An excellent example of what Irma is talking about would be Civil War letters written by folk with only minimal formal schooling. Check them out sometime, if you are interested. I find them astonishing in their beauty and depth of insight. I sure couldn’t write them!

Bad English, at 3:13 pm EST on January 20, 2006

Now Back To Reading ...

Whoa, Larry, you absolutely MUST spend a little more time reading. You asked, “Do any of your friends have a lack of training or educational deficiency? Or is [it] the other people (which, it seems are all plumbers) that are stupid?”

I did not accuse anyone of being “stupid,” least of all plumbers. I merely stated my prejudices that (1) American college and university faculties and administrations are inundated with a great many intellectual “lesser lights” who happen to be reasonably well “educated” and (2) when it comes to the National Survey of America’s College Students math test, I’d bet the scores of a random sample of students would beat the scores of a random sample of college and university presidents.

Now to answer Larry’s question, to wit, “Do any of your friends have a lack of training or educational deficiency?” I assume he’s referring to my academic friends/colleagues. No, hardly any have a lack of training. Yep, plenty have educational deficiencies. A surprising number who are in the classroom as we speak have “educations” that, for all intents and purposes, ended twenty years ago.

But what do I know?

RWH, at 4:20 pm EST on January 20, 2006

Justaprof makes a good point when he says, “Universities are taking what they get, then improving on that level.” Or at least that’s about the best universities can be expected to do, even though universities aren’t equipped do that remedial work well.

The basic essential problem, from the point of view of the university teacher, remains that too many (most?!?!) students arrive unprepared to do college level work. A number of other factors (many of which have already been mentioned) exacerbate that basic problem—egalitarian admissions policies; politics, both internal university politics and political philosophy (if one can call it that) trumping education; grade inflation; inmates running the asylum; de-emphasis of undergraduate teaching in favor of researching, etc., ad nauseam.

As to the basic problem, the obvious question then is, “Why are students entering college so poorly prepared?”

My hypothesis: The cause of poorly prepared students is the destruction of the community of parents, teachers, and administrators. In other words, Hillary was onto something. “It takes a village,” shall we say “an educational community,” to educate groups of children. (I focus on “groups of children” because it remains possible, but not very practical in our day, to provide a good primary education through individualized instruction apart from a larger community. Some home-schoolers manage it.) In the educational community, the key actors upon whom education depends are the parents. A good educational community can mitigate the effects of a few careless parents, but when some number of parents stop caring, or don’t care in the right way, the educational community falls apart. So the cause of poorly prepared students is the alienation of too many parents from their children’s education.

Tracing causes back yet further, one would ask, “What is the cause of parents’ alienation from their children’s education?” One begins with the necessary assumption that—even still in our times—most parents are strongly inclined to care that their children should be well-educated. (If that’s not true, then all that’s left to do is to throw up ones hands.) So, with respect to primary education, when too many parents don’t care, or can’t find a way to make their care effective, teachers and adminstrators are to blame.

Bathus, Can’t Make Silk Purses out of Sows’ Ears, at 4:23 pm EST on January 21, 2006