(Another story from the same regional state school – the math is in color) Prof. Kevin was a full professor. He was about 70, very nice and pleasant. I was teaching a graduate course (Intro to Complex Variables). He asked to sit in and he took notes. Early in the course I wrote something on the board in a […]
Archives for June 2014
To Ross Douthat: Universities Acting Against Their “Business Plan”? No, Not Even If It Reduces Rape, Sorry.
June 29, 2014 by
In Stopping Campus Rape – NYTimes.com. , the author makes suggestions for college administrators that he thinks (probably correctly) would reduce campus rape. The only problem – they would hurt the universities. Here are the two suggestions he makes for administrators: “…break their schools’ symbiotic relationship with the on-campus party scene…” “…separate the sexes and […]
Part Two of Americans Think We Have the World’s Best Colleges. We Don’t.
June 28, 2014 by
I have looked at the data and think this is important. I hope the study that this talks about is widely reported. I will post later on what I think the data shows. Americans Think We Have the World’s Best Colleges. We Don’t. – NYTimes.com. Since I think this is so important, I commented further. (And […]
Americans Think We Have the World’s Best Colleges. We Don’t. – NYTimes.com
June 28, 2014 by
There is more data (“Academically Adrift” reported on this a few years ago.) that show that the “average” college grad in American Americans Think We Have the World’s Best Colleges. We Don’t. – NYTimes.com. To illustrt]ate the data, I commented as follows. “The poor quality of k-12, especially high school, is DUE to the corruption (over […]
New York Times Editorial, Good Idea to Measure Performance, But…
June 25, 2014 by
This is in today’s paper. Tying Federal Aid to College Ratings – NYTimes.com. The three metrics they support are: number of poor and working-class students (>17%) graduation rates (>15%) Measuring loan default rates (<28%) At least it’s a start, but what will the real outcomes be if colleges work toward these minimum metrics? Will more […]
“When the facts change, I change.” John Maynard Keynes
June 24, 2014 by
A lot of what David Leonhardt says in this article is important information, but I believe he, and others, need to understand, that data based on students from 30, or even 2o, years ago, is not suffecient to draw conclusions about today’s students. What worries me is that there seems to be a rush to […]
From NYT Mag: “…is this a recessionary blip or the dawn of a whole new economic age?” My Answer: “No, It’s the Education Stupid.”
June 22, 2014 by
It’s Official: The Boomerang Kids Won’t Leave – NYTimes.com. This is a sad article. Yes, it describes the effects of a terrible recession. But moreso, it describes the lingering effects of not honestly giving students a good education. It describes the effects of a thirty-plus year of misallocating national resources away from university education to […]
Confessions of a Grade-Inflating Professor – Oliver Lee Bateman – The Atlantic — Is the Atlantic Doing Us A Favor
This is very interesting – very. Maybe amazing. Confessions of a Grade-Inflating Professor – Oliver Lee Bateman – The Atlantic. Here is what I think about this person who writes that ” …students pay approximately $50 per class to watch my lectures…In an unfair system that requires students to bear the costs of their education, it […]