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 time) of higher education.
If you have been there, as I have for over 25 years (I’m a former math professor.), it is obvious.
Here is how it works – told in two examples. (There is more on my blog inside-higher-ed . Look for the category, “university education dumbs down high school”. )
In the 80’s, I taught at a regional state school, the type of place where future high school teachers go, expecting to learn their subject. A colleague told me that, after 5 years of teaching an intermediate course, he could now always tell when the HW was wrong, but he still couldn’t always tell what was wrong with it. Though there were qualified professors there, he was not at all alone. And he got good evaluations.
Jump to the 90’s. At an “elite” university, a colleague brings in a big “national need” grant for the purpose of producing “American scholars” – and, boy, does he produce them.
One such new “scholar” (a nice person) asks me a couple of questions that indicate he should not have anything like a PhD. One question is about a diffiicult, but important, and standard calculus problem. He said he couldn’t get it. It didn’t matter though, there was the money; and, well, he was just going to teach at an unimportant college.
In the 90’s, Clark Kerr sadly advocated government regulation. He saw too many new professors as part of a “me” generation. No priesthood ever reformed itself.
Recent Comments