Hopefully, the Department of Education Is On The Right Track

Improving Teacher Preparation: Building on Innovation | U.S. Department of Education. I am putting a link to this so that readers are aware of it.  In the meantime I will be reading the proposed rule and commenting on it, both here and on the government site for comments.

Research Indicates Even Top Departments Calling A No-Go For a PhD, a Guess What? A PhD!

Here is a link to the paper.  (I will make my point after quoting from the paper.) JEP (28,3) p. 205 – The Research Productivity of New PhDs in Economics: The Surprisingly High Non-success of the Successful. Here is an important conclusion quoted from the paper. “…At the majority of the departments ranked in the top […]

The STEM Crisis Is a Myth Says IEEE Spectrum; Probably Not Says I.

The STEM Crisis Is a Myth – IEEE Spectrum. “As long as people continue to believe that a STEM “degree” is a STEM “education”, they will continue to believe that the STEM “education” shortage is a myth. Just consider that today’s average engineering student is required to study about half the time that they were […]

Recovery at Last? Writes Paul Krugman. I Worry “Not For All”

Here is a link and my comments. Recovery at Last? – NYTimes.com. “…Many young Americans graduated into a labor market that didn’t want their skills, and will never get back onto the career tracks they should have had…” [quoted from Krugman’s Op-Ed] The fact is true. The implication is false. The reason so many will […]

Colleges Clamp Down on Bloated Student Schedules – WSJ

My comment: (See the link to the article below.) I doubt that this was a problem when students had to study to get a decent grade; and, more to the point, had to take required courses that gave them a general background. In 1963, when I was a freshman at Carnegie-Mellon, I had to take […]

String of Sexual Assault Cases May Lead to Tipping Point – NYTimes.com

This is my comment on String of Sexual Assault Cases May Lead to Tipping Point – NYTimes.com. I can only speak from my university experience. (I’m a former math prof.) I have little hope for change, other than what the marketing/admissions department deems necessary. (For example, that seems to be what happened at Harvard. See […]

Nice Essay: “If Students Have Time to Get Drunk, Colleges Aren’t Doing Their Job”

If Students Have Time to Get Drunk, Colleges Aren’t Doing Their Job – Special Reports – The Chronicle of Higher Education. I agree that if colleges weren’t businesses with the goal of making “customers” happy, people would get a lot more out of college, and have a lot less time in college to get into […]

Update to Good College Not So Hard to Get Into Post

I added this comment. Good article – but the title should be: “Getting into a college that CLAIMS that it is good – maybe even “elite” – is not as hard as you think. Finding a college that IS good is much harder than you think.” As David Riesman warned, “…the “wants” of students to […]

For Accomplished Students, Reaching a “Great” College Isn’t as Hard as It Seems

For Accomplished Students, Reaching a Good College Isn’t as Hard as It Seems – NYTimes.com. Note that I changed “Good” to “Great” since there are fewer “Good Colleges” than you think.  Here is what I wrote. This article motivated me to look at MIT’s admissions statistics. Here is a back of the envelope calculation based […]