Source: Maybe We’ve Been Thinking About the Productivity Slump All Wrong – The New York Times
Here is what I wrote
To paraphrase a politician, “It’s the education, stupid.”
But, don’t we have the greatest universities in the world? Yes, but that doesn’t mean that those universities are doing anything to broadly disseminate knowledge. Our present system encourages just the opposite!
Here are two great academics – in 1980.
“..This shift from academic merit to student consumerism is one of the two greatest reversals of direction in all the history of American higher education..”
“..the “wants” of students..are quite different from the “needs” of students..advantage can..be taken..by unscrupulous instructors and institutions..” (from On Higher Education: The Academic Enterprise in an Era of Rising Student Consumerism, 1980)
All of this has led to a me-generation of leaders who are rewarded by taking Riesman’s comments as “advice”
Here are examples of how things work now.
A math dep’t chair told a professor to make an important engineering math course a “cookbook” course.
An engineering Dean of Student Academic Integrity wrote a professor about how important retention is. That was a response to an email telling the dean that students were cheating.
Faculty get grants to produce American PhD’s, but those “PhD’s” can’t even do standard calculus problems.
People with faux-doctorates serve on the faculty of regional state colleges, and high school teachers don’t get an education, leading to poor high school education.
See my blog inside-higher-ed for stories and documents and more.
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