To cut off your nose to spite your face isn’t partisan – unless you are so poorly educated that you don’t believe you are cutting off your nose. That’s where we are. There are large swaths of American society who don’t have the tools – usually provided by education – to decide for themselves. They […]

David Brooks is on to something https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/13/opinion/scandinavia-education.html, but we need to start with basics. I commented, Did you say we need to change how we “educate” everyone? I didn’t know we did. And that’s a problem. Here is Jefferson on why it’s a problem. “…Preach…a crusade against ignorance…improve the law for educating the common people. […]

I wrote: “…how radical some professors can be when they look at the external world and how conservative when they look inwardly at themselves…” (Clark Kerr, from the 2001 Preface to “The Uses of the University”) (Clark Kerr was a highly regarded sociologist and a Chancellor of the Univ. of Cal. system. He is the […]

Source: The Growing College Graduation Gap – The New York Times It’s also a learning gap. Until the public wakes up to the realities of college, those gaps will only get worse. I taught for three decades, first at a regional state school, then at private research university. I know of what I speak; but, […]

Source: The Misguided Drive to Measure ‘Learning Outcomes’ – The New York Times I commented: The elephant in the classroom is obvious to those with experience in higher education; and, as this author points out, “assessment” won’t budge the elephant.   Throughout my career as a math professor – first at a state regional school, […]