This is from the Editorial Board
Expanding Community College Access – NYTimes.com.
I commented.
As a former math professor, I have seen firsthand how past attempts to expand education only expanded “degrees”, while limiting education, especially in high school.
In a nutshell, here is what happened.
In the 60’s and 70’s, money flowed into universities to produce math and science PhD’s to staff newly minted and/or expanded regional state colleges.
That money produced “professors” like the following: (all from the same university)
a math professor who explained that it took him five years to get to the point where he could always tell when the homework was wrong, but still couldn’t always tell what was wrong with it;
a professor who taught statistics, yet mistook the most important theorem in that field for a similar sounding trivial fact;
…etc…
(These cases, and much more, are detailed, and documented, on my blog inside-higher-ed .)
Professors like those above (which are still being produced with money from “national need” grants – see my blog for a case) aren’t equipped to teach future high school teachers the subject matter that they in turn need to teach well in high school. Thus, high school gets dumbed down.
Furthermore, this influx of money, along with almost total unaccountability, helped corrupt higher education.
We need to fix our corrupt university system – which Obama is trying to do.Then high schools will be able to give their students a high school education, not just a “degree”.
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