Support Our Students – by David Brooks

Support Our Students – NYTimes.com.

I commented.

“..The important task is to help students graduate..” No, the important task is to help students acquire an “education”, not a just “graduation”.

This lack of content in so many “degrees” – whether they are high school degrees or college degrees – can be traced to the greed of colleges. (I have seen this up close. I’m a former math professor.)

Here, in a nutshell, is what happens – and it robs high school graduates of the education they need to do well, whether it be at work, or in college. (Fix this and you will fix much American education, from K-12, to college.)

Universities are motivated to produce faux-PhDs. Many of these PhD’s become “professors” at colleges where many teachers are taught their subject. (Many of those who don’t make it to the even faux-PhD become community college teachers.)
Of course, these professors’ students (read “future teaches”, too) don’t learn. Thus, they can’t teach – no fault of their own.

So while grant money and tuition from the students and their parents – and tax money from us – trickles up, UNeducation trickles down.

I have read the administration,s new college rating rules and teacher preparation rules, and I believe that they want to fix the problem. Of course, the problem is unaccountability.

(Cases of all of this are described on my blog under the category “Regional State Schools – What Does a Future High School Teacher Get? Look Here” and in the post “No Jobs for Phd’s….”. My blog is inside-higher-ed .)