http://www.nytimes.com/pages/opinion/index.html
I commented on this piece because I’m afraid it missed the point. Here is what I wrote. (If you have read TeacherTeacher competency exams for holding UNIVERSITIES accountable and It Starts in the18th Grade you already know the essence of what I wrote in my comment.)
As a math professor with over two decades teaching in a top ranked university and with experience teaching at a regional state university, it is clear to me that it is not at all true, as the author unfortunately believes, that “…we have the same teachers…with the same level of knowledge…” Even for those who haven’t seen the pandering to student “consumers” that our universities are so guilty of, the data reported in the book “Academically Adrift” makes it clear that college graduates today can’t possibly be as knowledgeable in their field as they once were – not when they study only half the time as students once studied. Clark Kerr wrote over twenty years ago that “…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…”
What do we do? I argue that the k-12 problem starts in the Eighteenth Grade! The executive summary is: Graduate schools pander to get government money and grad students. They do this by graduating faux-PhDs. These faux-PhDs go on to teach future teachers but aren’t qualified to do so effectively.
Again, what do we do? Give teachers – starting with high school teachers – competency exams in their subject field. Compile performance data only for the schools they attended and start to hold universities accountable. An additional benefit from this would be informed consumers of higher education.
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