Good morning, Ms. Warren.

your commentary speaks to the heart of our problems today. The Military-Industrial complex doen't need a college to be for the public good. they only need so many elite to help plan policy. they need many more to be educated just enough to follow orders, competently. Less money and opportunities for poorer students means more fodder for imperialist plans.

Thank You, Elizabeth, for your post. There are many factors that are combining to destroy public education. I spent thirty years in teaching and can only say that despite the very best efforts of myself and the people around me the quality of the educational experience declined. I know that in California, after the Serrano Priest decision, which equalized spending for each child, there was a movement to underfund education across the board. The result is now most schools are equally poor! Any enrichment; arts,music,field trips... are now funded by private foundations funded by parents!

I know this is only one aspect but I needed to mention the privatization that also occures in the public school period of child development.

Those who dropout already subsidize those who get degrees from the "profits" of the mass lecture classes in the first 2 years.

The growth of these "mass cattle calls" should be noted when displaying the cost of higher education over time. Also the income requirement that be brought in by departments (their expenses plus corporate overhead) should be included in the yearly costs.
It comes at the expense of attention to teaching!

A better chart to start the discussion about education would be a breakout of all income , spending and liability commitments by category by institutions over time.

I think this would bring up the question of what is the focus of institutions today!
-----------------------------------------------
Today, are we searching for I deals or Ideals?
-Thinking

There's no joy in learning anymore, it's become a means to an end.

Occasionally, it's both. Studying electrical engineering was a total joy for my friends and me. We were so positive about what we would be doing for our society, we were so joyful to be in a situation that would allow us to Learn For A Living! It felt like a genuine privilege, and we treated it accordingly. We all followed up on that privilege by working diligently our entire lives, a process that continues today.

That studying and the resulting EE degrees were done at a large (huh... THE :-) :-) large) state supported university in Ohio. In 1973, full time tuition was $266/quarter. In 1977, it was $366/quarter.

That education was a great investment for the state of Ohio as well as society in general, as we have generated lots of productivity and tax income over the years. I do not know with certainty the marginal effect of the college education on our economic productivity, but I think it was substantial. I am grateful for the opportunity. And as a citizen, I *always* vote in favor of educational opportunity, when it's competently managed.

But back to my main thesis: we Loved the Learning, and I love the world that we learned about. I catch myself saying regularly, even at this age: "When you're a geek, the world is a really interesting place!" It truly is beautiful, and we are privileged to experience it, knowing some of the details of how it works.

My younger sister went to a private college for a very expensive life-enriching liberal arts education and (it appeared to me that) she came out of it as a pissed-off Movement Conservative Republican. She may have started out a bit conservative in her views, but afterword? YOW! Total change.

The education is much more in the student than in the degree. I think the YoYo winner-take-all society we live in drives students toward a laser-fine focus on money (be it through engineering or through PoliSci) since they have been taught that "Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing" (apologies to coach Sanders, from whom coach Lombardi seems to have borrowed it...)

(One of our parents referred to my college work as "job training", while the younger sister got "an education".) I'll stick with my job training and the joy that comes with living the poetry of reality.

You're right... In my opinion, it's not the educators to blame but we the members of society that let our own society become twisted beyond recognition.

I agree with Bev D. Education has become job training. This all began sometime in the 1980s when magazines began running stories about the
"value" of a college degree in terms of how
much students graduating from certain schools with certain majors earn.

So today students graduating from supposedly good colleges have the right credential (a degree in economics, let's say), but they can't think critically, they can't write and many have very little knowledge of history. (Thus, to many invading Iraq might seem like a good idea. They know very little about Vietnam.)

When it comes to k-12 public education, Elizabeth is entirely right. By and large, a good education is tied to expensive real estate.
The only way to break the link between real estate and education is to take poor children out of poor neighborhoods and spread them out in middle-class schools.

It is possible to improve a school in an impoverished neighborhood, but it is very, very hard. It is much easier to give a poor child a good education in a middle class school. Indeed, reserach shows that all children--rich, poor, white, black, Asian Latino, perform better in schools with a strong middle-class population.

And, under the new Brown vs. Board of Education ruling, it is perfectly legal to integrate schools by class, just not by color. See Richard
Kahlenberg's "Rescuing Brown vs. Board of Education" on www.tcf.org.

Something happened to the ideals of education - it's now about job training, instead of learning for learning's sake.

when 97% of americans think that a college education is important, you know that the marketers got people to think it's fast food rather than hard work! if you look back into the past, "intellectuals" thought college was a worthless, watered down experience for many and that adulteration only continues to get worse...

There's no joy in learning anymore, it's become a means to an end.

that's why I bitch and moan about it on this list. universities are like high security prisons since only certain people can be in the classrooms or use the libraries. it's not like there's a two way trust between universities and the public any more.

i.e. if a student struggles with a course, it's not like the "university community" embraces that student until they can finally achieve success. it's much easier for "the professor" to give a gentleman's C or even curve it up to a B. I posted a link to the "what's bad about grades" webpage I saw on digg... For people to become connected to education again, I think they have to focus on actually achieving the curriculum not achievimg some arbitrary grade.

To boldly go...

rdf is stuck in a cliche about a world that never fully existed except in the glorious memory of the right wing. It has points in common with the 19th century and even early 20th, but it has lots of gaps, including pretty much everything that Warren and the commenters are concerned is lost. 

(1) All for the rich a generation ago? If you're coming out of college now, it's your grandparents (or great grandparents) whose generation included the New Yorkers for whom City College and NYU were a kind of Jewish Ivies. (2) The Ivies themselves have a legacy problem but were also some of the first to break with patterns of racial discrimination. They also shifted to need-based scholarships 40 years ago. But again read Warren on cost problems. 

(3) The liberal arts model as the problem, removing us from the real world, is preposterous, at a time when even good schools are moving more careerist, where the Washington Monthly rating proposes to downrate the Ivies for not having an ROTC to feed the immoral war machine or always law schools to feed the capitalist machine. Read again what got Warren started here! 

(4) The dream of forgetting the whole thing and just giving the poor a nice little blue collar existence? Forget it. First, a basic sense of justice would argue against the tracking of the old (and eroded) British system. Second, sorry kids, the industrial belt isn't coming back.

And, as others have said, a little critical thinking and a liberal arts education that encouraged knowledge of the world would have done Bush and the people who voted for him and his war some good.  Pity he missed everything in college but cheerleading while they may not have gotten access to college, financially or otherwise.

John 

http://www.haberarts.com/

but they can't think critically, they can't write and many have very little knowledge of history.

I sort of cringe at the words "but they can't think critically" because, if you read John Dewey, he points out that theory and the real world are two very different things.

If you've seen the latest "Harry Potter" flick, the "politicalization of schools" was a central theme and Harry, and his friends, had to take responsibility for their own destinies.

When I was at the university, professors had many different motivations: teaching; running a research lab; running side busineses; raising a family; education themselves; making career moves; etc... So I think that students have to understand that their success only commands a small part of their professors' day. Thus, like Harry and his friends, students probably need to take on a bigger role at universities!

More specifically, in today's world, we have "massive parallel collaboration" over the internet so things are changing relatively quickly. I'm not sure how many professors actually feel this pulse... and how do students learn to be part of this collaboration?

As John Dewey noted, "universities are good at being schematic and formal." I think we're at the point now where universities have to reinvent themselves or be considered a place to learn skills (listen and regurgitate) instead of how to think (deal with the real world).

My proposal, in the past-- on this list, was to have universities stop teaching courses since that can be "made electronic" in a shared effort between universities and the teaching resources could be reallocated to creating experiences that actually leverage human interactions-- like teachers analayzing how their students study and helping them improve their techniques.

To boldly go...

Second, sorry kids, the industrial belt isn't coming back.

we don't know this. as the autoworkers are being layed off in detroit, people are hoping that they can set up their own businesses and invent another generation of economic output.

most people, including myself, simply want to take the "safe bet" and ride someone elses coat tails as an employee.

To boldly go...

It is amazing how we have all learned to dance all around the problem, the 600 pound gorilla sitting at the table. I would think it would be impossible to ignore that gorilla - the stench alone should get some attention. But, we have been successfully brainwashed into believing that it is normal to have a gorilla, a big one, sitting at the table.

Guess what I refer to? Taxes!! There, I said it. Did the skies darken, the earth tremble, hordes of vandals descend upon us?

For the slow to catch on: you get the education system you are willing to pay for, and society pays for the education system with taxes. The biggest single contributer to the problems described by Ms Warren is our aversion to paying taxes. With limited resources available from taxes, schools have no choice other than shutting down or charging more for their services.

My college years were in the 50's. My tuition per year for my first year was $66. For my last year, at a more specialized school, it was about twice that much. There was no way I could have gone to college if tuition had been ten times that much, still low by today's standards.

But, along with the rest of you, I don't have to pay much in taxes now, compared to what the adults paid back in the 50's. I guess that's what is really important. So, lets all sit down to dinner, and ignore that ugly gorilla.

Hoppy in Sacramento

There's another aspect of public education that has been diminished tremendously in the last 10 - 15 years, which is the role of our schools in forging a shared, civic culture -- public schools are where we teach our children (and ourselves, as parents, and in many cases as life-long learners) to be citizens and patriots. Schools are where we encounter our fellow citizens at a local level, where we foster the sense of commitment to each other and to the common good that is essential to democracy.

I think there's a clear relationship between the understanding that has become predominant in the last half-generation that public education is primarily a fiscal problem -- a drain on the public budget to be rendered more economically efficient -- and the hatred that is so commonly manifest towards our fellow citizens (and those who share a commitment to our community but are denied access to citizenship).

Progressives should defend public education as one of the great achievements of democracy, and one of the essential points of shared commitment and effort that we must make to preserve and nurture our country. Education is one of the many things, perhaps the most important thing, that Americans must become patriotic about, other than war.

Those who do not believe in public education do not believe in a sense of shared, public duty and morality -- they believe in a private morality, or a series of competing private moralities, and that idea is simply incompatible with a democracy.

a liberal arts education IS a comprehensive education... it is education vs vocational training

Maggie: Education has become job training. This all began sometime in the 1980s when magazines began running stories about the"value" of a college degree in terms of how much students graduating from certain schools with certain majors earn.....So today students graduating from supposedly good colleges have the right credential (a degree in economics, let's say), but they can't think critically, they can't write and many have very little knowledge of history.

 MCS: If you've seen the latest "Harry Potter" flick, the "politicalization of schools" was a central theme and Harry, and his friends, had to take responsibility for their own destinies.

This all smacks of fascism and it can be seen at the pre-secondary level of education as well. As a parent I was quite upset at the course offerings in HS. Administrators were adamant that the choices were what was best for students to get jobs. They were providing them the best opportunity to get a job. My thoughts were that was not the purpose of education to provide employment skills. Rather it was to educate the mind and enable them to be good decision makers by honing their critical analysis skills. I responded that Fascism had failed and that it was the responsiblility of the employer to train their employees with the skillset needed to perform the work in their company setting.  I cannot believe how educated professionals have capitulated to the demands of corporate America...it is terrible.

under the new Brown vs. Board of Education ruling, it is perfectly legal to integrate schools by class, just not by color.

My observation is that defunding of public schools, the flight to suburbia as well as the mushrooming of private 'christian schools' is directly paralleled with integration of the school system.  It has all been driven by a resistance to integration. Roberts on the US Supreme Court has begun the dismantling of Brown vs. Bd Ed the landmark ruling responsible for all that has happened in terms of urban schools becoming poorer and schooling depending on public funding even at the university level not being funded with tax dollars.

tell that to Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and a slew of other folks who made it on their own.

Yes, but these are the exceptions that prove the rule. The reason you can name them is because it was so exceptional, not because it is a successful path that if duplicated has a high measure of success. It is quite the opposite, the odds are low.

skills that I never learned at the university like camping/hiking/outdoors; piano playing; nutrition; spanish; history; philosophy; theology; etc...

The purpose of an education though is to hone the intellect not to provide a skill set. If you educate a mind it can acquire different skill sets on it's own.  In other words...the purpose is to teach you to fish not to give you a fish so that you are self-sufficient and not standing in a soup line.

You know -- looking at this posting for me is a real downer. For the last month I have been dealing with more that a hundred E-Mail's per day about a distant Board decision that made; all the major papers covered with usless analysis, but no one really understands -- until I Identify myself as An Antiochian, Class of 1962 -- Major in Sociology/Anthropology, and while the rules then did not permit a minor, I had one -- History -- and a school where at that time one was not permitted a degree in my Major if you did not score in the 90th percentile or higher on the AGRE's as an undergraduate candidate. I managed above 90 by some in both my official major and unofficial minor.

In the late 50's and early 60's my College Education cost me totally about 7 thousand dollars -- room, Board, Tuition, and 16 months in Europe. While my parents were not wealthy, it clearly was within their reach, and since I had savings from High School Jobs of about 2500, I actually paid some of it myself. Of Course Antioch was Co-op -- and in my era it was as much about experience as a money job. But one cannot imagine how much I learned as a group worker at the Lower North Center in the Cabrini Housing Project in Chicago, working with the American Friends Service Committee on survey work on Housing Segregation in the late 1950's, working in a Danish Bakery in a small town so as to learn language and study at a Social Democratic Hojskole for Danish Politicians and Labor Organizers, and then work with the UN in a Refugee Camp in Linz Austria, and eventually, I was the Academic Director of the first Peace Corps Training Project -- for E. Pakistan, that trained out of Putney Vermont. And yes -- it was 5 years -- and when I was studying, I really studied. But I did all these other things, and combined together it was Liberal Arts -- A College where only one out of eight applicants were selected, and it was a hell of a wonderful place. Yes -- I did know all the Luminaries the College tried to advertise as it went down the tubes -- Coretta Scott King, my classmate, Stephen J. Gould, Congresswoman Ellie Holmes Norton (who sat in Green Common Room during the fall of 1957 and gave me a full education on what Little Rock was all about), and the Historian Peter Irons who did full draft resistance during the Vietnam era, but convinced Howard Zinn to come to the Federal Pen and instruct him, and then broke the rule that a former felon could not get a law degree (from Harvard) and be admitted to the bar, and practice before the Supremes, and then hold a joint History-Law chair at the U of Calif. And so many others who are not particularly famous but did similar things.

Today in most State Colleges and Universities you can get an Antioch-style education if you have the witt to find the mentors who will connect you with internships, with the faculty who will credit a good internship experience toward degrees, you can do small group planned courses, you can do independent reading courses -- but in the 50's and early 1960's one of the only places you could do that was at Antioch. There are about 17 thousand of us around and about -- and a good many of us are very very angry about this -- though many of us thought the college should have closed ten years ago for a re-organization.

What happened -- well I hope I am putting pressure in the right places so that a decent history will be written that will, hopefully, explain much of it. Essentially this is a story about the deliquency of the Progressive Left to support institutions. Simple as that. I don't mean just sending checks -- I mean hard support, which sometimes demands things. We all look at Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson's little Universities, and tip up our nose -- but do we know how to demand things from and support our own? One reason (and only one) Antioch failed was because J. Edgar Hoover targeted it for elimination with his COINTELPRO project back in the 60's and early 70's. The Strike that rocked the place in 1973, was at least in part, his doing. (See Church Committee Report and later research for details). Antioch never recovered from that strike. It was, on the part of some, the most available target given what Nixon was about -- but the College was hardly about Richard Nixon. But yes, he sent Cheney and Rumsfeld over to OEO to zero out many of the programs, and many of those were little co-op jobs supporting Antioch Students. Who do you think was trying to do teen programs on the streets of Harlem? -- one of my Professors got murdered there in the late 50's.

Antioch along with places like Black Mountain in North Carolina were total heroes in the context of the 1930's. The now famed Journalist, Edward R. Murrow, who had been the President of the American Student Union in the early 1930's, and thus the delegate to international conferences of students, made a list in 1933-34 of the academics who were in danger or threatened in Germany, and eventually Austria and other places. He accumulated about 2200 names. He managed to place about 650 in the US. When he did his famous radio broadcast from Buchenwald, his guide was a Czech Medical Professor he had not been able to place. Well places like Black Mountain with less than 100 students took ten off Murrow's List, and Antioch was responsible for 12 off the list, and another ten they found on their own. Did Yale, Brown, Harvard, Dartmouth and all the rest help? Good lord no. My goodness, those were the sources of "the Quota." They did not want to hire off Murrow's list of Jewish Intellectuals who needed a way out of Germany and later Austria. Remember in 1938, the AMA passed a resolution making it particularly difficult for German Doctors to liscense in the US. (Antioch figured how to put a whole mass of them into the TB program of the Indian Health Service -- but Sheesh -- not supposed to talk about how it was done.)

But Antioch did not have a Quota -- never did, and in the early 60's (given students were reluctant to answer identity questions) Jim Dixon, President, estimated that Antioch was 37% Jewish, another 10% Jewish but only culturally, and the next 20% Quaker and Unitarian. He figured it was about 10% Catholic, and then what was left, he did not know. Do you know another High Class Liberal Arts College in the late 50's and Early 60's, that considered Israeli Folk Dancing (well maybe Yemenite Folk Dancing) on Red Square the only real entertainment on Friday Night -- I mean after candle lit dinners and steak various kinds of red wine and bread? It wasn't Orthodox, and no way something beyond celebration that the week of classes was over, and now -- we dance. Quakers and Unitarians were fine with that. Some Methodists had a bit of an argument with the wine. One of my Classmates was the daughter of the Manochevitz (sp) wine and bakery company owner, and I was distributing the products out of her vault till my 4th year but she left in our first. But we had a 4 year supply of Wine and pickled fish. (Methodists, Unitarians and Quakers never leave behind such supplies.)

The problem was -- why did this not survive? Why is it now totally bankrupt? This is, afterall the college that Horace Mann founded, with the help of some of the Brook farm folk like Emerson and Thoreau and Jo Alcott's father. Boosted in the 20th Century by Charles Kettering, the Rikes Department Store Brothers and National Cash Register's Charles Patterson. Arthur Morgan, one of FDR's initial trustees for the TVA was President of Antioch largely because he had built the second largest conservancy district in Ohio prior to TVA. When FDR fired him because Morgan disagreed on court packing in 1937, Morgan linked up with Gandhi and worked on Water Projects in India.

I entered Antioch 50 years ago this September -- and I certainly did not expect it to be going dead this September -- though I have just recently written a letter to a mom who wants this for her daughter, and suggested right now it was a bad investment. You know it is hard to write such on your own heritage.

Progressives need to comprehend what is necessary to rebuild their heritage -- and just as Robertson and Falwell thought they needed their own Universities, well Progressives do too, and not just about who can get into Harvard and Yale when they have no quota. Old Antioch was where Jews had no quota, and didn't compete against each other, and Quakers and Unitarians actually did compete, and kept it more or less competitive. (And yep, I am a Methodist/Quaker from Ohio.)

You want to change the concept of Liberal Arts Education in the US -- well I am not asking for any money -- because I think that beside the point right now -- but pay attention to systems and how the idea is being totally creamed.

Good luck! The cost of a degree depends on what state you're in. It is never going to be the case that all state universities provide a degree for the same tuition

I presumed this was a given as it is the status quo. The point was directed at ABC University charging different tutition for an entry level degree based on the study discipline.

But by increasing the costs of engineering and business, these universities are making the acquisition of these degrees less expedient.

The way I see it is that they are saying since you will earn more with this degree we are going to charge you more to get it. That is about capitalism. Additionally, it means they will pay those instructors in that discipline more as well, as the instructor becomes more valued. Which means we will have those professors marketplace competitors. The entire thing is simply capitalism, greed and avarice and not education.

According to a source I have in Dr. Brazelton's family, he's very poor, personally, at interacting with kids. Does that mean only a foolish public would take his advice to heart on raising them? Or is it merely like having a fat doctor who smokes, who nonetheless gives good health advice?

How sad to read about the decline of Antioch, Sara.  But I just wanted to mention that I think that Reed College in Oregon was "up-there" with Antioch and Black Mountain in the 60s.  It seems to be surviving, but I have no idea if it compares to its earlier character.

I worked for a decade at another college that was nearly destroyed by cointelpro - Deganiwida Quetzalcoatl University (DQU) near Davis, Ca.  Under some inspired leadership (not the board) the college sued the Feds and were able to prove that the Secretary of Education had conspired to destroy the 2 year college.  The court designed remedy worked out well, and by 1993 it looked like DQU would become a major resource in Native American education.  But for some strange reason the Board of Trustees went ballistic and fired the President and his key staff members, and replaced them with their cronies.  I was downhill ever since, and by 203 it lost its accreditation.  It is now just barely hanging on.  It was very tragic, but you can't blame the government for it.

Neoboho

Of course it's a good investment for employers, to boot.  In the late eighties in california high-tech were pulling computer science students out of school before they completed their degrees, saying that they wanted to train them themselves.  I worked at a school that Baselite Corp requested and funded an ESL program for their employees.  Poor English skills were preventing employees from job promotion, and Balelite saw a lot of wasted opportunity there.  The program was an outstanding success.

Neoboho

My experience has been that at any college or university  you'll find x number of entrenched faculty that have designed their courses to run on automatic, so to speak, without paying that much attention to changes in education or their field of expertise.  Then you'll find a bunch of engaged faculty that do.  I suppose its the difference between filling in blanks and creating blanks.  This is where the prestige of the school comes into the picture.  Some schools simply have better faculties.  I've gotten much more value for my educational buck taking courses taught by graduate students in many cases.  

But in grad school myself, my major professor dumped all the work on me, even grading.  It's hard work reading papers and grading them.   

Neoboho

This is a cost shift by employers.

I'd agree with this whole-heartedly. It seems that "paid job training" stopped in the late 90's; that's when I started seeing people bitch about the "entry level job" problem.

I don't think that universities are diverse enough to take on that task though. That said, while I am hemming and hawing as I write this, I suppose that giving businesses "training grants" would probably be more effective. Maybe businesses could offer a public stake in their company's profits in exchange for a training grant so it's win/win?

To boldly go...

Re: There is a certain attitude of "Why should I pay to educate THEIR children!"

This is the problem with funding schools from property taxes. Also, try to be a little fair to people who vote against school taxes They may not be bigots or anti-education-- they may simply be desperate and cannot afford the taxes they are paying on their homes. Housing inflation (both now and in the past) has left a lot of people of modest means in very bad shape financially.

Re: So in one sense, the ideal of public education has become a victom of the US massive immigration experiment starting with the Immigration Act of 1965.

Were our great-great grandparents more virtuous then? After all, public schooling really took off in this country back when immigration levels were also very high; indeed a part of that movement toward universal education was the need to educate immigrants and "Americanize" them.

there's always the chance to do without a future for most people

I think you're aware of the drop out rates in our colleges and high schools. i.e. our institutions of learning have failed to reach a lot of folks and I've never read a serious explanation about why? Usually the explanations just blame the student.

colleges and universities do A LOT of marketing to convince the public that they're worth the money and effective.

the coolest part of the NCLB program will be the huge data collection; I'm sure that there will be negative things uncovered but I also think that postive things will pop-up like "there are many paths to enlightenment and a 'state blessed institution' is just one of them."

BTW: my boss dropped out of college and he's a self-made millionaire who likes driving around his Z4.

To boldly go...

you get the education system you are willing to pay for, and society pays for the education system with taxes.

so maybe people would be willing to pay more in taxes if the "education system" was useful to them? as the original post noted, people don't feel connected to it any more and see it as a means to a job not an enlightened, literate, functioning community.

To boldly go...

"part of that movement toward universal education was the need to educate immigrants and "Americanize" them."

I wonder if that is true, or that was an after-the-fact justification. Anyway, public schooling got started at a time when native-born Americans had as many children as immigrants, so education was an immigrant-neutral issue. In fact I read somewhere that family size was mainly limited by health, not by choice, in the 1800's, and so native-born Americans tended to have the largest families because they were healthier than the European immigrants.

Employers want to be able to layoff people at will.

this is good and bad, I think. if it's easy to lay off employees, you can hire more people and see which ones resonate with the company's objectives, culture and customers.

I think intergenerational issues are important too. in France, you may remember the recent riots-- the younger workers couldn't get jobs since the older workers were holding on to them.

optimistically, older workers in the US who get "layed off" can start their own companies or find work with smaller firms that desire people with "corporate experience." my current employer appreciates the skills that I picked up in corporate america.

the biggest problem with this "food chain" is, in my opinion, health insurance; universal insurance, I think, would make the whole thing work better.

I used to look at the lay off thing negatively but I've adjusted my expectations and found some well paid work; However, I force myself to save 50 to 60 percent a year, etc...

To boldly go...

I can see what you're saying but did academia lose touch with society in general? Nietzsche laughed at the academics of his time because they "wrote papers about papers" and didn't seem to create new ideas.

I no longer believe that "university education" will bring us closer together. I used to believe that though.

This change came when I was out flyering in Iowa for Dennis Kucinich. It was mind blowing to see such diversity. One guy was a republican who strongly supported unions. At that point, I started understanding how stereotypical my education was.

To boldly go...

But I do wonder what has become of critical thinking courses under the Bush Administration.

As a substitute teacher, I saw 8th graders get A's for reporting propaganda (from CNN, Fox, etc...) as real news.

I don't think the teachers talked about "manufactured consent," anonymous sources, etc...

Today's Pioneer Press suggested that mexican immigrants would solve the housing bubble problem! Without evidence, the implication was that immigrants could afford houses that Americans couldn't....

I feel sorry for the kids who read and believe all this stuff!

To boldly go...

I spent four thoroughly enjoyable years in undergraduate school, studying music and sociology/psychology.  I spent eight enjoyable years in graduate school, leaving with a degree in American Studies, specialties in history, literature, education, and religion. 

I return to campus in a little less than a month, for the thirty-fifth year of a career which has been deeply rewarding intellectually and socially.  I plan to continue doing this as long as health holds out. 

Just thought someone around here ought to admit to having found the traditional liberal arts education a rewarding experience on both sides of the desk.  In doing so, I don't believe I have wasted my life or my students' time.  Evidently they agree with me... the classes are full for the fall, and my checks won't bounce.

aMike

Corvid

Re the part about being educated just enough to follow orders: That kind of rot apparently extends into the college ranks as well. Consider the following:
.
"Shocked, stunned, and appalled are American educators as they study the recent report from the National Center of Education Statistics, which reveals that only 31 percent of college graduates can read a complex book and extrapolate from it. 'It's really astounding,' said Michael Gorman, president of the American Library Association. 'That's not saying much for the remainder,' he added, meaning that 69 percent of our college graduates cannot read at or above a 'proficient' level.
"Absolutely appalled by the results of the survey was Mark S. Schneider, commissioner of education statistics, who remarked, 'The declining impact of education on our adult population was the biggest surprise for us, and we just don't have a good explanation. What's disturbing is that the assessment is not designed to test your understanding of Proust, but to test your ability to read labels.'"
.
So 69 percent of our young people who get their college degrees at fabulous and ruinous cost to themselves and their parents emerge from these fraudulent institutions functionally illiterate.

If colleges are thinking about differential tuitions for different majors, shouldn't there be some accountability? If the students graduate without substantial gains in knowledge and intelligence from when they went in (measured perhaps by a standardized test), they get a refund. And if they pay megabucks for what's supposed to be a highly lucrative degree and end up driving a cab or waiting tables, again, a full refund. Why not? If we're going for a market model here, let's have the metrics to make it a real market rather than just a half-baked affair favorable to only the so-called educators.
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But I do commend Professor Warren. Every time I read something by her, I wonder why our media aren't giving banner coverage to the subject. By the way, I don't favor moving to a market model in education; I much prefer Prof. Warren's vision, which used to be widely shared and now, sadly, seems to be falling by the wayside.
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I wasn't a success at foreign languages either, with less excuse.  I was intimidated because the daughter of the German Consul in Chicago sat next to me in introductory German... I thought that rather unfair.  I still do, which shows that I can keep a grudge for 47 years.  :-)

aMike

He said he was so dyslexic that notes would hopelessly confuse him.

it's interesting that you bring this topic up. that's one of the reasons why I tend to be negative about universities myself! at one point, in my early 30's, I realized that my mind flipped things around. it also partially accounts for why I stand so firmly on independent learning because nobody else knows my strengths better than I do.

a few years ago, I asked a professor for more paper during a test and he said "no, because maybe you'll use it to cheat." what a value judgement! While I didn't consider myself handicapped, I saw how orthodoxy got in the way of learning! while I got a "distinguished engineer" award when I graduated, my mind was looking for relief. I didn't realize how much stress dyslexic symptoms can cause. Thankfully I figured this out myself and worked out ways to work with it. The big problem is that most professors would probably think I was stupid if I asked for accomendations, etc... without some sort of clinical diagnosis.

professors who only care about the diploma mill are useless.

To boldly go...

Not sure I see what you're saying and not at all sure it is in response to what I wrote, which was about public schools not universities. But in response, not sure what you had in mind but there's a solid case that universities are society in general; the demographic make-up of students, faculty and staff in institutions of higher ed is much more representative of "society in general" than almost any other institution in our country.

So my point was that just as it is "patriotic" to "support our troops," we as progressives need to remind the country that its just as or even more "patriotic" to "support our public schools" for all the ways they reflect and reinforce our shared values in all of us, not merely for the "chance to get ahead" they might offer to individual students.

As for Nietzche and academic papers, well, don't read them; they weren't intended to be written for a general audience anyway. But if you do want to see writing devoid of ideas, check out almost any journal article in the field of business (or, sadly, of education.)

Corvid

Thanks for the reply. It's interesting that people fail to apply the scientific method. Maybe this is unrelated, but when I was in high school I took all the science and math courses that were available. I was a B student in these courses, which indicated to me that this wasn't my future. But I believe I was a good deal sharper and clearer in my thinking when I graduated than I was after 4 years as an English major in college.
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I'll have to disagree with you about Ms. Warren. I find she consistently defines and nicely quantifies problems that signficantly burden the rest of us but that we often don't see or understand.
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As to this particular subject, while I think it would be useful to regenerate some higher and nobler conception of what college education is meant to achieve--not just for us as individuals but also (really, moreso) for society, I also believe that a market-driven alternative (such as differential tuitions) should have to include a strict accountability. It's not enough to say that if your future "appears" to be full of cash, you should pay more. I'd say your future actually has to BE full of cash. Otherwise, you get a refund. Full money-back guarantee. Simple as that.
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Of course, colleges and universities would never go for this. And that's precisely why, if the silly notion of differential tuitions actually begins to gain some traction, we as parents and students need to absolutely insist on accountability.
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In fact, why not insist on it now? Don't forget that better than two-thirds of our college graduates are functionally illiterate. Doesn't this ring any alarm bells out there among the TPMCafe readership? Hello? Across this broad land parents and students are paying megabucks to utterly fraudulent institutions to produce a vast population of increasingly unemployable dummies. Millions of people are taking on increasingly dangerous and insane levels of debt to churn out millions of so-called college graduates who can't read and execute a simple set of instructions. This isn't speculation, it's not a rant; we have the test results. We KNOW this. So isn't it interesting, worthy of a little discussion? Personally, I think it's a five-alarm fire. But that's just silly old me.

why not insist on it now?

I used to feel strongly about this; however, as I've moved towards "independent study," I've found myself accepting what I can achieve and let life have it's own time table.

I tend to see professors, even if they're brilliant, like the "wizard of oz." At the end of the day, they're normal people with both strengths and weaknesses. Can [my] expectations make them perfect?

Thus, I think it's a disservice to entice people into believing that a university is like a pill that makes you smart. It's probably closer to a set of weights that you need to lift to get stronger.

My literacy only started to climb when I started to take control of my education. As a student teacher, I realized that I did the work that my students should be doing! i.e. I was looking at many different ways to teach knowledge, selecting the best way and then presenting it to the class. The best way to describe my viewpoint on this is: "teachers are like mother birds who give their babies digested food to eat." At some point, all creatures have to start eating real food.

If literacy and the ability to analyze information has gone down, I blame it on students who become blind and use teachers as seeing eyedogs. As I've made obvious, I really think that the teacher's role must change.

I may be pessimistic, but the brightest and best scientists, engineers, lawyers and artists have left us with global warming, lots of pollution and extinction issues. Pinning the blame on the next generation is fairly silly since the last generation wasn't really that smart!

To boldly go...