Posted in Education on May 14, 2008 | No Comments »
A professor is fired at Norfolk State for failing too many students. This is more common throughout the educational system (especially at the lower levels) than many people think. I failed two students out of eleven as a student teacher at Radnor High School in suburban Philadelphia, and the principal made it clear [...]
Posted in Academia, Education, tagged tuition on May 2, 2008 | No Comments »
Inside Higher Education publishes figures on expenditures in higher education, confirming what those of us on the inside have known for a long time: the far-above-inflation increases in tuition over the past twenty years have not gone to faculty or anything else involving instruction.
Median Spending Per Full-time Enrolled Student, 2005, by Sector
Sector
Direct Instructional Costs
Other Educational [...]
Posted in Academia, Education on April 29, 2008 | No Comments »
when it sounds as if it should be the other way around. “Worst professor ever”—well confirmed. What on earth is going on at Dartmouth? Consider her qualifications for a position at Dartmouth Medical School:
After obtaining a BA from Dartmouth College, I have an MS in Genetics from UC Davis and a PhD [...]
Posted in Education, economics, tagged textbooks on April 26, 2008 | 2 Comments »
The New York Times complains about the high cost of textbooks, and says that something ought to be done about it. Greg Mankiw points out that, if textbook prices really were unreasonably high, textbooks would represent an excellent business opportunity, and the Times should go into the business and undercut the current publishers, something [...]
Posted in Education, philosophy on April 2, 2008 | 3 Comments »
Syracuse philosophy professor and noted virtue ethicist Laurence Thomas walks out of class when a student in the front row sends a text message, sparking a debate about the justifiability of his action and the collective punishment it involves. (HT: Instapundit)
I wouldn’t doubt Larry Thomas when it comes to a question of ethics. I [...]
Posted in Education, Politics, philosophy, tagged human nature on March 12, 2008 | No Comments »
David Mamet writes revealingly of his political awakening:
As a child of the ’60s, I accepted as an article of faith that government is corrupt, that business is exploitative, and that people are generally good at heart.
These cherished precepts had, over the years, become ingrained as increasingly impracticable prejudices. Why do I say impracticable? Because although [...]
Posted in Distributive Justice, Education, Equality, justice, tagged Equality, justice, social work on March 10, 2008 | 3 Comments »
The National Association of Scholars has published a report on schools of social work throughout the country, finding that most are committed to ideological indoctrination rather than unbiased research: “Social work education is a national academic scandal.” Stephen Balch, NAS Director:
Defenders of the American university claim that the seriousness of the problem of [...]
Posted in Education, economics, tagged economics, Education on February 27, 2008 | 2 Comments »
Ilya Somin makes the case against government subsidies for college tuition at the Volokh Conspiracy. His point is that the higher-than-inflation increases in the cost of college over the past forty years are justified by the even greater increases in expected returns on a college education. According to a 2002 Census Bureau study, [...]
Posted in Education, tagged Education on February 25, 2008 | No Comments »
Gary Becker and Richard Posner discuss the use of university endowments, and, in particular, the question whether universities should be required to spend a certain proportion of their endowments each year. Posner especially interests me when he writes,
Given the competitive structure of higher education, it is hard to see why government should step in [...]
Posted in Education, Europe, tagged Germany, Homeschooling on February 24, 2008 | No Comments »
It’s illegal to homeschool children in Germany. Parents who attempt it risk having their assets seized and their children taken away and placed in foster care. Hitler sponsored this law in 1938 to see to it that no one could escape Nazi indoctrination. Now, German and EU bureaucrats defend it to see [...]
