The Intercollegiate Studies Institute has devised a quiz testing civic literacy. The average score is only 49%– though it improved to 78% online in November, perhaps because the online group is self-selected, and perhaps because elections improve awareness of civic matters for a while.
The most remarkable finding is that elected officials do worse than [...]
Archive for the ‘Education’ Category
Civic Illiteracy
Posted in Education, Politics, tagged civic literacy, quiz on November 25, 2008 | 9 Comments »
The Chicago Annenberg Challenge
Posted in Education, Politics, tagged Annenberg, Ayers, Obama on September 23, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Stanley Kurtz has been digging through the files. Obama and Ayers worked closely together to radicalize Chicago schools, rejecting grant applications for programs to improve math and science education and pushing “small schools” dedicated to oppression studies and political activism.
How to Get Smart
Posted in Academia, Education, tagged intelligence on July 16, 2008 | 1 Comment »
There’s some evidence that thinking makes it so—not in the obvious sense that thinking makes you smarter, but in the sense that thinking you’re getting smarter actually makes you smarter. Positive thinking really does have power.
I hesitate to endorse this, because I’ve known plenty of people who thought they were smarter than they really [...]
Wretchard on Higher Education
Posted in Academia, Education, Politics, tagged political correctness on June 24, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Wretchard (in his new home in Pajamas Media!) writes of the political correctness of academia, with some optimism that it is now around halfway through its life-cycle. Picking up on his theme that higher education functions primarily to sort students by IQ, a commenter remarks that the growth of higher education stems from Griggs [...]
Two Kinds of Technical Vocabulary
Posted in Education, philosophy, tagged communication on June 9, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Rick Hills distinguishes technical abbreviations, which are helpful and often necessary, from shibboleths, which are designed to be unhelpful. Technical abbreviations function to express complex information efficiently by speeding communication. Shibboleths function to keep outsiders away by making communication difficult.
“Highly Educated”
Posted in Education, History, Politics, tagged Western Civ, World War II on May 23, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
The Diplomad cautions us about talk of “highly educated” voters—who are often astoundingly ignorant. He recalls interviewing candidates for internships at the State Department and asking them questions about World War II. Only one got them all right. (They’re not hard: “Who was Mussolini?” for example.) The amazing part is, none [...]
Who’s Failing?
Posted in Education on May 14, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
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 [...]
Where Your Tuition Money Goes
Posted in Academia, Education, tagged tuition on May 2, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
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 [...]
Professor Sues Students…
Posted in Academia, Education on April 29, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
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 [...]
Mankiw on Textbooks
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 [...]
