# The education bubble



## a_majoor (22 Nov 2011)

Since education has been a subtopic in many threads, maybe we need a thread for education:

http://pjmedia.com/victordavishanson/the-fannie-and-freddie-university/?print=1



> *The Fannie and Freddie University*
> Posted By Victor Davis Hanson On November 20, 2011 @ 11:52 am In Uncategorized | 77 Comments
> 
> It’s More than Just PC
> ...



End of part 1


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## a_majoor (22 Nov 2011)

Part 2

http://pjmedia.com/victordavishanson/the-fannie-and-freddie-university/?print=1



> Lots of reasons. The university was deeply embedded with a faux-morality and a supposed disdain for lucre. “College” or “university” was sort of like “green” — an ethical veneer for almost anything imaginable without audit or examination (Whether a Joe Paterno-like exemption or something akin to Climategate or the local CSU campus where the student body president recently boasted that he was an illegal alien and dared authorities to act — to near unanimous support from the university.) Since World War II, a college degree was rightly seen as the key to middle class upward mobility. That belief was enshrined, and so we forgot to ask whether everyone was suited for college, or whether the college educated per se were always more important to the economy than the self-, union-, or trade-schooled welder, concrete finisher, or electrician.
> 
> If Only They Were as Fair as Wal-Mart …
> 
> ...


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## Tuna (22 Nov 2011)

I have not yet attended a post secondary educational institution, but some of the points that the article made are both sad and true. in particular the tidbit about global warming  (it is surprising how many people in my generation think that way. The vast majority don't know anything about carbon and that is not just a straw man example) and the lack of history knowledge (mentioned in the article) is also quite saddening. Another big issue (as mentioned) 
 is the debt involved. Education is so expensive in many areas that even the "looked down upon" trade school students come out with quite a bit of debt, what I think the article should have mentioned in depth though is the "everybody goes to college fad"  which has grown in recent years and has locked more and more people into this scam. and also has made it harder and harder to get a job without a degree (even if it's just waiting tables, an employer will usually put those with bachelors' degrees on the top of the pile) especially in tough economic times.


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## a_majoor (6 Dec 2011)

Looking at some possible futures of the education system. Another hint of what Post Progressive society may look like is also here:

http://american.com/archive/2011/december/the-end-of-stagnation-and-the-coming-innovation-boom



> *The End of Stagnation and the Coming Innovation Boom*
> 
> By Nick Schulz Monday, December 5, 2011
> 
> ...


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## a_majoor (7 Dec 2011)

Kazing!

A very long answer from an advice columnist about the worth of education, paying off student debt and living your own life:

http://therumpus.net/2011/12/dear-sugar-the-rumpus-advice-column-91-a-big-life/

Worth reading


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## Robert0288 (7 Dec 2011)

Some of the article was spot on, and some of it was dead wrong.  

As for the more 'hard working' students gravitate towards the sciences is a myth.  Many of the top students in those fields are amazing with numbers and formulas, but as soon as you ask them to explain it, talk to another human being, or write a piece of paper, they are completely useless.  Which is why they have to take manditory english classes (atleast at OttawaU,)

The race arguement isn't applicable in Canada as applications are done via marks and not personal interviews.  Grad school is a different story, also might depend if your trying to get into some obscure impossible program.

My first arugment also applies to proffessors and TAs.  They can be the greatest mind known to mankind, and therefore useful to the institution.  But have absolutely no personal skills or teaching ability.  This leads to the class where students are dissinterested because the proff only writes equations on the board, reads off a prepared sheet for 3 hours, or my personal favorite is getting the students to teach each other. (Although if done in the correct maner is a great teaching tool)

As for cost, I can't comment on the US system (other than it appears to be FUBAR) but I and many of my friends payed for university ourselves working one if not more jobs usually at minimum wage and making sacrifices, which it appears the OWS generation which I refuse to be part of, fails to do.  I went for years without a cell phone, OWS protesters who are complaining had the new Iphone 4S.


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## Nemo888 (7 Dec 2011)

I agree that the humanities did die.  I lament their loss. He says the word liberal like it is an insult. Liberal movements that brought forth things like blacks being treated like human beings,  woman having the right to vote, a 40 hour work week, statutory holidays, no child labour, pensions for the old or infirm, healthcare and free public schools just to name a few.

Liberals decided to support the elites and enmesh themselves with crony capitalism. Hoping for a few crumbs from the table they sold us out and became irrelevant. They no longer attacked the real issues and played with political correctness and other irrelevancies. Now they are ridiculed and rightly so. Education no longer taught critical thinking. It taught conformity and gave a piece of paper that supposedly gave admittance to the middle class. It was all very Orwellian in outcome, but the only levers used were market forces. Perhaps profit should not be our only motive and measure of success.  Humanities could of course vaccinate us against many dark roads we could become lost on. Corruption cannot be controlled by rules. It is controlled by morals. History(A humanities course) shows an uneducated populace is always susceptible to demagogues and quickly slides towards fascism.


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## a_majoor (8 Dec 2011)

A degree course in puppetry? No wonder the "liberal arts" studies is mocked so mercilessly. Perhaps real "Liberal Arts" education involving the study of the works by "Dead White Males" needs to return:

http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2011/12/07/how-to-ruin-your-life/



> *How To Ruin Your Life*
> 
> Alert reader Dan Shea drew Via Meadia‘s attention to an unusually depressing article in the Boston Globe.  It is one of those fluffy and airheaded “lifestyle” pieces, the print equivalent of empty calorie junk food and like many such articles it provides a horrifying glimpse into the vacuous nature of the modern American mind.  In this particular case, the reporter, who hopefully is affecting rather than spontaneously producing prose redolent of relentless stupidity, shares her view of 10 “awesome” classes at Boston area colleges that she thinks her readers would like to take.
> 
> ...


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## bcbarman (10 Dec 2011)

As a strong advocate for education, I feel that post-secondary in Canada is essential for moving anywhere in a career that does not involve spinning a stop sign.  

With that, there is so many junk degrees out there, where has our workforce and contribution to the Canadian economy come from.  We have a new shift, at least out here in BC, the University Colleges.  These former colleges have received a degree granting status, so one could go to the cheaper, smaller class size, more personalized education school and receive a degree.  

Does it have the same weight as a big name University? Of course not, but other then your first job, when did anyone ask where you went to school to get your accreditation?

However, the junk degrees continue to flow. Womyn studies? Art appreciation? meterological studies?  I understand that there are jobs for people out there with this kind of degree, but how many really? With that, what are the odds of getting a decently paying job out of it. 

There will be a day that the shift in training will stop, but what will be the catalist that changes it?


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## Snakedoc (10 Dec 2011)

Mind you...there was a time when people pursued post-secondary education and degrees for intellectual and not functional reasons


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## Edward Campbell (10 Dec 2011)

Snakedoc said:
			
		

> Mind you...there was a time when people pursued post-secondary education and degrees for intellectual and not functional reasons




Yes, but in those days one became an engineer or lawyer or doctor through what was, essentially, an apprenticeship programme.

The _modern_ education system, the one which is only about 150 years old, is a mix of _education_ and _practical training_, the latter designed to produce _professionals_ who can meet certain (hopefully demanding) standards like those tested in PEng exams, bar exams and the like.


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## a_majoor (11 Dec 2011)

Looking at different solutions to educating people:

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2011/12/07/khan-academy-ponders-what-it-can-teach-higher-education-establishment



> *The Problem Solvers*
> December 7, 2011 - 3:00am
> By
> Steve Kolowich
> ...


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## a_majoor (19 Dec 2011)

Getting a free MIT education:

http://chronicle.com/article/MIT-Will-Offer-Certificates-to/130121/



> *MIT Will Offer Certificates to Outside Students Who Take Its Online Courses*
> 
> By Marc Parry
> 
> ...


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## a_majoor (26 Dec 2011)

Radically changing the way education is delivered wil have many effects. One which isn't touched on too much in this article is the elimination of the vast public education bureaucracy (vice eliminating teachers) and the enourmous effect this will have on public budgeting, taxation and the economy. As an aside, it should also change the way we in the military think about instruction and training of our soldiers:

http://www.americanthinker.com/printpage/?url=http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/../2011/12/a_world_without_schoolteachers.html



> *A World without Schoolteachers*
> 
> By Richard F. Miniter
> 
> ...


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## a_majoor (27 Dec 2011)

More on how the education bubble will unwind. The economic argument is pretty solid and convincing (and it is a win win; the employer pays less but the employee isn't encumbered with huge debt loads which drag down his/her personal wealth building). Another glimpse of what post progressive society may look like:

http://blog.speculist.com/scenarios/the-coffee-shop-take-over.html



> *In the Future Everything Will Be A Coffee Shop*
> By Stephen Gordon + December 26th, 2011
> 
> Phil and I ended last week’s FastForward Radio show discussing how higher education will change in the coming years. My conclusion:
> ...


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## a_majoor (6 Jan 2012)

And perhaps the best reason to support the Khan academy:

http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Social+justice+diversity+subjects+program/5844715/story.html



> *Social justice and diversity key subjects for new UBC program*
> 
> Changes will better prepare teachers for work in classrooms: dean
> 
> ...



Based on the commentary, this isn't being viewed as a positive thing by the readers...


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## a_majoor (9 Jan 2012)

An interesting concept. One thing which needs to be addressed right now is how the Military is going to deal with this. In a very few years, people will be showing up at recruiting centers with on line courses and "badges" or other indicators of education (but not acreditation from traditional colleges or universities). Private sector employers are free to accept or decline these indicators of skill as they choose.

http://chronicle.com/article/Badges-Earned-Online-Pose/130241/



> *'Badges' Earned Online Pose Challenge to Traditional College Diplomas*
> 
> By Jeffrey R. Young
> 
> ...



Some STEM subjects would benefit from lab work and group projects which arn't available at home (Mom, can I borrow the wind tunnel?), but what other subjects could be done on line? (This also begs the question about how well the course design and marking is done on line. My experience with the DL portion of the PLQ course isn't promising).


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## a_majoor (13 Jan 2012)

While the tragedy of "Head Start" probably isn't going to end, there is a question here about what could effectively replace it? Self learning programs like the Khan Academy are great for self motivated people, but for people who do not come from a background or environment that supports learning, what is going to be done?

In the short term , the Khan Academy model provides an escape valve for the motivated, and reduces costs and pressure throughout the system, so should be supported on those grounds alone. Branching out and providing/allowing vouchers for things like Montessori, Charter schools and other alternatives will provide even more outlets and escape valves. How to change the home environments for children who's families don't value/support learning is beyond me, and there is probably no government program that can change that short of forcibly removing the children from those sorts of home environments (but then again, who is going to determine how "supportive" the home environment is?)

http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2012/01/12/head-start-a-50-year-flop-say-it-aint-so-joe/



> *Head Start A 50 Year Flop? Say It Ain’t So, Joe*
> 
> “Head Start” has been the poster child of federal aid to education ever since the Lyndon Johnson administration introduced it as part of the Great Society. And for decades liberals have pointed to it as one of the great advances that the federal government has brought to education, and as evidence that creative social engineering by smart professional interventionists can change the world.
> 
> ...


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## a_majoor (19 Jan 2012)

A very long article here on the higher education bubble. I have noted that there will be some direct fallout for the Canadian Forces as the education model changes; how do we decide what is an acceotable form of self or self directed education? How do we decide if the education being claimed is relevant or rigerous? Do we continue to support "Brick and Mortar" institutions because we look for intangables like socialization, or perhaps because "Brick and Mortar" institutions provide a better venue for the STEM disciplines?

The other implications are that:

1. Traditional Brick and Mortar degrees get discounted. Is there going to be some sort of transition policy, or will people with "old" degree education be Grandfathered, or perhaps there will be a demand for holders of these degrees to go online and upgrade? (This will be an issue everywhere, not hust the CF)

2. As Brick and Mortar institutions involuntarily downsize we will be stuck with a flood of essentially unemployable people being forced out of the cloisters and into the productive economy, with all the social issues and ills that will cause. (We might accept such people as non comissioned members, in the event they choose to enlist, but the bigger effect will be outside the CF as these people create social and economic turmoil)

http://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/the-coming-higher-ed-revolution


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## a_majoor (25 Jan 2012)

More on alternative certification:

http://chronicle.com/blogs/innovations/beware-alternative-certification-is-coming/31369



> *Beware: Alternative Certification Is Coming*
> January 23, 2012, 4:42 pm
> 
> By Richard Vedder
> ...


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## a_majoor (28 Jan 2012)

Using the school system for indoctrination rather than education has always been a pet peeve of mine (I spend an awful lot of time deprogramming the kids when they get home; remind me to tell you how I trew the science teacher for a loop when I helped my daughter point out ways to reduce human CO2 output....).

The long term efect is probably going to be to put parent's backs up and give them incentives to seek alternatives to publicly funded schools which push this nonsense. Home schooling, charter schools and provate schools will benefit, and the next ripple efect will be lots of parents wondering why they are funding public schools when they are teaching their children on their own or their own dime...

http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/01/27/alternative-classrooms-may-not-be-as-inclusive-as-they-claim-to-be/



> *Alternative classrooms may not be as inclusive as they claim to be*
> Kathryn Blaze Carlson  Jan 27, 2012 – 10:47 PM ET | Last Updated: Jan 27, 2012 10:57 PM ET
> 
> Rachel Adelman’s Israeli son never clicked with the traditional education system, so when the family moved to Canada, she was drawn to an alternative public school that promised an intimate setting where students could express themselves freely; a school “based on the principles of participatory democracy and social equity,” as the school advertised itself.
> ...


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## a_majoor (14 Feb 2012)

More on the pros and cons of the post campus educational system:

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/02/envisioning-a-post-campus-america/253032/



> *Envisioning a Post-Campus America*
> By Megan McArdle
> 
> MIT is going to offer certificates for completion of low-cost online coursework, an offering the university is calling MITx.  Stephen Gordon ponders the implications:
> ...



For the CF, an overhaul of the DP learning will have to be done so it is more rigerous (People attending PLQ Mod 1-3 not knowing MofI staples like ICEPAC? Really?), and the job of the Section Commander and 2I/C in garrison might evolve into hands on instruction and mentoring on a much greater scale than today (see the section on the explosion of personal tutoring).  Bricks and mortar will still be important for the skilled trades (how will mechanics learn to fix a LAV without tools and a workshop), so garrison living will be like an extended stay at a vocational institution (i.e. trade school).

OTOH, this might work well in our favour since it will be much easier to pick out motivated people and quick learners, a large portion of PER's can be generated from on line class data (classes attended, marks, number of attempts at particular items etc.). Lots of things to think of, and I only hope *we* are not blind sided by this as an institution.


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## a_majoor (23 Feb 2012)

From the National Post. Canadian grads without any useful skills but carrying big debt loads will be a big drag on Canadian society for decades to come (and this at a time we have a shortage of skiled workers and tradesmen, and need to lift our national productivity greatly to generate the wealth to cover a trillion dolars of debt and unfunded liabilities):

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/02/22/matt-gurney-university-students-borrowing-their-way-into-unemployment/



> *Matt Gurney: University students borrowing their way into unemployment*
> Matt Gurney  Feb 22, 2012 – 2:44 PM ET | Last Updated: Feb 22, 2012 5:10 PM ET
> 
> According to a recent survey of what jobs are in demand, and what students are studying in university, many, if not most, of today’s university students are spending good money — probably borrowed money at that — to get themselves a university degree that will prove essentially useless to them the instant they graduate. As Ontario’s manufacturing sector has evaporated, the economy has become such that new graduates have basically three options — a highly skilled professional career (including, perhaps, learning a trade), a low-paid job in the service industry or working for the government. And if you haven’t been paying attention, that last option isn’t looking so hot these days. So what is the smart kid, in their late teen or early 20s, to do? Sadly for them … not what they are doing.
> ...


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## GAP (23 Feb 2012)

Education is big business. do you really think all the Universities and Colleges are going to stop painting a rosy picture to their future paycheques?


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## ballz (11 Mar 2012)

Peter Schiff, known for predicting the 2008 collapse of many of the "too big to fail" businesses, with an interesting perspective.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xhXfyaLxeo&feature=related

I thinking offering to do a $35,000 job for $15,000 is a bit of hyperbole... but the rest is probably pretty accurate.


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## a_majoor (30 Mar 2012)

A look at another alternative learning model:

http://chronicle.com/article/No-Financial-Aid-No-Problem/131329/



> *No Financial Aid, No Problem. For-Profit University Sets $199-a-Month Tuition for Online Courses*
> 
> Of his tuition pricing for New Charter University, the educational entrepreneur Gene Wade says: "This is not buying a house. This is like, do I want to get cable?"
> By Marc Parry
> ...


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## a_majoor (3 May 2012)

Quebec students are in for a real shock indeed:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/opinion/quebecs-university-students-are-in-for-a-shock/article2418431/



> *Quebec’s university students are in for a shock*
> MARGARET WENTE | Columnist profile | E-mail
> From Tuesday's Globe and Mail
> Published Tuesday, May. 01, 2012 2:00AM EDT
> ...



Now contemplate a time in the not so distant future when the rest of Canada decides it can no longer afford to subsidize these students, or interest rate shocks make the model unsustainable (controlled or unco0ntrolled drawdowns). Even the market for baristas will dry up under those conditions. Expect Greek style "protests" against the new self induced reality.


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## Journeyman (3 May 2012)

> ....and victim-studies students, whose degrees are increasingly worthless.....


Awesome, awesome line.   :nod:


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## Edward Campbell (4 May 2012)

Journeyman said:
			
		

> Awesome, awesome line.   :nod:




It reminds me of a recent discussion, here on Army.ca, about the value of/need for a degreed officer corps. Fifty year ago a high school diploma was sufficient for a young person to enter, say, banking - at the very bottom - and aspire to be an executive; I know at least one person who did that. It was, equally, possible for a high school graduate to enter the CF - at the bottom of the officer corps - and aspire to be a flag or general officer; and I know more than one person who did that. Now, in two generations, we have a society that relegates a degree in, say, history to being equipped only to work in _Starbucks_. While I agree that some - far too many - degrees fall into the "vicims studies" domain and are intelectually empty, the "liberal arts" should still teach critical thinking. We don't need a world chock full of engineers, accountants, doctors and mathematicians; we need some people to tell us "why," instead of just "how."


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## a_majoor (4 May 2012)

Sadly, most Liberal Arts students or graduates that I encounter do not know critical thinking (getting a self education in that was a long painful process for me and I am by no means there yet). This is the same question that I asked on the other thread on having a degreed officer corps; is a degree or credential necessarily the best way to ensure the candidate is able to be a critical thinker?

Looking around the library, I see "On the Psychology of Military Incompetence", which had the interesting thesis that traditional Western military culture supports and reinforces certain mental traits which are actually detrimental to operating in a fluid battlefield environment. Even quite intelligent officers can be trapped by rigid thought patterns and processes (the commander of Singapore was apparently one of the most outstanding cadets of his generation at Sandhurst, for example, yet he totally discounted the idea the Japanese could attack Singapore on the landward side...) The students in Quebec are certainly in an environment which is not encouraging critical thought.

Now does this mean that the best way to assess potential candidates is some sort of psychological test series? Probably not, since a flexible mind still needs a grounding in facts and analysis. Still, it points to important considerations outside of simple credentialism when selecting candidates for leadership or management roles. 

In the face of an increasingly empty education system, I think many institutions may be attracted to some of the self learning models upthread since it is a positive predictor if a candidate was motivated enough to get a series of courses on line to gain a basic grounding in a subject. They may also go back to past practice; I recall reading that Boeing essentially ran an OJT/apprenticeship internally to raise people from the drafting rooms to become trained and qualified engineers.


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## Edward Campbell (4 May 2012)

Drifting even further off topic ...

I disagree, quite strongly, with the whole _Psychology of Military Incompetence_ thesis. Neither Percival (Singapore) nor Maltby (Hong Kong) were incompetent, neither was even a "bad" general; neither did what was expected hoped but both were faced with extraordinary situations that, simply, got the better of them. Singapore was well designed to be defended ... from the sea, but the Japanese didn't follow London's plan; Hong Kong was not designed (or manned) for any kind of defence, but scapegoats explanations are necessary for the mothers and Percival and Maltby were blamed. Don't get me wrong: neither did as well as he might have, perhaps could have, but neither was anything like incompetent.

My favourite in the _psychology of military incompetence_ rubbish is Haig. He was a good, solid, perhaps a tiny bit too _stolid_ general who told his political masters the unvarnished truth; when the situation unfolded as he suggested it would the politicians, and the people - perhaps especially the Canadian people, looked around for someone to blame. There was plenty of blame - most of it in Paris, but Haig was unpopular: blunt, apparently unfeeling in an era that had begun to migrate towards Bill Clinton and "I feel your pain" - and so the blame settled on him. He wasn't a bad general; he just had a lousy press agent.

My impression is that most modern generals, begining with, say, Bernard Montgomery and Maxwell Taylor, lack "bottom:" that mix of robustness, stoicism, honesty and courage (physical and moral) that one needs to make hard decisions, give brutal orders and get up the next morning to do it all again. Looking at our generations, people like William Westmorland and David Petraeus seem to me more like puff pasty, play actors sent to reassure the people that "there is light at the end of the tunnel." I have a great deal of trouble putting e.g. Petraeus on the same intellectual or professional plane as, say, Wavell. Petraeus and most others seem _smart_, in a very media savy way, but not tough and not, really, intelligent. Where is a modern Wavell to tell us about _generalship_ or a modern Haig to tell us, bluntly, how this long, long war will unfold?

Amongst Canadians I will reaffirm that we only ever produced one _great_ commander: Leonard W Murray - head and shoulders the best Canadian to ever wear a lot of gold on his cap. Murray is the only Canadian to have ever made a significant contribution, at the highest levels, to an allied victory. (Arthur Currie was a good combat commander but he commanded just one of dozens of corps on the Western Front; a case can be made that Robert Leckie and few other senior RCAF officers made a vital contribution to victory through the British Commonwealth Air Traing Plan - and they did, but it's not in the same league as Murray and the Battle of the Atlantic.) But Murray probably was, according to the _psychology of military incomeptence_ theorists, incompetent. Why? Because he was very unpopular - with his colleagues in Ottawa and with his political masters. Why? He told them the truth: a harsh, unvarnished truth about how tough the most important strategic battle in the history of the British Enpire was going to be; and because he didn't suffer fools at all, and Ottawa was full of them - Mackenzie King, Andrew McNaughton and Percy Nelles (Chief of the Naval Staff) amongst them. In fact it was Murray's unpopularity, not his operational ability or acumen that caused his downfall as soon as the war was safely won. Why was he good? Why was he unmpopular? Same reasons: he was tough, choleric, honest and brave but also blunt and very private, perhaps even shy. In any event he was our best ever and he simply doesn't fit the _pyschology of military incompetence_ model, neither would the Duke of Wellington, or George C Marshall I suspect; I conclude the model is wrong.


Edit: spelling  :-[


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## a_majoor (10 May 2012)

The one thing that stuck in my mind about the example of Singapore in the book isn't that the planners in London had only considered invasion by sea, but that General Percival not only discounted reports that the Japanese were coming by land, but until almost the last possible moment actively discouraged his subordinates from working on the landward defenses. 

Since there is no question that General Percival was a smart man, there must be some explanation why he refused to look at the mounting evidence of a Japanese landward invasion, or prevented his subordinates from taking action.

Moving back towards the topic, one of the issues with the current education bubble is determining if the credentials gained from going to university are actually worth anything. STEM graduates should be considered to be educated in their fields, since there is an objective standard to measure their activites against (although there is nothing to stop a STEM graduate from believing in nonsense outside of his field of study). Since the given rational for the humanities is to train the student for critical thinking, then there should be some sort of testing mechanism to determine if the student can indeed think in a critical manner. What that might be is not clear to me...


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## DBA (10 May 2012)

I accept that helping smart and/or motivated people get an education provides benefits for society as a whole. What doesn't seem worthwhile is giving the dumb and/or lazy a facsimile of one. 

It is like the mortgage bubble: helping people who can make the payments get a mortgage can have wider benefits. Giving people who can't make the payments mortgages creates a bubble of demand that then collapses leading to widespread harm.


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## ModlrMike (11 May 2012)

DBA said:
			
		

> Giving people who can't make the payments mortgages creates a bubble of demand that then collapses leading to widespread harm.




... which is responsible for much of the financial mess we're in now.


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## a_majoor (17 May 2012)

Disaggregation such as discussed here will make courses vastly cheaper and more accessable (Quebec students take note). What we need to think about in the CF is how we will accredit courses from such a wide range of sources. It is also possible to imagine serving or ex members of the CF creating courseware for potential candidates (DP 1.1 online primer!), it may well be impossible to police that kind of thing.

I will still stand by my prediction that "brick and mortar" schools will be needed for the STEM disciplines.


http://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/2012/05/16/this-is-the-way-the-higher-education-bubble-ends/?print=1



> This Is The Way The Higher Education Bubble Ends…
> Posted By James Carmine On May 16, 2012 @ 9:00 am In College,Technology | 32 Comments
> 
> 
> ...


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## a_majoor (30 May 2012)

This seems to be a recurrent theme in many threads; education does not equal intelligence or even potential. There is also a vastly distorted world view both from within and without the education cloisters. Sadly, since credentialed (as opposed to educated) people are in positions of power, I don't expect to see policy changes coming any time soon:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2012/05/29/meaningful_work_114299.html



> *'Meaningful Work'*
> By Thomas Sowell
> 
> "Education" is a word that covers a lot of very different things, from vital, life-saving medical skills to frivolous courses to absolutely counterproductive courses that fill people with a sense of grievance and entitlement, without giving them either the skills to earn a living or a realistic understanding of the world required for a citizen in a free society.
> ...


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## a_majoor (16 Jun 2012)

Prior learning assessments provide another means of bypassing the traditional gatekeepers. Once again, the question for the CF is how are we planning to assess recruits in the near future who may be highly educated using these alternative means but are not credentialed?

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/06/15/earning-college-credit-moocs-through-prior-learning-assessment



> *Making It Count*
> June 15, 2012 - 3:00am
> By Paul Fain
> 
> ...


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## a_majoor (17 Jun 2012)

Yet another example of how the economies of scale work in favour of the Internet. Delivering a course for $1/student? The model described can also be adapted to some higher level military instruction; think of courses where you have to solve problems in syndicates; now your syndicate may not even meet in person, one member is in Halifax while another is in Edmonton. The fact that large numbers of people sign up but only a fraction graduate isn't really a big deal in my mind; this is a form of self selection and the supervisors doing the ratings can include the ratio of attempted courses to the ones completed as a factor (does the person have the ability to select items that fit his interests/needs and does the person have the will to complete these courses?). 

Our DL models of instruction/course delivery need to be examined in light of these models and allowed to evolve to:

a. scale rapidly
b. provide useable content (mixed bag, so far in the CF)
c. provide useful "credentials" once training has been completed; both internally in the CF and also externally for soldiers retiring or releasing:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303807404577434891291657730.html

Long article; this is the money quote:



> Frustrated that his (and fellow Googler Peter Norvig’s) Stanford artificial intelligence class only reached 200 students, they put up a website offering an online version. They got few takers. Then he mentioned the online course at a conference with 80 attendees and 80 people signed up. On a Friday, he sent an offer to the mailing list of a top AI association. On Saturday morning he had 3,000 sign-ups—by Monday morning, 14,000.
> 
> In the midst of this, there was a slight hitch, Mr. Thrun says. “I had forgotten to tell Stanford about it. There was my authority problem. Stanford said ‘If you give the same exams and the same certificate of completion [as Stanford does], then you are really messing with what certificates really are. People are going to go out with the certificates and ask for admission [at the university] and how do we even know who they really are?’ And I said: I. Don’t. Care.”
> 
> ...


----------



## ballz (19 Jun 2012)

Bill Maher nails it...

http://www.real-time-with-bill-maher-blog.com/real-time-with-bill-maher-blog/2012/6/19/the-endth-degree.html



> June 19, 2012
> The Endth Degree
> By Bill Maher
> 
> ...


----------



## m2austin (19 Jun 2012)

ballz said:
			
		

> Bill Maher nails it...
> 
> http://www.real-time-with-bill-maher-blog.com/real-time-with-bill-maher-blog/2012/6/19/the-endth-degree.html



 :goodpost:


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## a_majoor (9 Jul 2012)

More on the roots of our current university education system. Governor Scott Walker of WI is making an attempt to change this, if his program is successful, watch for the floodgates to open in other American States. The question is can this model be imported here, and (of course) the perennial issue of how other agencies recognize the academic achievments of people who choose to go outside the traditional University route:

http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2012/07/07/scott-walker-prepares-to-reform-higher-education/



> *Scott Walker Prepares to Reform Higher Education*
> 
> Bad Boy Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin, fresh from taking on collective bargaining and triumphant after winning the recall election, is headed for more controversy, more upheaval and more angry squeals as he prepares to go after yet another sacred cow. His next mission is to take on Wisconsin’s higher education system. On June 19, Walker and officials from the University of Wisconsin announced a “revolutionary” flexible degree program. From the press release:
> 
> ...


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## a_majoor (11 Jul 2012)

Interesting article by the BBC. The raw numbers of university graduates may be one measure of academic prowess, but as we all know (and as is noted in the article) quantity is no measure of quality. Indeed, the numbers of "Studies" graduates could be counted as a negative, since they really don't bring anything to the table (lowering the results of US and Western university graduates by subtracting these people from the results).

OTOH, people who are "graduating" from non traditional on line learning are increasing at a rapid rate, and they do not show up in these sorts of figures. How they "count" isn't clear either, their "credentials" may or may not be recognized and this is probably beig done on an individual basis by employers right now. Displacing university graduates with on line students might be the real trend here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18646423



> *End of empire for Western universities?*
> By Sean Coughlan
> 
> BBC News education correspondent
> ...


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## a_majoor (17 Jul 2012)

The United States spends more than almost anyone else on the planet for "education", yet students going to school in Nigeria have much better outcomes. It isn't how much is being spent, it is how the money is spent:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/to-some-africans-in-us-childrens-education-is-best-left-to-the-homeland/2012/07/16/gJQAfSAfpW_print.html



> *To some Africans in U.S., children’s education is best left to the homeland*
> By Tomi Obaro, Published: July 16
> 
> Twelve-year-old Oladimeji Elujoba kept getting into fights at Roberto Clemente Middle School in Germantown. Every time the teacher took attendance in the morning, she would stumble over his polysyllabic name and inadvertently elicit jeers and giggles from his classmates.
> ...


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## a_majoor (22 Sep 2012)

Building a University for YouTube with "5 minute lectures". Interesting idea to get a course precis or introduction:

http://www.prageruniversity.com/mission.html


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## GnyHwy (22 Sep 2012)

Thucydides said:
			
		

> Building a University for YouTube with "5 minute lectures". Interesting idea to get a course precis or introduction:
> 
> http://www.prageruniversity.com/mission.html



"Prager University seeks to create a better understanding and appreciation of our unique American Judeo-Christian value system by leveraging the viral power of the Internet with content-rich, visually compelling courses."

WTF?  That doesn't sound like education to me.  No wonder the the Nigerians are kicking our ass.


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## a_majoor (22 Sep 2012)

I am more interested in the idea of compressing content, but virtually every University or institution of higher learning has some set of founding principles, and at least this institution has it out in the open. You certainly don't have to subscribe if you don't believe in these principles.


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## a_majoor (6 Oct 2012)

A series of YouTube pieces on the founder of the Internet educational movement. Quite interesting and a useful primer for those wishing to explore the movement more deeply:

http://www.slate.com/articles/video/conversations_with_slate/2012/10/salman_khan_and_youtube_the_khan_academy_s_online_global_education_mission_video_.html



> *The Tech-Driven Teacher*
> Salman Khan’s audacious mission to offer online education to anyone, anywhere for free.
> 
> Posted Friday, Oct. 5, 2012, at 11:15 AM ET
> ...



http://www.slatev.com/video/tech-driven-teacher/


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## ballz (7 Oct 2012)

This is a great thing that the Globe and Mail has, lots of interesting content on here including a "pay-off" function where you can input the degree program and compare it to others / high school diploma.

Michael Ignatieff is one of the people you can get a sound clip on, and he uses the term "degree factory" a few times. I like it.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/time-to-lead/transforming-the-ivory-tower-the-case-for-a-new-postsecondary-education-system/article4588986/


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## a_majoor (15 Oct 2012)

An unexpected bonus; unbundling course content also means breaking free of ideological indoctrination. The student gets more choices and is potentially exposed to many more viewpoints from the multitude of institutions and on line courses he can access. (Even if you believe that Marxists or Socialists will attempt to infiltrate the universe of online learning, you will still be exposed to multiple viewpoints and start to wonder why the various viewpoints don't coincide with each other or with reality. Once you start thinking along those lines, you have achieved the goal of a true Liberal education and are no longer indoctrinated):

http://www.popecenter.org/commentaries/article.html?id=2749



> *Education for Liberty*
> 
> Advocates of limited government can turn pending changes in higher education to their advantage.
> 
> ...


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## a_majoor (29 Nov 2012)

The mantra that we need to spend more money has always been suspect (who is getting all this money?) but now a new study in the United States demonstrates conclusively that it is not how much money you spend but how efficiently you spend it. If we could import some of these ideas to Canada then we could improve our students education and/or reduce the amount of money going to the public school system (education is usually the second largest item on the Provincial budget after health care), reducing pressure on Provincial budgets:

http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2012/11/28/the-texas-education-miracle/



> *The Texas Education Miracle*
> 
> The Department of Education has just released its first state-by-state comparison of education statistics, and the report has a few surprises. Texas performed extremely well, tying five other states for the third-best graduation rate in the country, at 86 percent.
> 
> ...


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## GnyHwy (30 Nov 2012)

I hardly see how this is conclusive of anything.  It is plainly obvious that anything that involves money needs to be optimized, and that it is how you spend it and not how much you spend.  Also, the ability to spend money wisely is going to vary from district to district and school to school, dependant on the persons in charge.  

This article is clearly written by a red writer, and I love the title "The Texas Education Miracle"; got to make sure you plug Jesus somehow.  To me the article leaves more questions than conclusive evidence, it is short and rhetorical.  He mentions the red states have 5 of 10 top spots, but doesn't mention that that makes it tie, clearly not a miracle.  He then goes on to mention some of the bigger profile blue states and how they performed average, but fails to mention the other 20 or so states below them.  Could the majority of those 20 states be red?

Further, the red approach to government allowing more power to the states it an excellent way to keep your state GPA up.  When there is no national standard for curriculum, it would be much easier to jack up your stats.  Heck, ensure that some bible memorization is in there and poof, there's an easy few marks. 

Please don't get me wrong, I do think the red have some great ideas, but education ain't not one of them, and the politics have become so polarized and extreme that they have become absurd.  The last group I would be asking for education advice would be the hard right, the group that shapes the facts and evidence around what they believe rather than looking for more evidence.

If any credit is due, it should be for the teachers who are working the "miracles", and not the persons cutting their budgets, or the religious figure ever watching over their shoulder.


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## a_majoor (30 Nov 2012)

I would suggest you read Walter Russel Mead on a more regular basis. He is hardly into caricatures, and is most definitely into writing on the basis of both evidence and a deep understanding of history and historical trends. On that basis I give what he has to say a great deal of weight and well worth considering.


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## GnyHwy (30 Nov 2012)

From that small article, he seemed very red, but I'll take your word for it that he is unbiased.  From the size of the article people must trust his word, because he didn't elaborate or give reasons or detailed evidence for anything. Perhaps he is just attempting to dispel the myth that the blue are automatically better educators.


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## a_majoor (30 Nov 2012)

WRM and many others can be read on "The American Interest": http://www.the-american-interest.com/

and his blog: http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/

Enjoy!


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## Brad Sallows (2 Dec 2012)

>The last group I would be asking for education advice would be the hard right, the group that shapes the facts and evidence around what they believe rather than looking for more evidence.

It is ironic that what you believe about others is shaped to suit what you wish to believe.  I am "hard right" precisely because I am numerate, educated, intelligent, capable of reaching beyond the innumerate and egregiously misinformed opinion shapers in the media to assess the numbers for myself and motivated to do so, and have more compassion for the bottom quintile and would place them first in line ahead of the other special interests lined up at the orange and red tables.


----------



## Edward Campbell (2 Dec 2012)

Education in Texas has become something of a "touchstone" for both left and right.

Texas is amongst the minority of US states that actually believes in _standardized testing_ - the TAKS (Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills) - with good and bad results.

The good results are that Texas youngsters "score" above, usually well above, the national average when it comes to enrollment in the top 100 universities. The not so good is that too many schools "teach the tests" which many people believe produces less that really "well educated" graduates.  

Texas has some interesting innovations for bright students, things like TAMS (Texas Academy of Maths and Sciences) and similar programmes for other interests.

As everywhere, but perhaps more pronounced, Texas school quality varies widely with income. It may be because a lot of school funding comes from local property taxes (there are no state income taxes in TX) so the general lack of "respect for learning" which is too often coincident with low incomes is exacerbated by a lack of resources. It's probably not surprising that the highest ranked schools in Texas are in the North Dallas suburbs where many, many very well educated and quite well paid Asian born Americans (employed in the technology sector) live. Higher than average incomes and an absolutely ferocious respect for education conspire to produce youngsters who excel at academics.

Many _liberals_ hate Texas because it is seen to be rewarding already "privileged" middle class children at the expense of poor, underprivileged African-Americans and Hispanics. _Conservatives_ love it because it stresses achievement over entitlement. There is some merit in both cases. Look at the faces of the students on the TAMS website; they are, as a Texas university professor told me, "Harvard's worst admissions nightmare" - disproportionately hard working, socially conservative, high achieving, Asian kids who just want to be rich. In fact, although TAMS graduates do get into America's best universities, those top universities have quotas, which infuriate _conservative_ Texans, that ensure that a certain percentage of less than really well academically qualified African-America, Hispanic and White students get a "fair share" of places. Texas own top tier schools (Rice, Texas A&M and UT Austin) are defiantly "unfair" in that, despite having generous financial aid packages, all admit students based solely on academic performance, except for star athletes.


----------



## GnyHwy (2 Dec 2012)

Brad Sallows said:
			
		

> It is ironic that what you believe about others is shaped to suit what you wish to believe.  I am "hard right" precisely because I am numerate, educated, intelligent, capable of reaching beyond the innumerate and egregiously misinformed opinion shapers in the media to assess the numbers for myself and motivated to do so, and have more compassion for the bottom quintile and would place them first in line ahead of the other special interests lined up at the orange and red tables.



Perhaps I should have used the term "far right" instead of "hard right".  Although it seems your are hard right (unwilling to ever vote left), it doesn't seem your are far right at all, especially because of your comment about the compassion for the poor.  With that kind of attitude you would hardly have the far right in agreement with you. Besides, if you had captured my entire post it would showed that I am not on either extreme.  

This started by me picking apart the simple article above, because of what I thought was misleading, by stating how great the red were at educating.  Aside from calling bullshit on that, I went on to say that it was the teachers that made the difference, and not the politicians. 

As far as unbiased media goes, please don't tell me you watch Fox, because Fox is why I believe the far right is so absurd.  The only media that could be called unbiased in the US is PBS, and that is the one that the Republicans want to cut.  Coincidence?

Even though Texas may have a good education standard, that is only one example.  The whole ideal that the conservatives wish to have in place, of putting more power into the states will ensure that there will never be a national standard.  In without that, you can crunch numbers "beyond the innumerate and egregiously misinformed opinion shapers in the media" all night long and never come to a conclusion.  

Lastly, I do regret bringing politics into this conversation, because if there is one thing both sides should be able move along with, it should be education.


----------



## a_majoor (2 Dec 2012)

The big problem with "National Standards" is you are now trying to inject a one size fits all philosophy on an inherently non linear and "chaotic" (in the mathematical sense) system. You correctly note that one of the key inputs is teachers, Edward also notes that "culture" has an huge influence (imagine putting the best teachers into a school full of unmotivated students who's parents don't care about education), and you can also add any number of other factors as well. Of course setting and enforcing standards on a national scale involves diverting large amounts of resources as well, yet will fail to deliver results that are "on time and on target". Another example to contemplate is the parental charter schools in Edmonton, which also deliver a much better "product" for less cost than the public school system.

In economics this is called "The Local Knowledge Problem", and explains why large bureaucracies and centralized systems tend to do poorly compared to flexible and open market based systems.


----------



## Edward Campbell (2 Dec 2012)

There is a _constitutional_ problem in both Canada and the USA. In Canada non-native education is _explicitly_ a provincial responsibility. In the US constitution education is not enumerated among the federal responsibilities so it is, _implicitly_, a state or local matter.

In fact that makes good public policy sense: both Canada and the USA are very diverse societies. What "works" in Nova Scotia would not be applicable in Arizona even if they were in the same country.


----------



## Brad Sallows (2 Dec 2012)

Dave Burge (Iowahawk) pulled the curtain away from a myth about education in Texas a while back.  Let it serve as an example of the danger of believing everything written, even if it is written by a Nobel prize winner.

There already are "national standards" for education: whatever is needed to get accepted into universities in Canada.  High school graduates seem to be able to get into universities irrespective of province of origin and whether they attend for 12 or 13 years.  Inviting another layer of bureaucracy without need is an invitation to screw things up.


----------



## GnyHwy (3 Dec 2012)

Brad Sallows said:
			
		

> Dave Burge (Iowahawk) pulled the curtain away from a myth about education in Texas a while back.  Let it serve as an example of the danger of believing everything written, even if it is written by a Nobel prize winner.
> 
> There already are "national standards" for education: whatever is needed to get accepted into universities in Canada.  High school graduates seem to be able to get into universities irrespective of province of origin and whether they attend for 12 or 13 years.  Inviting another layer of bureaucracy without need is an invitation to screw things up.



OK, I'm not following the logic in the link provided.  I am not disputing the facts as they are laid out, but I don't understand his approach or why it is valid.  The writer is disputing Paul Krugman's facts that Texas scored 47th on ACT/SATs, which is considerably lower than Wisconsin which placed 2nd.  But when rebutting, he uses  the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) stats for grade schoolers.  Are ACT/SATs not college entrance tests vice grade school assessments?  How is this valid?

The only thing this tells me is that Texans are very good grade school students, but fall off the rails and get stupider through high school, or maybe it's the influx of star athletes they recruit.  ???   :sarcasm:


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## Edward Campbell (3 Dec 2012)

Texas has a high dropout rate; large percentages of African-Americans and Hispanics, especially illegal immigrants, either do not finish high school at all or enter the labour force without ever considering university.

Why?

1. Large pockets of rural and urban poor in families wherein education, above about 8th grade, is considered a waste; and

2. A pretty good economy - "muscle jobs" appear to be always available. I expect to see, as I have for most of the past few winters, construction projects delayed because they are "awaiting labour." 

One key element in the in the SAT score ranks, one that is rarely mentioned, is Participation Rate. Look at the "top 10" states: their participation rates are ALL under 10%. Look at the bottom 10: their rates are almost all over 50%. As a general rule the higher the participation rate the lower the overall scores - more kids try so more kids do poorly and they drag the average scores down. Texas' participation rate is 58%, Wisconsin's is only 5%. If only the top 5% of Texas students tried the SAT then I guarantee their scores would be much, much higher, but Paul Krugman didn't discuss that.


----------



## Brad Sallows (3 Dec 2012)

>I am not disputing the facts as they are laid out, but I don't understand his approach or why it is valid.

An explanation is here, with some illustrative examples.

The major takeaway is that educational results depend a hell of a lot more on factors other than basic funding.  Both Canada and the US have increased per pupil funding dramatically in the past few decades, with no indication that I can see that today's graduates are significantly better than the generation that conceived and engineered superhighways, jet aircraft, spaceflight, civil rights advances, etc.  Teachers are paid a lot more, though, and the number of equally well-paid administrative bureaucrats has exploded, so at least some good has come of it.


----------



## Bruce Monkhouse (3 Dec 2012)

Brad Sallows said:
			
		

> The major takeaway is that educational results depend a hell of a lot more on factors other than basic funding.  Both Canada and the US have increased per pupil funding dramatically in the past few decades, with no indication that I can see that today's graduates are significantly better than the generation that conceived and engineered superhighways, jet aircraft, spaceflight, civil rights advances, etc.



HAHAHAHAHA!!!

You make this shit up just to try and fill your arguement,.............well, at least I hope you do and not actually believe it.

Because nothing inovative has happened in the last 20 years has it? [typed from a portable computer]


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## Edward Campbell (4 Dec 2012)

Bruce Monkhouse said:
			
		

> HAHAHAHAHA!!!
> 
> You make this shit up just to try and fill your arguement,.............well, at least I hope you do and not actually believe it.
> 
> Because nothing inovative has happened in the last 20 years has it? [typed from a portable computer]




The portable computer (IBM 5100) was invented in 1975 (37 years ago). The modern laptop was flying in space 30 years ago, (_GRiD Compass_). 






GRiD Compass 1100 used in space by NASA

Spaceflight itself, including the lunar landing, was planned and managed by engineers using:






There is an idea amongst some (many?) academics that _innovation_ (superhighways, jet aircraft, spaceflight etc) was considerably stronger (by a factor of about 15:1) in the 40 years from 1932-1972 than in the 40 year period from 1972 to 2012.


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## Bruce Monkhouse (4 Dec 2012)

Most people might not consider something weighing 55 pounds as "portable".

Interesting blog,.............basically I get if the money would only flow again we could keep inventing......


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## Edward Campbell (4 Dec 2012)

Bruce Monkhouse said:
			
		

> Most people might not consider something weighing 55 pounds as "portable".
> 
> Interesting blog,.............basically I get if the money would only flow again we could keep inventing......




I don't agree completely with _money = innovation_, but without some _programme_ spending (infrastructure, defence R&D, "big science," etc) innovation will slow; but a lot of the innovation in e.g. the 1930s and '40s occurred in universities in an era when admission and graduation standards were very, very high.


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## GnyHwy (4 Dec 2012)

That looks like my old MSTAR CPU.  The one that we are still using.  166MHz of pure processing power.


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## Brad Sallows (4 Dec 2012)

>Because nothing inovative has happened in the last 20 years has it?

There has been plenty of innovation, but that's irrelevant to my point, which is that today's high school (and university) graduates leave their respective institutions with approximately the same toolset as their parents and grandparents.    Where the ball lies when it is their turn to pick it up and run with it doesn't really have a bearing on the matter.


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## Brad Sallows (4 Dec 2012)

>basically I get if the money would only flow again we could keep inventing

Capital and innovation never completely go away, although they can become mired by poor policies.  But yes; each time we decide to pay more money for something we already have for whatever we currently pay for it, we give up the opportunity to do something new and different with the "more money".


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## GnyHwy (4 Dec 2012)

I think it is as simple as innovation slowing because of private industry's unwillingness to take risk.  In a slowing market, R&D will certainly be the first to be cut, but yes in order to remain competitive, it will never be completely cut.  

Here's another education topic that has been near and dear to my heart, since I have 3 school aged children.  Mathematics, and the way it is being taught, specifically new methods vs. old.  From my perspective it seems that the education system has introduced new methods at the expense of the old, tried, and true methods that most of us were taught.  Although I am always in favour of innovation and new ways of doing things, I would never replace the proven with an unproven experiment, which is what seems to be happening now.

Here are a few articles I dug up that support my reasoning.  The first is Maclean's article that I read a few months ago, that confirmed my thoughts that I was expressing to my kid's teachers.

Why is it your job to teach your kid math?
Parents are being forced to hit the books and help tutor their kids through a confusing curriculum. 
by Cynthia Reynolds on Tuesday, March 13, 2012 11:38am
http://www2.macleans.ca/2012/03/13/have-you-finished-your-homework-mom/

This article speaks to the new methods and how they may be wrong.

New math equals trouble, education expert says
CBC News Posted: Sep 21, 2011 12:49 PM CST  
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/story/2011/09/21/new-math-paper.html

This article speaks to this being the first generation of teachers that don't have the skills to teach properly.

Bad math blamed on 'abysmal' university students
CBC News Posted: Sep 22, 2011 9:08 PM CST
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/story/2011/09/22/sk-math-training-110922.html

Here is Rex Murphy asking the question, that also has the external links relating to this subject, some of which I posted above.

Is there something wrong with the way math is taught in Canadian schools?
-Rex Murphy
http://www.cbc.ca/checkup/episode/2012/04/15/is-there-something-wrong-with-the-way-math-is-taught-in-canadian-schools/

When our students are showing up to university without that same skills that the previous generation had, it seems like a no brainer to me, that the elementary and secondary systems are doing something wrong.  I think the new agers would argue that this is just a transitional phase and that it will take time for the new methods to take hold.  I personally don't think they examined the follow on effects very well.  It seems the Asian countries get it, and unless we get it, they will be kicking our *** when it comes to innovation, sooner than we think.


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## Edward Campbell (4 Dec 2012)

Here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the _Economist_ is a clear, simple statement of the primary problem with higher education:

http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21567373-american-universities-represent-declining-value-money-their-students-not-what-it


> Higher education
> Not what it used to be
> *American universities represent declining value for money to their students*
> 
> ...




There is a simple solution to this:






High schools and universities grade on the bell curve.

Universities accept only C+ and above graduates from high school. Graduate and professional schools accept only C+ and above from universities. The A students get up to 100% of their tuition, books, other school fees and reasonable living expenses paid by the state, depending upon family income. The B students get up to 50% of their fees/expenses paid. Nothing for the C+ students (about 1/3 of the -C+ group or 22% overall).

Problem solved.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
"But wait," you say, "my little darling is a C student but I want him/her to go to university" ... "Tough," I reply, "the community college is just down the road, or there are opportunities for good, solid, well paid, respectable and fulfilling jobs through apprentice programmes."


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## Edward Campbell (4 Dec 2012)

GnyHwy: a few years ago math courses were required for almost all honours programmes in almost all major universities in Canada and the USA - even for history majors, who were expected to pass at least one statistics course to ensure they could interpret data. There were two exceptions in most Canadian universities: two faculties that thought that elementary math was either too hard for their students or just unnecessary - journalism and *education*.


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## Infanteer (4 Dec 2012)

Statistics was a prereq for Poli Sci when I went through UBC.


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## Ostrozac (5 Dec 2012)

I found that the OAC Finite Mathematics course I took in the early 90's was an absolutely fundamental part of my education. I mean, how can you go through life without an understanding of probability and statistics? How would you even be able to gamble?

I remember that the old Ontario OAC program seemed to contain a decent amount of solid education, even the OAC French available in Ontario was a pretty solid base for when the army later taught me the French language. I'm not sure of the economics of why Ontario got rid of the OAC year, in favour of a 4 year high school program. Just like I'm not sure why Quebec has CEGEP. But I do wonder if we could remove from first year university some of the basic writing, basic statistics, and the shenanigans of just being an 18-year old, and move that level of education to the end of high school.


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## a_majoor (5 Dec 2012)

Eduction has been getting dumbed down since the 1960's, when fads like "Whole Language" and "New Math" took over the curriculum. Truthfully, I have no background into why these fads took over the educational establishment, but I can say that I am dependent on spell check to write and have difficulty doing math quickly (I have to wade through stuff the hard way, so it takes a while before I can call out "bullshit" on false or misleading numeric manipulation).

OTOH, I have seen examples of textbooks, lesson plans and curriculums from the late 1950's and early 1960's (and a few examples from even farther back), and I can say that the vast majority of students today would be totally unable to work at their grade level back then. This isn't just isolated to Ontario; Jerry Pournelle sometimes writes in his "Chaos Manor" blog about growing up in Rural Tennessee and the level of eduction received in a one room school house in the depths of the Great Depression. Another example is the "Federalist Papers"; a great primer on the development of the Republican model of US government was once taught at the High School level; now the Federalist Papers" are encountered at University, as they are considered "too hard" for a high school student today.

Unless you believe that human I.Q. has somehow diminished since the end of the Second World War, the problem is what is chosen as instructional material, and the standards used to evaluate teachers and students.


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## Bruce Monkhouse (5 Dec 2012)

Thucydides said:
			
		

> OTOH, I have seen examples of textbooks, lesson plans and curriculums from the late 1950's and early 1960's (and a few examples from even farther back), and I can say that the vast majority of students today would be totally unable to work at their grade level back then.



Well if you can say that then I guess I can say that you are full of shit,..................both my wife and I started doing volunteer stuff when my kids started school [17 years now] and I can say first hand that by about grade 7 I was lost on math, which, when I went to school, was always my strongest subject.


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## GnyHwy (5 Dec 2012)

Ostrozac said:
			
		

> I found that the OAC Finite Mathematics course I took in the early 90's was an absolutely fundamental part of my education. I mean, how can you go through life without an understanding of probability and statistics? How would you even be able to gamble?



Prob and Stats is something that the schools are teaching, and at a young age.  I certainly let the teachers know I am happy for that.  Something that wasn't taught when I was in grade school in the 70s. Teaching prob and stats is extremely important, especially in this age of information overload.  The problem is that the students can't do the multiplication and division required to calculate prob and stats. At least not without a calculator.  It's kind of crazy that they are teaching some fairly advanced concepts, but the students still don't know what 8x7 is.



			
				Bruce Monkhouse said:
			
		

> Well if you can say that then I guess I can say that you are full of crap,..................both my wife and I started doing volunteer stuff when my kids started school [17 years now] and I can say first hand that by about grade 7 I was lost on math, which, when I went to school, was always my strongest subject.



The methods used today have most certainly changed.  I consider myself strong in math, at least for army standards, but it is how they are asking the question now that is different, and that is what is flabbergasting parents. Their philosophy now seems to be that they want the students to explore different ways of solving in order to find out the best way for them.  I can get on board with this indirect approach sometimes, but sometimes writing out the times tables a couple dozen times is a good idea also.


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## a_majoor (5 Dec 2012)

Since my sample is the junior leadership and junior officer candidates that I have taught over the years, I can say with confidence that as the years pass they are less able to do course work (since the MLP's change at a fairly slow rate, I can see the amount of struggle increasing). If they have trouble doing military course work, then their educational grounding is insufficient.

Given the old high school texts and lesson plans were much more rigorous, then I stand on my conclusion that students who have difficulty doing "today's" work would be unable to do work at the equivalent grade level from the past.

As a BTW, I note that lots of things which were standard in the past like Languages (especially "dead" languages like Latin) are either optional or no longer taught at all.


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## Bruce Monkhouse (5 Dec 2012)

GnyHwy said:
			
		

> but sometimes writing out the times tables a couple dozen times is a good idea also.



...and maybe I've just been lucky that my kids went to full-French [not immersion] schools here in Ontario because that approach was always there.


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## Bruce Monkhouse (5 Dec 2012)

Thucydides said:
			
		

> Since my sample is the junior leadership and junior officer candidates that I have taught over the years, I can say with confidence that as the years pass they are less able to do course work (since the MLP's change at a fairly slow rate, I can see the amount of struggle increasing). If they have trouble doing military course work, then their educational grounding is insufficient.
> 
> Given the old high school texts and lesson plans were much more rigorous, then I stand on my conclusion that students who have difficulty doing "today's" work would be unable to do work at the equivalent grade level from the past.
> 
> As a BTW, I note that lots of things which were standard in the past like Languages (especially "dead" languages like Latin) are either optional or no longer taught at all.



[a] Maybe we don't attract the 'cream of the crop' as they are looking for more?  [no insult intended]

[b} How many lesson plans from today have you studied?...classes have you sat in?.........methinks from your small input stream a course in statistics would eat your theory alive.

[c] Good, I'd rather have them study something useful.


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## DBA (5 Dec 2012)

Within a course some terms might have specific meanings they don't necessarily have in wider use or knowledge might be assumed to be limited vs more extensive. Questions in homework or exams are meant to be done in the content of the course and outside of it might be confusing. This can skew our perception of difficulty. Questions for more general consumption should be written differently.

An example of a statistics question:

44,55,43,44,11,67,33,11,44
For the data given provide:
(grade school) 1. Three measures of central tendency.

The student has been taught only three measures of central tendency or even just three things to calculate from a list of values. So the question requires them to list and calculate them. Those past the course likely don't remember what measure of central tendency means in this context even if they do remember the measures(mean, mode and median). Those with more knowledge might wonder if the question wants the Geometric mean, Harmonic mean and Weighted mean or if they can give any 3 of the various central tendency measures that can be calculated.  

-------

For the above reasons it can be misleading to read old homework and test questions. I will say students today get less practice performing calculations without calculators than those in the past. That is supposed to be countered by more practice in estimation to check results but it is often skipped in practice. For example when told to graph a simple function they should sketch it first, then use the calculator but often use it first followed by sketching what it shows.


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## a_majoor (5 Dec 2012)

i should have taken detailed notes over the last 20 years, but I have taught both regular force and reserve candidates; leadership candidates who are also students attending college, university and RMC as well as high school, so I have a pretty large "sample" in terms of numbers, backgrounds and over time from which to judge.

As for the modern lesson plans, I take great interest in my children's education (prompted by my daughter. We had to leave the Montessori system when she was in grade 6 due to limited resources, and her first day in grade six public school ended with her complaining she had learned all that stuff in grade 4), and insist on seeing as much as possible, and interviewing her teachers during the occasions we can get access to them (which is indicative of another problem).

As for things like Latin, it is more illustrative of the breadth and depth of the old education programs, rather than suggesting we re introduce Latin. As a counterpoint, I am now reading that education is narrowing to indoctrination into "Social Justice" philosophy. Both BC and now Ontario have been experimenting with having all lessons plans in every subject be infused with "Social Justice" principles and concepts. A recent Macleans magazine had a long article about that, and it should prompt some hard questions from parents everywhere.


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## Edward Campbell (5 Dec 2012)

I think it is waste, a more unproductive than average waste, to compare _generations_. I was educated in the 1940s and '50s. My sone were educated in the 1970s and '80s and now my friends children, aged 12 and 14 are in 7th and 9th grades respectively in Texas.

I am, broadly, impressed with what's in the modern Texas curriculum. I'm a little less impressed by how it is taught but I am also conscious of the trade-offs.

For example: I am a big believer in the value of rote-drill type instruction to equip a person to do some mental tasks quickly and accurately. The business of memorizing the times tables and memorizing Shakespeare, for example. I think a _grownup_, a functioning adult, should be able to do quick, correct calculations without (at least not obviously) counting on his or her fingers. I think one should be able to remember a reasonably long list - say five or six items - for recall later in the day. I note that my friend's children can do this and are thought to be extraordinarily bright; they aren't terribly bright (both went into the "gifted" programme because they had the top marks in the early grades, not because they 'tested' as gifted). Both have excellent memory skills because both have had to learn to read and write Chinese and that is 99.99% a function of brute force memorization. They both have very good memory skills, they can remember what they are told and they can relate it to things they learn later - both are still at the top of their respective grades because they work hard, have good mental discipline and are curious, not because either has an especially high IQ.

But: if you are going to make children recite pages and pages of _Henry V_, as I had to do, then there will not be time for Steinbeck. If you want both Shakespeare and Steinbeck, as they do in Texas in Grade IX, then memorization and recitation is not possible.

And don't forget this.


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## ballz (5 Dec 2012)

Not really privy to the current conversation, but to the topic nonetheless. Here is a very insightful video is circulating amongst my university friends now, the key message is "redefine education."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_ZmM7zPLyI

My new favourite quote, "if education is the key, then school is the lock."


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## GnyHwy (5 Dec 2012)

E.R. Campbell said:
			
		

> And don't forget this.



I guess that could be considered new math if you were over 50.  I'm in my early 40s and that was what I was taught in the mid 70s.  I would hardly call 3 1/2 decades ago new.  

I find it crazy and absurd that the dude singing the song, who is likely a teacher, considers this new math.  I learned this before a lot of teachers working today were even born.


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## GnyHwy (5 Dec 2012)

ballz said:
			
		

> Not really privy to the current conversation, but to the topic nonetheless. Here is a very insightful video is circulating amongst my university friends now, the key message is "redefine education."
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_ZmM7zPLyI
> 
> My new favourite quote, "if education is the key, then school is the lock."



Not sure what to think of that.  I want to hear him out and I'm trying see the validity, but my practical side is telling me he is naive and full of crap.  He is trying to compare all people going through university to some of the greatest and most accomplished geniuses of all time. He calls himself educated and says "now let's look at the statistics", then immediately follows that up by mentioning a half of dozen outliers that have no relevance to statistics.

As if this next generation's egos haven't been padded enough by hyper-parenting, now they are starting to believe it.  This kid wants statistics?  The average person isn't that good.  Even the exceptional are below the 95th %, and the likelyhood of being a superstar like the people he mentions is probably somewhere around 0.0001% (one/million), and that's probably being generous.

**DISCLAIMER** Yes, those numbers were pulled out of my backside, but they're a helluva lot closer to the truth than his ideas. **DISCLAIMER**

Valiant effort, but a miss for me.


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## Edward Campbell (6 Dec 2012)

GnyHwy said:
			
		

> I guess that could be considered new math if you were over 50.  I'm in my early 40s and that was what I was taught in the mid 70s.  I would hardly call 3 1/2 decades ago new.
> 
> I find it crazy and absurd that the dude singing the song, who is likely a teacher, considers this new math.  I learned this before a lot of teachers working today were even born.




Tom Leher peaked as a musician/satirist in the 1960s (and retired from performing in the early '70s) and he was, indeed, a mathematician and teacher. He is still popular with some who were born in the 1930s and 40s.

This is from the same era:


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## a_majoor (16 Dec 2012)

Long article from "The American Interest" on how Universities are going to change (and a look at some of the perverse incentives that have made the current system dysfunctional). Canadian Universities will be under the same sorts of pressures, and will evolve in a similar fashion. Our own training will also evolve in a similar fashion for many of the same reasons, although we still have a long way to go to get the on line learning part down. Anyone involved ion developing DL's should have a look at sites like the ones outlined here and the Khan Acadamy to see what good on line learning looks like:


Part 1
http://the-american-interest.com/article.cfm?piece=1352



> *The End of the University as We Know It*
> Nathan Harden
> 
> In fifty years, if not much sooner, half of the roughly 4,500 colleges and universities now operating in the United States will have ceased to exist. The technology driving this change is already at work, and nothing can stop it. The future looks like this: Access to college-level education will be free for everyone; the residential college campus will become largely obsolete; tens of thousands of professors will lose their jobs; the bachelor’s degree will become increasingly irrelevant; and ten years from now Harvard will enroll ten million students.
> ...


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## a_majoor (16 Dec 2012)

Part 2:



> Hold on there a minute, you might object. Just as information is not the same as knowledge, and auto-access is not necessarily auto-didactics, so taking a bunch of random courses does not a coherent university education make. Mere exposure, too, doesn’t guarantee that knowledge has been learned. In other words, what about the justifiable function of majors and credentials?
> 
> MIT is the first elite university to offer a credential for students who complete its free, open-source online courses. (The certificate of completion requires a small fee.) For the first time, students can do more than simply watch free lectures; they can gain a marketable credential—something that could help secure a raise or a better job. While edX won’t offer traditional academic credits, Harvard and MIT have announced that “certificates of mastery” will be available for those who complete the online courses and can demonstrate knowledge of course material. The arrival of credentials, backed by respected universities, eliminates one of the last remaining obstacles to the widespread adoption of low-cost online education. Since edX is open source, Harvard and MIT expect other universities to adopt the same platform and contribute their own courses. And the two universities have put $60 million of their own money behind the project, making edX the most promising MOOC venture out there right now.
> 
> ...


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## a_majoor (16 Dec 2012)

Part 3:



> Considering the greater interactivity and global connectivity that future technology will afford, the gap between the online experience and the in-person experience will continue to close. For a long time now, the largest division within Harvard University has been the little-known Harvard Extension School, a degree-granting division within the Faculty of Arts and Sciences with minimal admissions standards and very low tuition that currently enrolls 13,000 students. The Extension School was founded for the egalitarian purpose of making the Harvard education available to the masses. Nevertheless, Harvard took measures to protect the exclusivity of its brand. The undergraduate degrees offered by the Extension School (Bachelor of Liberal Arts) are distinguished by name from the degrees the university awards through Harvard College (Bachelor of Arts). This model—one university, two types of degrees—offers a good template for Harvard’s future, in which the old residential college model will operate parallel to the new online open-source model. The Extension School already offers more than 200 online courses for full academic credit.
> 
> Prestigious private institutions and flagship public universities will thrive in the open-source market, where students will be drawn to the schools with bigger names. This means, paradoxically, that prestigious universities, which will have the easiest time holding on to the old residential model, also have the most to gain under the new model. Elite universities that are among the first to offer robust academic programs online, with real credentials behind them, will be the winners in the coming higher-ed revolution.
> There is, of course, the question of prestige, which implies selectivity. It’s the primary way elite universities have distinguished themselves in the past. The harder it is to get in, the more prestigious a university appears. But limiting admissions to a select few makes little sense in the world of online education, where enrollment is no longer bounded by the number of seats in a classroom or the number of available dorm rooms. In the online world, the only concern is having enough faculty and staff on hand to review essays, or grade the tests that aren’t automated, or to answer questions and monitor student progress online.
> ...


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## ballz (17 Dec 2012)

GnyHwy said:
			
		

> Not sure what to think of that.  I want to hear him out and I'm trying see the validity, but my practical side is telling me he is naive and full of crap.  He is trying to compare all people going through university to some of the greatest and most accomplished geniuses of all time. He calls himself educated and says "now let's look at the statistics", then immediately follows that up by mentioning a half of dozen outliers that have no relevance to statistics.
> 
> As if this next generation's egos haven't been padded enough by hyper-parenting, now they are starting to believe it.  This kid wants statistics?  The average person isn't that good.  Even the exceptional are below the 95th %, and the likelyhood of being a superstar like the people he mentions is probably somewhere around 0.0001% (one/million), and that's probably being generous.
> 
> ...



I *think* you're taking this artists words too literally and missing the actual picture he tried to paint. He's not trying to say everyone should drop out of school and they'll become a Steve Jobs or Bill Gates. 

I take a few simple points from it, stuff we've mostly already said.

"Redefine how you view education. Understand it's true meaning. Education is not just about regurgitating facts from a book or someone's else's opinion on a subject to pass an exam."

While this may seem obvious, there's a lot of people my age who are oblivious to it. Due to being grown up to believe "education is the key," but being misled to think that meant a Bachelor's degree. I can tell you this video was spreading like wildfire amongst my age group who know they've been taken for a ride for 4 or more years. His words certainly resonate with people 18-25 years old.

And yes, statistics was probably a poor word choice ;D


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## a_majoor (29 Jan 2013)

Another alternative model of education. Based on living through "Death by Powerpoint" here at PSTC, I could go for this model of the "flipped" classroom, and it may certainly have validity in the way we do training delivery in many trades and specialties:

http://news.yahoo.com/teachers-flip-flipped-learning-class-model-233848813.html



> *Teachers flip for 'flipped learning' class model*
> By CHRISTINA HOAG | Associated Press – Sun, Jan 27, 2013.. .
> 
> SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) — When Timmy Nguyen comes to his pre-calculus class, he's already learned the day's lesson — he watched it on a short online video prepared by his teacher for homework.
> ...


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## a_majoor (2 Feb 2013)

And another model. Once again, this is something that the Armed Forces can adopt as an institution, it provides the opportunity to learn, allows for self education and pacing that is appropriate for both Regular and Reserve members, and is relatively inexpensive (exams could be proctored at local unit lines or armouries under the watchful eyes of senior NCO's, or on line exams could be offered).

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/01/opinion/my-valuable-cheap-college-degree.html?_r=0



> *My Valuable, Cheap College Degree*
> 
> By ARTHUR C. BROOKS
> 
> ...


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## a_majoor (13 Feb 2013)

An interesting theory about cursive writing. I know *we* have become rather lazy and accept printouts of student autobiographies now, which may improve keyboarding skills but not the skillsets this blogger is talking about.

As to how valid his points are, I will be inclined to say these are good starting points for discussion:

http://cruxofthematterblog.wordpress.com/2013/02/11/connection-between-democracy-personal-empowerment-cursive-writing/



> *Connection between democracy, personal empowerment & cursive writing*
> Feb11
> 
> There is a lot of debate going on right now that both today’s kids, and their kids in the future, will not need cursive writing because everything will be done on computers or other similar forms of technology. Jacks Newswatch had a good article on that yesterday. The positive message I take from that CTV article is that the debate is still ongoing.
> ...


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## a_majoor (17 Mar 2013)

The model of schooling is about to change due to external factors like unsustainable costs and employers rejecting unqualified (uneducated) graduates. This article looks at the K-12 model, which is the foundation of everything else. Canadian schools largely draw from the American model, so the same lessons apply here:

http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2013/03/16/the-k-12-implosion-review/



> *The K-12 Implosion: Review*
> 
> A national implosion is coming, one which will take down the American public school system in its current form. So argues Glenn Reynolds, a well known law professor and the creator of the blog Instapundit, in his new book The K-12 Implosion. That the lower education system has problems is no secret, but for those who would like to understand why—beyond the often-shallow partisan debate—Reynolds provides a gripping guide.
> 
> ...


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## ballz (19 Mar 2013)

Another great article my Matt Gurney, emphasis mine.

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2013/03/18/matt-gurney-want-your-education-paid-for-take-something-useful/



> *Matt Gurney: Want your education paid for? Take something useful*
> 
> Republish Reprint
> Matt Gurney | 13/03/18 | Last Updated: 13/03/18 5:32 PM ET
> ...


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## GnyHwy (20 Mar 2013)

There was a really good Doczone on exactly that, at the beginning of Feb.  It goes further into the governments lack of effort in coordinating universities, and the universities incapability and/or unwillingness to collaborate.  It gives examples of European countries that have very good models to address this issue as well.

http://www.cbc.ca/doczone/episode/generation-jobless.html


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## ballz (20 Mar 2013)

I've seen Generation Jobless recently and it is bang-on.

I can't confirm, but I've heard that Germany subsidizes education based on the percentage of taxes that an industry pays. So if welding company's pay 5% of the corporate taxes, they invest 5% of their education spending on welding schools/technology/etc.

Whether Germany does it or not, it seems a good way to subsidize tuition to me. Want to study arts and become a starving artist?? Sure, tuition is $10,000 but only $50 is subsidized. Want to study engineering and become a PEng? Sure, tuition is $10,000 but the government will pay $9500 of it.

I was reading that PM Harper is expecting the private sector to pony up. This is the ideal idea if he can make it work, but I feel like certain sectors that are important to our economy but are not "big paying jobs" would be overlooked and in the long-term our economy would suffer.

The reason certain fields of education have not been watered down are because they are driven by industry. The standards set for skilled trades, engineering, medicine, etc are all driven by the industry they work in. When you have no industry and its the university's that are setting the bar, its become watered down. Aka the Bachelor of Arts (Folklore) offered at MUN.


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## Brad Sallows (20 Mar 2013)

Certain fields of education haven't been watered down not because they are driven by industry, but because they are based on objective (measurable) criteria.  You can either do calculus, or you can't.  You either know your anatomy and physiology, or you don't.  You can either perform the skills of a trade, or you can't.  Whether you make the right sociopolitical noises to stroke the instructor's bias is irrelevant.


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## ballz (20 Mar 2013)

Brad Sallows said:
			
		

> Certain fields of education haven't been watered down not because they are driven by industry, but because they are based on objective (measurable) criteria.  You can either do calculus, or you can't.  You either know your anatomy and physiology, or you don't.  You can either perform the skills of a trade, or you can't.  Whether you make the right sociopolitical noises to stroke the instructor's bias is irrelevant.



I agree to some extent I suppose, but those fields can still lower their standard. For example, all the Red Seal Program would have to do is say "you only need 1000 hrs of experience to be a journeyman, instead of the previous 4000 hrs" and they have made it easier to be a journeyman and therefore less capable people would be a certified journeyman entering the work force. But that is not what happens. There are good tradesmen and poor tradesman, just like there are good artists and bad artists. If you are a junk artist, you will still get your BA, if you are a junk tradesperson you will not* get your Red Seal.

*Of course, some people slip through the cracks no matter how good your certification system is, but in general the Red Seal Program has raised the standards and accountability of trades as opposed to watering them down.


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## a_majoor (29 Mar 2013)

A great article in Forbes that younger members (or our children) can use to map out their future. This is far different from the way *we* did it in the past:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/mikemalone/2013/03/29/why-your-kid-cant-get-a-job/



> Michael S. Malone, Contributor
> 
> 3/29/2013 @ 12:23AM |5,989 views
> *Why Your Kid Can't Get a Job*
> ...


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## a_majoor (6 Apr 2013)

Annother innovation that could be imported: take failing schools from the public system entirely and convert them to Charter schools. The downside is the teachers would probably be replaced by the parental "owners" of the charter in order to boost performance, which would create a wave of resistence from the teachers unions, (and charter schools typically have far fewer administrative staff and educrats, further savings for the tax payers but not so good for the tax consumers). An experiment worth following:

http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2013/04/04/tennessee-hops-on-education-reform-bandwagon/



> *Tennessee Hops on Education Reform Bandwagon*
> 
> The South is moving quickly to the head of the pack in education reform. Following the lead of Louisiana’s Recovery School District, Tennessee is taking several low performing schools out of the jurisdiction of local school boards and placing them in a state-run Achievement School District, where well known charter operators like KIPP are taking over.
> 
> ...


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## GnyHwy (7 Apr 2013)

I'll play the slippery slope fallacy here and say that looks very nonsecular and has much potential for biases.  Although, I can see this working for some places, I can't help but wonder how many districts are doing this just because it's anti-government.  Going even further down the slippery slope, do we expect the village elders/religious leaders to be heading up these organizations?  Because I can't think of a better way to knock ourselves back to the middleages.  I would hardly call it an innovation when it is essentially reverting back to the way things were 100 years ago.

One potential negative thing I can see coming out of this is when these students have to leave their area (if they ever do).  After getting good grades in their area, they will be very disappointed on the national or world level.  The worst thing I see coming out of this is the districts isolating themselves entirely.


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## Fishbone Jones (7 Apr 2013)

ballz said:
			
		

> I agree to some extent I suppose, but those fields can still lower their standard. For example, all the Red Seal Program would have to do is say "you only need 1000 hrs of experience to be a journeyman, instead of the previous 4000 hrs" and they have made it easier to be a journeyman and therefore less capable people would be a certified journeyman entering the work force. But that is not what happens. There are good tradesmen and poor tradesman, just like there are good artists and bad artists. If you are a junk artist, you will still get your BA, if you are a junk tradesperson you will not* get your Red Seal.
> 
> *Of course, some people slip through the cracks no matter how good your certification system is, but in general the Red Seal Program has raised the standards and accountability of trades as opposed to watering them down.



1000 hours is not a lot of time in the metal cutting trades. It's very little time to become a well rounded machinist, moldmaker or toolmaker. By lowering the standard all you end up with is a lot of overpaid lathe hands or drill press operators making journeyman wages for turning the same spindle or drilling the same hole every day. 3-4 years of schooling in those trades, for your Red Seal, does nothing to let you practice it properly in 1000 hrs.

Industry are the ones that should decide apprenticeship criteria. However, a big downfall with the system is the way the government lets the Unions administer that criteria. Limiting the amount of apprentices that a journeyman can supervise freezes people out of the trades and keeps wages artificially high. A plumber costs more for a house call than a doctor.


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## a_majoor (7 Apr 2013)

GnyHwy said:
			
		

> I'll play the slippery slope fallacy here and say that looks very nonsecular and has much potential for biases.  Although, I can see this working for some places, I can't help but wonder how many districts are doing this just because it's anti-government.  Going even further down the slippery slope, do we expect the village elders/religious leaders to be heading up these organizations?  Because I can't think of a better way to knock ourselves back to the middleages.  I would hardly call it an innovation when it is essentially reverting back to the way things were 100 years ago.
> 
> One potential negative thing I can see coming out of this is when these students have to leave their area (if they ever do).  After getting good grades in their area, they will be very disappointed on the national or world level.  The worst thing I see coming out of this is the districts isolating themselves entirely.




Not quite tracking here. The experiment is taking place in the United States and the Charter Schools are run by the parents of the children in these schools.

Outcomes can be substantiated through use of standard test methodologies like SATs or other test methodologies (ideally ones that are created and administered from outside the school board/charter schools). So long as these are standard tests and accepted by a large number of outside organizations like the SATs, then the idea that students from the Charter Schools will be isolated or non competative is mooted.


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## Nemo888 (7 Apr 2013)

I don't think calling it an education bubble is correct. Education in North America is being commodized and the standards are falling. Joining an expensive club basically. When you leave North America to one of the Asian tigers it is exactly the opposite. Standards and outcomes are getting better every year. The difference is that in Asia corporation and industry pay big money to get the graduates they need. It is reminiscent of here 40 or 50 years ago.

The need for well educated grads left with the jobs I suppose.


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## GnyHwy (8 Apr 2013)

Thucydides said:
			
		

> Not quite tracking here. The experiment is taking place in the United States and the Charter Schools are run by the parents of the children in these schools.
> 
> Outcomes can be substantiated through use of standard test methodologies like SATs or other test methodologies (ideally ones that are created and administered from outside the school board/charter schools). So long as these are standard tests and accepted by a large number of outside organizations like the SATs, then the idea that students from the Charter Schools will be isolated or non competative is mooted.



I was just assuming the worst and also assumed that the districts leading the charge are very "Red" districts.  Not that they're all wrong, but I see them as potentially anti-government first and for their children second, although they would believe that they are the same thing.  I also saw it as very negative when they mention of replacing teachers with parents.  Why did they train the teachers in the first place and what makes parents think they are any more capable?  They are certainly less qualified.  The kicker for me was this line - "lot of our teachers are going to lose their jobs,” said Charlie Moore III, pastor of the Life Changing Church of God in Christ in Orange Mound.  That just wreaks of nonsecular.  Although he may be very educated, it doesn't give his credentials, other than being a pastor.

Perhaps I am inferring way too much, but this just seems like a way for the local community leaders to instill what they think should be taught, rather than what actually might be good for their kids.  I know, now people would say "who knows what's better for their kids than their parents"?  Well there are plenty of parents that don't know squat and perhaps if they were more proactive prior to this, they might not be in this position.

Lastly, I get that there are national standards with SATs, but since these parents are likely very unqualified and have their children's success in their hands, all I can see happening is them teaching to the tests, which will give a skewed result of what the kids actually know.  Or worse, with propaganda and in isolation, they can make their regular day to day marks whatever they want them to be, giving the "everything is OK" impression.




			
				Nemo888 said:
			
		

> I don't think calling it an education bubble is correct. Education in North America is being commodized and the standards are falling. Joining an expensive club basically. When you leave North America to one of the Asian tigers it is exactly the opposite. Standards and outcomes are getting better every year. The difference is that in Asia corporation and industry pay big money to get the graduates they need. It is reminiscent of here 40 or 50 years ago.
> 
> The need for well educated grads left with the jobs I suppose.



I believe this is mentioned a bunch of posts back.  There are some CBC links that talk about this.  Also about our universities not being required to coordinate the countries needs rather than pumping students through a mill of unrequired skills and diplomas.  Our government needs to get with this program the same way many European governments are.  The country needs electricians?  Well guess who is getting the subsidies.  You want to learn how to be a street performer?  You're doing that on your own dime.


----------



## Bruce Monkhouse (8 Apr 2013)

GnyHwy said:
			
		

> Perhaps I am inferring way too much, but this just seems like a way for the local community leaders to instill what they think should be taught, rather than what actually might be good for their kids.  I know, now people would say "who knows what's better for their kids than their parents"?  Well there are plenty of parents that don't know squat and perhaps if they were more proactive prior to this, they might not be in this position.



What he said,..in triplicate.


----------



## a_majoor (8 Apr 2013)

I think you are conflating a number of different things.

These are Charter Schools, which means the parents control the resources but the educators are still hired teachers. The primary difference between a Charter School and a Public Schools is that if the children are falling below whatever standard has been set for scores like SATs or whatever methodology has been chosen, teachers will be replaced by ones who are capable of doing the job. The curriculum is set AFAIK by the State educational authorities. Canadian charter schools in Alberta operate in much the same manner, and provide impressive results. Public schools in Edmonton (not sure about other districts) have chosen to compete against charters by specializing; students can choose to go to school "X" for the theater program, school "Y" for the science and technology program or school "Z" for music or whatever specialty program they want to offer, and are also getting better results than conventional public schools.

What you seem to be talking about is parochial private schools and home schooling, which are two entirely different subjects.

On the subject of qualifications, parents fall in the bell curve like everyone else, but some of the parental home schoolers are either ex teachers themselves, or hold advanced education or degrees (and a fraction will have advanced degrees, and be _more_ qualified than the teacher with a BA.), so home schooling success is more due to motivation than intrinsic qualifications or credentials.

WRT "teaching to the test", my children have been in the public system in Ontario long enough for me to see how the Ontario "standardized tests" for literacy and numeracy are handled by the school...one guess as to how the schools spend an academic year to prepare.


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## cupper (8 Apr 2013)

Thucydides said:
			
		

> I think you are conflating a number of different things.
> 
> These are Charter Schools, which means the parents control the resources but the educators are still hired teachers. The primary difference between a Charter School and a Public Schools is that if the children are falling below whatever standard has been set for scores like SATs or whatever methodology has been chosen, teachers will be replaced by ones who are capable of doing the job. The curriculum is set AFAIK by the State educational authorities. Canadian charter schools in Alberta operate in much the same manner, and provide impressive results. Public schools in Edmonton (not sure about other districts) have chosen to compete against charters by specializing; students can choose to go to school "X" for the theater program, school "Y" for the science and technology program or school "Z" for music or whatever specialty program they want to offer, and are also getting better results than conventional public schools.
> 
> ...



To further add to it, a lot of the Charter Schools are actually run by Educational Corporations or Educational Foundations which promote their specialized methods of teaching, or gear the curriculum to a specific stream (e.g. Engineering and Technology, The Arts, and so on).

Regardless of what form of schooling the child receives, the state mandated curriculum must be taught, and the state mandated standards must be met.

The problem with the Charter School movement is that State funds are shifted from the Public system to the Charter system through vouchers. As Public School enrollment decreases, the funding gets reduced and the cycle of the self licking ice cream begins.


----------



## a_majoor (8 Apr 2013)

Depends on your desired outcomes. The recent strike by schoolteachers in Chicago highlighted the woeful performance of students in the public system when contrasted to the children in the Chicago charter schools. Detroit is another example of a totally broken public system, with a graduation rate of 25% in 2007, climbing to 65% in 2011 (although it is difficult to determine how the figures are computed; Ontario also has a much "higher" graduation rate after the "reforms" of the McGuinty government; most of which had to do with watering down standards).

Even if we accept that the 65% meet high standards of literacy and numeracy, that is still very low, particularly compared to the massive amounts of inputs in time, money and other resources spent on public schooling. Detroit does not have competing charter schools to compare with, and private and home schooling in Detroit exist in too small numbers and limited demographics to meaningfully change the outcomes.

I look at these contrasting results and see Charter schools, vouchers and other alternatives in the lower level of schooling as more a means of efficient resource management (resources go to schools, programs and teachers that deliver results), which really is just using market mechanisms to allocate resources to education. Similarly, alternatives to higher education like "on line" universities represent efficient resource allocation towards an outcome based on learning and education vs credentials.

The right balance has not been struck by any means, and we are in a period of evolution and adjustment, so some of the ideas being presented on this thread may never come to fruition or become extinct due to market or political pressures.


----------



## GnyHwy (9 Apr 2013)

Interesting you mention Detroit.  That is a great place to get your point across with stats for public schools.  If you took stats from the greater Detroit area, which is a few million people, you would probably come up with fairly normal stats, comparable to the rest of the country.  Taking stats from within the city limits of about 5 or 600 000 is taking from a sample that is pretty much a third world country.  Those people are just trying to find their next meal and a roof over their head rather than thinking about education. 

There does seem to be a divide and difference of purpose of these type schools.  The upper class that are likely bored with the standards, have the resources and can afford it, will take their kid's education to an even higher level.  The lower class will do it out of desperation and scrape by with whatever they can muster.

The title of this thread seems fitting to me.  Any further separation of the classes will only inflate the bubble that much more.


----------



## a_majoor (9 Apr 2013)

In economic terms a "bubble" is a market that has been artificially inflated due to some external factor, and when that factor is removed or no longer valid, the bubble OS and the market resets to a new, lower equilibrium level.

Education has been artificially inflated through monopolization by the State, social and cultural factors that promote the idea that high level education credentials are more desirable than lower or no credentials at all and the pumping of even more money into education through such factors as student loans. Since the outcomes have not really changed all that much, there has been a great deal of manipulation (looking at a bell curve, you and I know there is no way that the vast majority of any class in any subject can be getting A's]

The explosion of people with university level degrees has also resulted in a situation where the person serving you a coffee at Tim Horton's or Starbucks might have more "education" than you do. The ultimate result of this artificial inflation of grades and credentials is an "Education Bubble", and like all economic bubbles in all times and places, it will "pop"


----------



## a_majoor (20 Apr 2013)

It would be interesting to see if any Canadian Universities have been playing shenanigans with their budgets while crying poor and demanding ever more money. Frankly, since this is taxpayer money, the State Legislature should simply take it back, or failing that adjust any requests for funding by extracting it from this "sluch fund" first before releasing new dollars:

http://www.rightwisconsin.com/perspectives/203782191.html



> *BREAKING NEWS - Massive University of Wisconsin Slush Fund Discovered*
> Published: 1:30 PM April 19, 2013
> 
> 
> ...


----------



## Edward Campbell (25 May 2013)

This is an American story but it is illustrative of the problem the _educrats_, the education establishment, create for those who want a real education for their children and grandchildren. It is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from _AEIdeas_ the quite _conservative_ American Enterprise Institute's blog:

http://www.aei-ideas.org/2013/05/a-case-study-in-the-government-as-enemy/


> A case study in the government as enemy
> 
> Charles Murray
> 
> ...



Charles Murray is a libertarian scholar and the author of several controversial books including The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life  (1994) and Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010 (2012)


----------



## GnyHwy (25 May 2013)

Interesting the way you introduce the writer as "libertarian", which is suppose to do what?  Give him the moral highground?  All this does is create an immediate divide based on peoples assumptions, making any type of progress impossible, much like the stalemates we see in everyday politics.

No doubt the school systems have issues and probably need a good *** kicking in order to remove their heads, but there needs to be better solutions other than creating an even larger rift in society.


----------



## ballz (25 May 2013)

GnyHwy said:
			
		

> Interesting the way you introduce the writer as "libertarian", which is suppose to do what?  Give him the moral highground?



I'd call it disclosure, but I'm sure Mr. Campbell can speak for himself...


As for the article... This charter school idea is new to me and I need to read more about it. The ability to influence the curriculum is a double-edged sword. My first concern is how much the school can deviate from a curriculum that's been set as the "standard" that all kids must learn, but of course, this ability to deviate can be used to produce a much better education than the current standard.

In the US, I'd fear that a lot of charter schools would be popping up in "like-minded" regions that simply want to brainwash their kids into thinking the way their parents and neighbours think. As much as I a Libertarian should worry, and has every right to worry, what ideas his son's Communist teacher is filling his head with, it's also a bad thing if his kid doesn't learn the pros/cons of the other walks of life.

There are some regions where the charter school would probably be more focussed about enforcing religion rather than educating people.


----------



## Edward Campbell (25 May 2013)

GnyHwy said:
			
		

> Interesting the way you introduce the writer as "libertarian", which is suppose to do what?  Give him the moral highground?  All this does is create an immediate divide based on peoples assumptions, making any type of progress impossible, much like the stalemates we see in everyday politics.
> 
> No doubt the school systems have issues and probably need a good *** kicking in order to remove their heads, but there needs to be better solutions other than creating an even larger rift in society.




It is the way he describes himself; given his books I thought that his profession of author/social scientist would be self evident and, given the source of his comment, so would his association with the American Enterprise Institute.


----------



## GnyHwy (25 May 2013)

Apologies if you thought I was targetting you.  Perhaps I jumped the gun, but I get uppity and find it pointless when someone introduces themselves with their political affiliation; especially with a topic such as education where bipartisanship is necessary.


----------



## Edward Campbell (25 May 2013)

GnyHwy said:
			
		

> Apologies if you thought I was targetting you.  Perhaps I jumped the gun, but I get uppity and find it pointless when someone introduces themselves with their political affiliation; especially with a topic such as education where bipartisanship is necessary.




But many people, people like Charles Murray I think, would say to you that the education _industry_ is already partisan and that it is the "education establishment" that tries to stifle innovation. The "charter schools" _movement_, as I understand it from my time in America, is trying to offer innovative counters to the "establishment" ~ like "classical curricula" ~ but, assuming what Murray says is true, the _educrats_ fight back using e.g. labour laws. I'm sure the teachers' union and the state department of education will say "we're just obeying the law," but I'm equally sure the charter school proponents see it as stonewalling.

Why stonewall at all? Because charter schools and other innovations - like the Texas Academy of Arts and Science and Bard Early College Initiative - threaten to upset the _education monopoly_ that the traditional faculties of education, teachers unions and boards of education have established. Monopolies aren't good at competing; once a monopoly is broken it usually withers and dies.

For a self professed libertarian like Charles Murray the monopolistic, even parasitic _education industry_ is too good (or bad) and example of why government is, generally, counterproductive. I would guess that most libertarians have the _educrats_ high on their hit lists.


----------



## GnyHwy (19 Jun 2013)

Yes!  A small victory for the old farts club.  Hopefully other provinces follow suit.  



> Basic arithmetic back in class
> Manitoba kids to learn to do math the old way
> By: Nick Martin





> When Manitoba children return to school in September, they will encounter a revised math curriculum that expects them to memorize their times tables and learn to multiply and divide on paper and in their heads.
> 
> Also, children from kindergarten to Grade 8 will learn to do arithmetic before they use a calculator, parents will have a website helping them understand the math their kids are learning, and teacher candidates will be expected to take the heavier math courses in high school they'll later teach to children.
> 
> ...



http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/basic-arithmetic-back-in-class-211939191.html


----------



## Colin Parkinson (19 Jun 2013)

Thucydides said:
			
		

> I think you are conflating a number of different things.
> 
> These are Charter Schools, which means the parents control the resources but the educators are still hired teachers. The primary difference between a Charter School and a Public Schools is that if the children are falling below whatever standard has been set for scores like SATs or whatever methodology has been chosen, teachers will be replaced by ones who are capable of doing the job. The curriculum is set AFAIK by the State educational authorities. Canadian charter schools in Alberta operate in much the same manner, and provide impressive results. Public schools in Edmonton (not sure about other districts) have chosen to compete against charters by specializing; students can choose to go to school "X" for the theater program, school "Y" for the science and technology program or school "Z" for music or whatever specialty program they want to offer, and are also getting better results than conventional public schools.
> 
> ...



I was the square peg in the round hole at school, how does such a school deal with square pegs?


----------



## a_majoor (19 Jun 2013)

Colin P said:
			
		

> I was the square peg in the round hole at school, how does such a school deal with square pegs?



Hopefully better than public schools deal with the issue (labelling, heavy handed suggestions that the child be medicated, and other manipulations designed to make both parent and child get into the round hole). Ask me how I know this....


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## UnwiseCritic (19 Jun 2013)

There is a lot wrong with the education system. As with most government systems. We just get lucky with enough good people is those jobs, usually.

I know over here on the best coast teachers wanted o get rid of standardization. Thus a lack of accountability.

And in the states they had to stem the amount of drugs being given to children because the amount of prescriptions being handed out every year was accelerating rather quickly. In north America we do like to hand out our drugs. What a good band aid they make. But how many drugs do you know of that have very little side effects? And ones you wouldn't normally think of. Take alcohol and marajuana, two supposedly harmless drugs. But they do what most drugs do. They shut down your conscience, not a great side effect. 

As for the school system I think it is largely driven for women to succeed. I don't believe this was intentional. Proof in the matter is take any class, the women will have a much higher average. But are they really smarter than men? At least with in the proportions you will find in highschool. Probably not. As at university level the difference is not huge.

And in the early 1900s school systems changed from an entrepreneurial mindset. To making it so people would work in factories. There's not much room for individual thought.

I also know that way too many people have degrees that they do not ever use, at work. That there is a surplus of educated people looking for jobs, any job. They are battling for internships that once completed they are promptly kicked out of the company. (usually doing the work of an otherwise paid employee, thus it is illegal if they are not paid. And that a business degree is least paying now. History students make more.

But I'm done ranting for now.


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## GnyHwy (19 Jun 2013)

UnwiseCritic said:
			
		

> As for the school system I think it is largely driven for women to succeed. I don't believe this was intentional. Proof in the matter is take any class, the women will have a much higher average. But are they really smarter than men? At least with in the proportions you will find in highschool. Probably not. As at university level the difference is not huge.



I think there is another factor at play here.  I'm just spitballing, but do you think that there maybe a higher percentage of boys now making their X-box and other "friend networks" a priority?

Don't get me wrong, I had a 2600.  But, I also seen the sun shine a few hours a day and generally had respect for my teachers.  

Simpler times back then I guess.  You could beat the crap out ofer discipline your kids without worrying about someone calling the cops.  Or worse... posting the video on Facebook.


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## ballz (19 Jun 2013)

UnwiseCritic said:
			
		

> But I'm done ranting for now.



Sorry but your rant has a lot of random things portrayed as fact that I don't think are facts at all...



			
				UnwiseCritic said:
			
		

> And that a business degree is least paying now. History students make more.



This seems to be the strangest, most pulled-out-of-thin air example... The tool I am using found here http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/time-to-lead/transforming-the-ivory-tower-the-case-for-a-new-postsecondary-education-system/article4588986/ shows that the median income for a business grad is 26% higher than that of a history grad, with 94% of business grads employed vs 89% of history grads employed.


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## UnwiseCritic (19 Jun 2013)

Well I was forced to take jewelry making and sowing classes.... Forced

I found  males did much better in classes where only tests mattered. Kind of like real life. None of this poster making with sparkles for bonus points. 

As for my stat of business/history. It was from macleans magazine. As for the internship problem, macleans and CBC.

The 1900s school shift. My English teacher.

The drug thing is from a book I read a long time ago. I'll check the bibliography for sources


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## GnyHwy (20 Jun 2013)

UnwiseCritic said:
			
		

> The 1900s school shift. My English teacher.



I wonder of this had to do with entrepreneurs understanding that there was little money in pre-university schooling (BTW it is a shame that post secondary is a profit organization). 

Entrepreneurs want to make money, not tie it up in bureaucracy.


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## a_majoor (11 Jul 2013)

A series of related posts on Instapundit yesterday (10 Jul 2013) WRT the education bubble. The growing financial stresses are causing some divisions within the political establishment, and perhaps also within the various client bases. University administration is all for the constant flow of subsidized loan money, most people still are indoctrinated to believe that higher education is a greater good for everyone (it is a greater good for some people who have the self discipline and preparation to do it; not so much for people lacking these qualities), and young people seduced by the flow of "free" money without realizing the strings attached.

The specifics in the United States are different of course, but I can see variations of the same scenarios and virtually the same client bases being in play here in Canada (think the students in Quebec as an extreme example of the "young people seduced by "free" money education, for example). Most of the same solutions will come to Canada in the end as well (large scale on line education and accreditation, for example) as the economic logic overwhelms traditional structures and attitudes:

http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/



> DEMOCRATS DIVIDED OVER STUDENT LOANS: The Hill: Warren Rips Manchin On Student Loan Proposal. “Liberal firebrand Sen. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.) blasted a fellow Democratic senator Tuesday as a dispute over student loan rates escalated divisions within the party. The clash, which is highly unusual among party colleagues in the upper chamber, came at a private caucus meeting about a subject that is helping Republicans land blows against their Democratic opponents. . . . The bipartisan plan endorsed by Manchin and the others would set interest rates for undergraduate Stafford loans at the 10-year Treasury rate plus 1.85 percent. It would set the rates for unsubsidized graduate Stafford loans at the 10-year Treasury rate plus 3.4 percent.”
> 
> Here’s some recommended reading on the problem, which transcends Warren’s rather simplistic take.
> 
> ...



Multiple links embedded in the articles as well


----------



## a_majoor (2 Aug 2013)

Remember my posting that the level of education has declined over the years? Read this article and try the linked test. Be prepared to be stumped. This is what _public school_ students learned prior to the Great War:

http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/smartnews/2013/07/no-youre-probably-not-smarter-than-a-1912-era-8th-grader/



> No, You’re Probably Not Smarter Than a 1912-Era 8th Grader
> 
> In the early years of the 20th century, the students in Bullitt County, Kentucky, were asked to clear a test that many full-fledged adults would likely be hard-pressed to pass today. The Bullitt County Geneaological Society has a copy of this exam, reproduced below—a mix of math and science and reading and writing and questions on oddly specific factoids–preserved in their museum in the county courthouse.
> 
> ...



The argument about "modern education" being about knowledge and understanding can be debunked by a short conversation with any public school graduate (or just reading some of the posts here on Army.ca).


----------



## GnyHwy (3 Aug 2013)

That's a cool test.  A fair bit of useless memorization, but a good test nonetheless.  Some answers may be debatable but that is probably a good thing.  Funny how things come full circle.  We should be asking those questions now, and at the least, be recording the differences.


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## DBA (3 Aug 2013)

The "international shipping question" is a basic geography question and requires only knowledge of the major bodies of water and land masses along with a few important minor ones. It is just a more engaging form of the standard "To get from location A to B what X do I need to cross?" which tests knowledge of the names of what is being crossed and their spatial relationship. With how global things are today such basic geography knowledge is probably more relevant than it was 100 years ago.


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## a_majoor (10 Aug 2013)

Another example of changes comng downrange. As always, this has implications for *us* in the CF, unless *we* start looking seriously at this the CF will begin seeing applicants with non traditional educations and credentials: how will the system work to evaluate these candidates? On the macro scale, how will Canadian industry and business deal with larger and larger numbers of non traditional graduates with non traditional credentials? (One of the "bargains" that business and industry made with the political establishment a long time ago was that education and training would be done by the State, freeing business and industry of the costs and responsibilities. The State has largely broken its end of the bargain, imposing huge costs via taxation for education without ensuring that the end product of this education is actually educated). It is easy to imagine the system being gamed by students and academia to disguise the fact the person in question actually has a "studies" degree rather than being educated in the Humanities or STEM disciplines, so some caution is advised:

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/08/09/northern-arizona-universitys-new-competency-based-degrees-and-transcripts



> *Competency-Based Transcripts*
> 
> August 9, 2013
> By
> ...


----------



## Edward Campbell (31 Aug 2013)

Our friend and colleague Thucydides offers us a tantalizing vision of readily accessible higher education for all. But not everyone is convinced. Zander Sherman, a Canadian writer and editor and the author of The Curiosity of School: Education and the Dark Side of Enlightenment presents an alternative in this opinion piece which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the _Globe and Mail_:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/parenting/back-to-school/of-course-the-value-of-a-degree-is-declining-everyones-got-one/article14032846/#dashboard/follows/


> No paper, no light, no money – but Dark Ages were best for students
> 
> ZANDER SHERMAN
> Special to The Globe and Mail
> ...




I actually think that "fewer people are furthering their educations." They are, to be sure, spending longer and longer is school - adolescence has been prolonged from four to 15 years over the past two centuries. Boys used to leave school and enter the work world, as apprentices, at 12 or 13 and were grown men at 16 or 17. Now "adults" are expected to have 12 to 15 years of formal education, after pre-school, and they are 20 to 30 when they finally make a contribution of any sort to society. I look at my nephew's high school - 3,500 students - many, many of them will go on to graduate from colleges and universities, but few of them, those college and university graduates, will either aspire to or amount to as much as high school graduates did 50 years ago.

My nephew, and a very few of his classmates, spent their summers taking advanced courses - one must have them to take calculus in both the 11th and 12th grades and one must have that to be accepted into a first class university in a combined honours (double major) programme ~ he's thinking of doing double firsts in mathematics and economics. Thus he, and that "few," will be the really, properly educated minority, the remainder will attend second and third class schools - the system in North America is just as rigid but not as "honest" as the one in China when it comes to defining schools - and will still have long working lives (because their life expectancies will extend to 80+ rather than 50, as it was in the 19th century). They (and society) can afford the prolonged adolescence which is now a feature of our lives.


----------



## GnyHwy (31 Aug 2013)

Thucydides said:
			
		

> Another example of changes comng downrange. As always, this has implications for *us* in the CF, unless *we* start looking seriously at this the CF will begin seeing applicants with non traditional educations and credentials: how will the system work to evaluate these candidates? On the macro scale, how will Canadian industry and business deal with larger and larger numbers of non traditional graduates with non traditional credentials?
> http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/08/09/northern-arizona-universitys-new-competency-based-degrees-and-transcripts



This seems like it should be a good thing for us.  This plays right along with the way we do business already.  We train for competency of operational tasks; education is a by-product, assuming instructors are given the leeway to go above and beyond.

I we trained all of our soldiers in strict accordance with operational tasks or competencies, no one, including officers would need a traditional education.


----------



## George Wallace (31 Aug 2013)

;D

This in from the UK:

Reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act

http://www.theloop.ca/living/life/parenting/article/-/a/2690790/OpEd-Since-when-do-5-year-olds-need-cellphones-



> OpEd: Since when do 5-year-olds need cellphones?
> 
> Gord Woodward, August 29, 2013 10:59:43 AM
> 
> ...


----------



## TangoTwoBravo (31 Aug 2013)

E.R. Campbell said:
			
		

> Our friend and colleague Thucydides offers us a tantalizing vision of readily accessible higher education for all. But not everyone is convinced. Zander Sherman, a Canadian writer and editor and the author of The Curiosity of School: Education and the Dark Side of Enlightenment presents an alternative in this opinion piece which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the _Globe and Mail_:
> 
> http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/parenting/back-to-school/of-course-the-value-of-a-degree-is-declining-everyones-got-one/article14032846/#dashboard/follows/
> 
> ...



So, according to Mr Sherman we should leave higher education to an elite few and just go get jobs. What jobs would those be? We do not live in his hallowed dark ages. His point on scarcity and worth is only partly correct. Value come from the interaction of both supply and demand - he only focuses on the supply. There is still demand for an educated workforce. Sure, I might be happier if there were less university graduates around so that my degree would "be worth more" but that does not necessarily hold true for an employer or society at large.


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## Edward Campbell (31 Aug 2013)

Tango2Bravo said:
			
		

> So, according to Mr Sherman we should leave higher education to an elite few and just go get jobs. What jobs would those be? We do not live in his hallowed dark ages. His point on scarcity and worth is only partly correct. Value come from the interaction of both supply and demand - he only focuses on the supply. There is still demand for an educated workforce. Sure, I might be happier if there were less university graduates around so that my degree would "be worth more" but that does not necessarily hold true for an employer or society at large.




I _think_ that what we are seeing in a revaluation of credentials: a BA awarded in 2010 has about the same value as a high school diploma awarded in 1960. We, the CF, recognized that back around 1990 ~ there were other pressures, but a four year degree was considered to be the minimally acceptable standard for officers, whereas a high school diploma was still OK, not good, but OK, just a few years before. Today I think an MA or even a PhD has the value of a BA awarded in, say, 1960.

When I graduated from high school there were six classes in my school: four, with a total of nearly 100 students, were in the "General" or vocational programme and two, with about 30 students, were in the "Academic" or university bound stream. None of the "general" students could, then, go to university, although a handful did attend, later, as mature students. About 2/3 of the "Academic' students did go, directly, to university, I think almost all the rest of us followed along, eventually. Several went to grad school, albeit not a quickly as is common today.

Community colleges, which were rare 50 years ago, have muddied the waters. My understanding, now, is that many employers want a university degree PLUS a _skill_ diploma awarded by a college.

But, I think the biggest change is in the implicit recognition and acceptance that only a very few hundred of the nearly 7,000 accredited colleges and universities in the USA and Canada are *"real,"* first class schools that award degrees that actually mean something, and the implicit recognition and acceptance of the fact (and I think it is a fact) that some degrees, no matter which university grants them, are quite worthless ~ "victim studies" and so on.


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## George Wallace (31 Aug 2013)

Just looking at the all alleged university students and graduates who post on this site, would back up your theories of the dumbing down of the Higher levels of education offered at our institutions today.  When we see today's university students posting, on this site, of their desires to become officers, many of whom can not construct a proper sentence, or use correct spelling, let alone knowledgeable in the use of IT equipment and programs that could assist them, one can only wonder where we went wrong.......Not that we don't already know.


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## Brad Sallows (31 Aug 2013)

"Dumbing down" occurs in the secondary schools, not the post-secondary institutions.  The latter will in some cases waste a few credit hours getting graduates of the former up to the required level of preparation.  There is no faking your way through a degree in engineering or sciences, nor for that matter in a traditional rigorous humanities program.  Some of the perceived loss in communication skill is due to the entry of larger numbers of non-native English speakers into Canadian society.  I know, and have known, many people with first-class brains whose spoken and written English does not impress.

Mobile hand-held devices are warping people's ability to function: to what degree I do not know, but there is something wrong when people lack basic situational awareness of what is happening around them.


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## ballz (31 Aug 2013)

Tango2Bravo said:
			
		

> So, according to Mr Sherman we should leave higher education to an elite few and just go get jobs. What jobs would those be?



Those jobs would be something that looks like real "work," something that western society has brainwashed itself to think it is too good to do, and is getting economically crushed by other countries where they don't consider everything besides a university degree a consolation prize for those who just aren't "good enough."



			
				Tango2Bravo said:
			
		

> There is still demand for an educated workforce. Sure, I might be happier if there were less university graduates around so that my degree would "be worth more" but that does not necessarily hold true for an employer or society at large.



There is not much demand for people with degrees in basket weaving anymore. There is demand for a skilled workforce, but most people think they above and beyond that kind of "work" unfortunately.



			
				Brad Sallows said:
			
		

> "Dumbing down" occurs in the secondary schools, not the post-secondary institutions.  The latter will in some cases waste a few credit hours getting graduates of the former up to the required level of preparation.  There is no faking your way through a degree in engineering or sciences, nor for that matter in a traditional rigorous humanities program.  Some of the perceived loss in communication skill is due to the entry of larger numbers of non-native English speakers into Canadian society.  I know, and have known, many people with first-class brains whose spoken and written English does not impress.



Dumbing down is certainly happening at the most fundamental basic level, elementary school, junior high, and high school, for sure. Largely due to the "no child left behind" dogma that leaves teachers answering to parents as to why their little golden boy is failing, instead of little Johnny getting it from both his teacher and his parents.

But it is happening in post-secondary schools. I graduated my business class with people that didn't know the difference between "profit" and "revenue." You can fake your way through a lot of degree programs these days. I agree 100% with Mr. Campbell, most Bachelors programs today are just the new version of the high school diploma. A few select programs that train you with specific skills and lead to specific career, such as engineering, nursing, accounting, pharmacy, etc... are not just a high school diploma. But most programs are...

I would hate to be a small business owner in today's market trying to hire a competent individual that I could actually delegate some responsibility too. You'd have to toss out all of their resumes and interview every person that applied, sifting through a lot of junk to find a decent candidate.


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## TangoTwoBravo (31 Aug 2013)

There are certainly good jobs that do not require a university education, although a good chunk of those jobs would need a college diploma. In any case the situation is not the same as it was forty years ago when an individual with a high school diploma (or less) could reasonable expect to walk off their high school and into a well paying local  factory job. In today's international economy we can't really compete with foreign labour in manufacturing. Those jobs are not coming back, so a higher education is needed to remain competitive.

I've actually never met anyone with a basket weaving degree. I don't understand some degree programs, and I try to withhold judgement on them.

Now, I agree that not everyone needs a university degree, and some do not have the aptitude or desire.


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## ballz (31 Aug 2013)

Tango2Bravo said:
			
		

> In any case the situation is not the same as it was forty years ago when an individual with a high school diploma (or less) could reasonable expect to walk off their high school and into a well paying local  factory job.



Right, but that's our society's fault! We subsidized this program, and that program, thinking that if everyone could afford a Bachelor's degree, then everyone will be at least "upper middle class," but all we did was distort the labour market. Someone is going to be lower class, middle class, or upper class, no matter what. All we can do is improve our standard of living, and that way our "lower class" is better off than a lot of other country's "upper class."



			
				Tango2Bravo said:
			
		

> In today's international economy we can't really compete with foreign labour in manufacturing.



Yes we can. The reason we can't compete anymore is because of costs, but not because our wages higher than the rest of the world. The reason the US was a production powerhouse in manufacturing was never because its wages were low, it's because it had the best technology, so it could create the best product (or at least a competitive product) with one employee being paid the same wages as 10 Chinese employees. The West has lost that edge, it is no longer a leader in technology. It either needs to regain that edge, or lower its wages. One of the two will happen whether we like it or not.



			
				Tango2Bravo said:
			
		

> Those jobs are not coming back, so a higher education is needed to remain competitive



That term, "higher education," drives me insane. Please, go tell a welder with his own truck making $150 an hour how a Bachelor's of Arts is a "higher" form of education. The fact that we refer to a university education as a "higher" education without batting an eyelash makes me sick.



			
				Tango2Bravo said:
			
		

> I've actually never met anyone with a basket weaving degree. I don't understand some degree programs, and I try to withhold judgement on them.



As long as I have to pay for them with my tax dollars, I will judge them as much as I need to.


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## TangoTwoBravo (31 Aug 2013)

You seem to flip flopping on wages. If part of your solution is a cut in wages then, well, wages is part of the problem. Technology is awfully portable.

As for the term higher education it's a fairly benign term. In any case I don't go around comparing educations with folks. I am sure that your welder is happy in his job. Who knows what his education is, and I am not sure what your point is. There are certainly folks with well paying jobs without a university education. So? For what it is worth, how do average wages work out between high school grads and those with a BA? 

I am not saying that everyone needs a BA. I am, though, refuting the article that we need to return to the dark ages when a select few went to university where they memorized books. Not everyone can be your welder. Many would do well with an university education - even with a degree that you may not respect. 

A university education can offer someone a means of moving up. Sure there is risk of debt, but there is risk in everything.


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## ballz (1 Sep 2013)

Tango2Bravo said:
			
		

> You seem to flip flopping on wages. If part of your solution is a cut in wages then, well, wages is part of the problem. Technology is awfully portable.



No, I am not flip flopping on wages. Our wages (and, thus, our standard of living) were raised because we had the best technology, so companies could *afford* to pay more for labour and they did because of collective bargaining. Nowadays, our technology is not the best out there. So, we can do one of two things to compete... lower wages, or invest in technology ... or don't compete at all.



			
				Tango2Bravo said:
			
		

> As for the term higher education it's a fairly benign term. In any case I don't go around comparing educations with folks. I am sure that your welder is happy in his job. Who knows what his education is, and I am not sure what your point is. There are certainly folks with well paying jobs without a university education. So?



I believe its very harmful to refer to a university degree as the "higher" form of education.

My point is, we discourage people from getting skills such as a trade, because those jobs require a bit of physical labour and getting your hands dirty. Those are not "good" jobs. Instead, we tell people (who may want to learn a trade) "you are too smart to do that dirty work, go to university and get a "good" job instead." We've done this to the point that a "good job" is anything that doesn't resemble work.



			
				Tango2Bravo said:
			
		

> For what it is worth, how do average wages work out between high school grads and those with a BA?



This is a bit old, but I'm guessing still pretty accurate... a male high school graduate makes on average $32,343 a year... while many graduates from BA programs can make much less (Art Studies, $23,904). For the most part, though, they DO make a bit more, but sometimes only by $2000 a year... is that worth entering the workforce 4 years later, $40,000 in debt? I doubt it.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/time-to-lead/transforming-the-ivory-tower-the-case-for-a-new-postsecondary-education-system/article4588986/

I would bet my last dollar that two decades ago someone with a BA made substantially more than someone with a high school diploma. But not anymore because, as the article points out, a BA has lost its value due to the large supply. You point to the demand side, but I disagree, I don't think there is much more need nowadays for someone with a BA than there was in the past, certainly not enough to make up for how much we've flooded the labour market.



			
				Tango2Bravo said:
			
		

> I am not saying that everyone needs a BA. I am, though, refuting the article that we need to return to the dark ages when a select few went to university where they memorized books. Not everyone can be your welder. Many would do well with an university education - even with a degree that you may not respect.



But society is telling people that yes, everyone needs at least a Bachelors of X. The article is being figurative... it is pointing out that we, through subsidization, have flooded the market with Bachelors degrees, and made them valueless in the process. It's pretty accurate. We have artificially distorted the supply, to the point that projects are being cancelled because of a lack of skilled labour while too many people who would have been a tradesperson are sitting, unemployed, with a BA. This is a *new* problem, this was never a problem before. There were always plenty of hard-working people who were willing to do real *work* for a living wage.


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## GnyHwy (1 Sep 2013)

Maybe we can stop the shitflinging if we agree that a welder actually has a "higher education"; his paycheck is probably enough to win that argument.  Anything above and beyond high school is higher IMO, including a lot of things us dumbass army guys do.

I know this has been mentioned before, but probably worth reiterating - the solution maybe with the government keeping in closer contact with universities and colleges to assist with ensuring supply and demand remains balanced.

Subsidize the demand (welders) and don't subsidize the "basket weavers".


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## DBA (1 Sep 2013)

GnyHwy said:
			
		

> Maybe we can stop the shitflinging if we agree that a welder actually has a "higher education"; his paycheck is probably enough to win that argument.  Anything above and beyond high school is higher IMO, including a lot of things us dumbass army guys do.
> 
> I know this has been mentioned before, but probably worth reiterating - the solution maybe with the government keeping in closer contact with universities and colleges to assist with ensuring supply and demand remains balanced.
> 
> Subsidize the demand (welders) and don't subsidize the "basket weavers".



No we can't agree. Being highly trained and skilled isn't the same as being learned. 

Matching funding with demand I agree with - some countries do a much better job of this, especially with respect to trades training.


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## ballz (1 Sep 2013)

DBA said:
			
		

> No we can't agree. Being highly trained and skilled isn't the same as being learned.



If you want to pick apart specifics, we can do it all day. There is a difference between a "skill" and an "education." However, learning a "skill" is not better or worse than learning "x" theory and "y" theory, etc. This is what I'm getting at. I'm sick of kids being preached, from the day they can walk, that they should all be a doctor or a lawyer, and anything else is coming up short.

That, and skills come with an education component as well. A mechanic must use more than his hands-on skill to diagnose and fix a car. He must apply knowledge in order to use his skill to fix the problem. So, pointing out that a skill is not an education is often oversimplifying, and taking for granted, what a tradesperson does.



			
				DBA said:
			
		

> Matching funding with demand I agree with - some countries do a much better job of this, especially with respect to trades training.



Most western countries do. "Canada is the only country in the world without a national body responsible for education and is seen as one of the most decentralized and fragmented countries in the world when it comes to helping young people make a smooth entry into the world of work."

I believe I posted "Generation Jobless" a few pages ago, anyway, it discusses this shortfall http://www.cbc.ca/doczone/episode/generation-jobless.html It is not just the government and universities that need to be coordinated, INDUSTRY needs a seat at the table. Such as in Switzerland where "all levels of government, educators and employers, work together to ensure that education and training are linked to employment."

I believe its Germany, but anyway, they subsidize based on how much taxes that industry pays into the government. If you're an engineering firm and engineering firms represent 4% of the tax revenue collected, then 4% of the money spent on education will go towards engineering.

This makes it cheaper to be trained/educated in a field that is in demand, that is actually contributing. Tuition for an engineering student would be much lower than it is for an Art History student. Want to study Art History? No problem, you'll just have to pay more since Art History grad's aren't contributing as much to the economy.


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## GnyHwy (1 Sep 2013)

DBA said:
			
		

> No we can't agree. Being highly trained and skilled isn't the same as being learned.



I agree, they are not, but I still believe higher education is anything above high school.  I say the real difference between skilled and learned are their actual usefulness for their moment in that person's life.  Maybe the article is on to something.  Perhaps "higher" education is not meant for the masses, and especially at a young age, it should only be for the gifted. There is a huge difference between a 24 yr old wiz kid that truly applies themselves and an average coasting 24 yr old who might hold the exact same diploma.  Further to that, there are probably a fair bit of older folks who by their practical experience, would likely fall in a lot closer to the wiz kid side of the curve.  Where does that leave your common graduate?

This is what we are seeing right now.  The average person with a degree isn't that good!  From a bell curve perspective and relative to the wiz kids and persons with experience, they fall well to the left.

Anyone know how to fix a combustion engine?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9en6AcVkBo


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## George Wallace (1 Sep 2013)

DBA said:
			
		

> No we can't agree. Being highly trained and skilled isn't the same as being learned.



What a slippery slope this is.  I have known many "learned" people who are quite "stupid", who have no "street smarts" nor little common sense.  Would we agree, that no matter what, highly intelligent people can be highly trained and skilled, just as they can be learned; while at the same time we can say the same for 'stupid' people.  You will find both in whatever career path you may research.


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## DBA (1 Sep 2013)

George Wallace said:
			
		

> What a slippery slope this is.  I have known many "learned" people who are quite "stupid", who have no "street smarts" nor little common sense.  Would we agree, that no matter what, highly intelligent people can be highly trained and skilled, just as they can be learned; while at the same time we can say the same for 'stupid' people.  You will find both in whatever career path you may research.



Yes, I certainly agree that wisdom and competence can be missing from either category. I have been reading (it's slow going for me) Intellectuals and Society a book on lack of both from what could be termed the learned class.


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## Edward Campbell (3 Sep 2013)

E.R. Campbell said:
			
		

> I _think_ that what we are seeing in a revaluation of credentials: a BA awarded in 2010 has about the same value as a high school diploma awarded in 1960. We, the CF, recognized that back around 1990 ~ there were other pressures, but a four year degree was considered to be the minimally acceptable standard for officers, whereas a high school diploma was still OK, not good, but OK, just a few years before. Today I think an MA or even a PhD has the value of a BA awarded in, say, 1960.
> 
> When I graduated from high school there were six classes in my school: four, with a total of nearly 100 students, were in the "General" or vocational programme and two, with about 30 students, were in the "Academic" or university bound stream. None of the "general" students could, then, go to university, although a handful did attend, later, as mature students. About 2/3 of the "Academic' students did go, directly, to university, I think almost all the rest of us followed along, eventually. Several went to grad school, albeit not a quickly as is common today.
> 
> ...




In an article which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the _Globe and Mail_, Max Blouw, President of Wilfrid Laurier University, suggests that what I _understand_ is, indeed, happening, but he wishes it wasn't:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/universities-should-educate-employers-should-train/article14078938/#dashboard/follows/


> Universities should educate – employers should train
> 
> MAX BLOUW
> Contributed to The Globe and Mail
> ...




Going back to the "dark ages" article, we might want to remember that "skilled occupations," including medicine, the law and engineering were not taught at universities - in England, for example, lawyers were trained, for centuries, beginning in about 1385, in "Inns" which looked, and, I suppose, felt at lot like colleges but were a mix of schools/apprenticeship programmes and communal living quarters for like minded people and employers. It seems to me that out non-degree granting "colleges" represent a return to that tradition and, maybe, it is to those colleges that employers look for skill development.

I spoke, a while back, to an executive in a large technology company; the subject turned to people and he described his "ideal" employee ~ one who would ,eventually, also become an executive ~ as a person with two _certifications:_

     1. A *degree* in an academic subject, _ideally_ mathematics (because mathematicians, in his view, are the best critical thinkers), but failing that any "pure" subject; and

     2. A *diploma* in one of several technical subjects from one of the colleges with which his company, or one of its major competitors, cooperates in programme development.

In other words, he wanted an educated person with additional specialist skills.


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## foresterab (4 Sep 2013)

E.R.,

It is interesting your last post sums up in a nutshell the issue we've been having trying to hire new staff.  I work in the Forestry profession which is a regulated profession like engineers, nurses, geologists...so there is a certain level of educational requirements needed just to be eligible to register (note in Alberta this is open to both university and college grads...laws vary by province).

When looking at applicants...of which there are very very few available currently...not only do we need someone that pass the education requirements but is also willing to take on extra training due to the spectrum of work involved.   Figure 3-5 weeks training per year for the next several years just to bring them upon to a "independent" level of background....mostly related forest fires and the unique issues that side of work brings.

And this is in the public service...so wage competition is an issue.  We're dealing with a very limited labour pool competing directly against private industry in multiple sectors...and frankly losing.

So what options exist?    De-regulation and reducing the quality of applicants needed will work to put bodies in place but raises the risk of long term skills gaps some of which is apparent now already.    Pressure on the professional bodies to expand the scope of eligible applicants is possible but reduces the effectiveness of that credential...if I hire a geologist or geological engineer to review a hill for stability I want a geologist...not an agriculture student with some extra classes.    Change in entry requirements for the educational programs helps but again only works if employeers are hiring graduates and targeted recruitment is done.

Best thought I've heard so far is change the tax system...make it so that education and job training skills done are eligible for the same tax breaks as post secondary education.   Why does a heavy equipment operator who needs multiple safety tickets and job specific courses not get a break but taking a completetly unrelated to work correspondence course give me a break?  There are many many courses being taken weekly accross the country that are directly related to employment, safety, training, and practices but lack the credential of University of X or College of Y on the reciept and yet lead to a higher wage than the degree/diploma of Z.

Anyways..my 2 cents on the idea.
foresterab

Note:  I'm a university graduate working in the field I went to school for.


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## a_majoor (6 Sep 2013)

foresterab said:
			
		

> Best thought I've heard so far is change the tax system...make it so that education and job training skills done are eligible for the same tax breaks as post secondary education.   Why does a heavy equipment operator who needs multiple safety tickets and job specific courses not get a break but taking a completetly unrelated to work correspondence course give me a break?  There are many many courses being taken weekly accross the country that are directly related to employment, safety, training, and practices but lack the credential of University of X or College of Y on the reciept and yet lead to a higher wage than the degree/diploma of Z.



You have probably hit on the perverse incentive that drives the entire education bubble: the subsidization of "education" as a "public good". While I would hardly argue that having hordes of dumb, unskilled people is a good thing, the problem is we essentially pay people to go to school, and an entire vast industry and bureaucracy has grown around the capture of these taxpayer dollars. Notice the incentive is not to train or educate the people being paid to go to school....(and we have hordes of dumb and unskilled people anyway, only holding credentials that allow them to work at Starbucks)

Now if we go your way and provide tax breaks, funding and scholarships for the various training courses needed for employment, then we would simply discover that there would be more vocational training schools, college courses, instructors and administrators moving into the field, and probably corresponding pressure on governments to require even _more_ training and certification before allowing people to work. One can only imagine the state of the job market, especially for entry level workers, in that kind of environment.

The other way to level the playing field, and take a lot of pressure off the taxpayer to boot, would be to simply stop the practice of subsidizing "education" (however defined) for the majority of people. People would have a much better idea of the true costs of their "education" and the relative value of the certifications being offered, while educational institutions would be forced to become far more cost effective in the delivery of their product, and most likely also be forced to upgrade the actual value of their product (BA's would no longer be the equivalent of a 1960 high school diploma, for example, and lots of "programs" with little or no application to the real world will die natural deaths as students go for programs with proven merit).


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## a_majoor (20 Nov 2013)

More experience in running massive on line courses tempers expectations, but expect to see new initiatives based on moving up the learning curve:

http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2013/11/19/is-the-mooc-hype-dying/



> *Is The MOOC Hype Dying?*
> 
> After a year of setback after setback, the hype around MOOCs is settling down a bit. The latest evidence of this comes courtesy of an interesting profile piece at Fast Company of Udacidy CEO Sebastian Thrun, a man who is in many ways the godfather of the MOOC concept.
> 
> ...



and edit to add an approach for commoditizing the lower end of schools. In Canada, schools like this in rural and poorer urban areas seem to be an ideal way to max out limited resources and provide a high quality education to children who would otherwise be disadvantaged:

http://www.wired.com/design/2013/11/schoolinabox/



> *Pop-Up Schools Could Radically Improve Global Education*
> BY DAYO OLOPADE11.12.1311:00 AM
> 
> A Bridge International Academy in Wang’uru, Kenya.  Courtesy of Bridge International Academies.
> ...


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## pbi (20 Nov 2013)

> The other way to level the playing field, and take a lot of pressure off the taxpayer to boot, would be to simply stop the practice of subsidizing "education" (however defined) for the majority of people. People would have a much better idea of the true costs of their "education" and the relative value of the certifications being offered, while educational institutions would be forced to become far more cost effective in the delivery of their product, and most likely also be forced to upgrade the actual value of their product (BA's would no longer be the equivalent of a 1960 high school diploma, for example, and lots of "programs" with little or no application to the real world will die natural deaths as students go for programs with proven merit).



My only concern here would be that if this were not managed properly, we might end up with middle class families (never mind families of lesser means) being unable to send their kids to school. Maybe an enhanced range of scholarship programs, to help those kids who have shown the intellectual acumen (as opposed to drones whose mommies and daddies have paid the whole shot) to get into post-secondary.



> Bridge’s headquarters are in Nairobi, in a booming industrial area thick with warehouses, mattress factories, and tire distributors. Like its schools, the offices are surprisingly austere — I interview Kimmelman across an unvarnished wood table. “It doesn’t matter if kids are sitting in a building that you call a school,” he says. “They can be sitting under a tree, so long as they’re getting educated — that’s what matters.”



I agree strongly with this, based on my experiences as DS at CACSC, both Reg and Res. While the Fort has fully networked digital classrooms and all the bits and bytes , and enough disgusting Powerpoint to choke a US four star, I found that some of my most effective teaching was done outside on the grass, or sitting out on the FFOM patio, using only a flipchart, or cardboard and string. And, I think, students got a lot out of these classes. Not from me, but from the method of teaching. There is, in my opinion, far too much emphasis placed on the supposed "need" for the digitized classroom as opposed to good, solid teaching and learning.



> Furthermore, while MOOCs as they’re currently offered may not be enough to upend the higher-ed system on their own, there’s lots of promise for “blended” courses in which the online material is supplemented by regular meetings with teachers or tutors who lead discussions and proctor exams. These meetings could be handled remotely using teleconferencing technology, or they could be done in person at local testing centers, in either case adding that human component that remains the weakest link in how these courses are offered today.



Pretty much how we've delivered the Res AOC for years now: it works.


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## Nemo888 (24 Nov 2013)

What happens when the Keynesian welfare of years getting advanced degrees meets the computerization of the middle class? 
Randall Collins revisits the link between education and future success after writing a definitive work on the subject 30 years ago.

http://www.salon.com/2013/11/24/millennials_rise_up_college_is_a_scam_you_have_nothing_to_lose_but_student_debt/

 Millennials, rise up! College is a scam — you have nothing to lose but student debt
Students chase degree after degree, adding crushing debt, as jobs vanish. It is time to radically rethink college
Randall Collins

Credential inflation is the rise in educational requirements for jobs as a rising proportion of the population attains more advanced degrees. The value of a given educational certificate or diploma declines as more people have one, thereby motivating them to stay in school longer. In the United States, high-school (i.e., twelve-year secondary school) diplomas were comparatively rare before World War II; now high-school degrees are so commonplace that their job value is worthless. University attendance is now over 60% of the youth cohort, and is on the way to the same fate as the high-school degree. It is a worldwide trend; in South Korea, 80% of high-school graduates now go on to higher education. The main thing that inflated degrees are worth is to plough them back into the educational market, seeking still higher degrees. This in principle is an endless process; it could very well reach the situation of the Chinese mandarin class during the later dynasties, when students continued sitting for exams into their thirties and forties— only now this would affect the vast majority of the population instead of a small elite. Different countries have gone through educational inflation at different rates, but from the second half of the 20th century onward, all of them have followed this path.

Educational degrees are a currency of social respectability, traded for access to jobs; like any currency, it inflates prices (or reduces purchasing power) when autonomously driven increases in monetary supply chase a limited stock of goods, in this case chasing an ever more contested pool of upper-middle-class jobs. Educational inflation builds on itself; from the point of view of the individual degree-seeker, the best response to its declining value is to get even more education. The more persons who hold advanced degrees, the more competition among them for jobs, and the higher the educational requirements that can be demanded by employers. This leads to renewed seeking of more education, more competition, and more credential inflation.

Within this overall inflationary process, the most highly educated segment of the population has received an increasingly greater proportion of the income; at least this has been so in the United States since the 1980s. One should be wary about extrapolating this particular historical period into an eternal pattern for all times and places. Those at the top of the inflationary competition for credentials have benefited from several processes: [a] they were in the relatively safe havens when technological displacement was hitting, initially, the last of the decently paid manual labor force, and then low-paid clerical work. * The quality of work performance between different levels of the educational hierarchy has apparently widened.

What has been insufficiently recognized is that the inflationary spiral in schooling has brought increasing alienation and perfunctory performance among students who are not at the top of the competition, those who are forced to stay in school more years but get no closer to elite jobs. Grade inflation and low standards of promotion are symptoms of this process. There is considerable evidence, from ethnographies of teenagers, of youth culture, and especially youth gangs, that the expansion of schooling has brought increasing alienation from official adult standards. The first youth gangs appeared in the early 1950s when working-class youth were first being pressured into staying in school instead of going into the labor force; and their ideology was explicitly anti-school.

This is the source of the oppositional youth culture that has grown so widely, both among the minority who belong to gangs and the majority who share their antinomian stance. Employers today complain that jobs in the lower half of the service sector are hard to fill with reliable, conscientious employees. But this is not so much a failure of mass secondary education to provide good technical skills (one hardly needs high-school math and science to greet customers politely or ship packages to the right address) as a pervasive alienation from doing menial work. The mass inflationary school system tells its students that it is providing a pathway to elite jobs, but spills most of them into an economy where menial work is all that is available unless one has outcompeted 80% of one’s school peers. No wonder they are alienated.

Although credential inflation is the primary mechanism of educational expansion, overt recognition of this process has been repressed from consciousness, in virtually a Freudian manner. In this case, the idealizing and repressing agent, the Superego of the educational world, is the prevailing technocratic ideology. Rising technical requirements of jobs drive out unskilled labor, the argument goes, and today’s high-skilled jobs demand steadily increasing levels of education. Thirty years ago, in The Credential Society, I assembled evidence to show that technological change is not the driving force in rising credential requirements. The content of education is not predominantly set by technological demand; most technological skills—including the most advanced ones—are learned on the job or through informal networks, and the bureaucratic organization of education at best tries to standardize skills innovated elsewhere. In updated research on credential inflation vis-à-vis technological change, I have seen nothing that overturns my conclusions published in 1979. It is true that a small proportion of jobs benefit from scientific and technical education, but that is not what is driving the massive expansion of education. It is implausible that in the future most persons will be scientists or skilled technicians. Indeed, the biggest area of job growth in rich countries has been low-skilled service jobs, where it is cheaper to hire human labor than to automate. In the current US economy, one of the biggest growth sectors is tattoo parlors: a non-credentialed occupation, small-scale business, low-paying and thus far immune from corporate control—and selling emblems of alienation from mainstream culture.

More at the link.
http://www.salon.com/2013/11/24/millennials_rise_up_college_is_a_scam_you_have_nothing_to_lose_but_student_debt/*


----------



## pbi (24 Nov 2013)

Hmm. Agree and disagree.



> now high-school degrees are so commonplace that their job value is worthless.



Really? try getting anywhere without one. To day, completion of high school is so commonplace that a person who hasn't done it may be suspect.



> The more persons who hold advanced degrees, the more competition among them for jobs, and the higher the educational requirements that can be demanded by employers. This leads to renewed seeking of more education, more competition, and more credential inflation



There might be some truth to this, but I think most employers are still more worried about solid relevant experience in the field in the last few years.



> ..the last of the decently paid manual labor force...,



"The last" of it? When was the last time the author took a look at what a skilled trades person in, say, the building trades (which are pretty "manual" if you ask me...), can earn? Being married into a large Portuguese family, I'm pretty familiar with the success people can have in these fields.



> What has been insufficiently recognized is that the inflationary spiral in schooling has brought increasing alienation and perfunctory performance among students who are not at the top of the competition, those who are forced to stay in school more years but get no closer to elite jobs. Grade inflation and low standards of promotion are symptoms of this process.



While all these things seem to me to be true to one degree or another, I wonder what evidence the author is relying on here. These are extremely broad claims: academic performance (or lack thereof...) can have a number of causes.



> There is considerable evidence, from ethnographies of teenagers, of youth culture, and especially youth gangs, that the expansion of schooling has brought increasing alienation from official adult standards. The first youth gangs appeared in the early 1950s when working-class youth were first being pressured into staying in school instead of going into the labor force; and their ideology was explicitly anti-school.



OK: BS flag. I really, really doubt this. IMHO "the first youth gangs" absolutely did NOT appear "in the early 1950's".  I think a fairly basic reading of the history of either the UK or the US would show that youth gangs existed in both countries, in large metropolitan centres, in at least the mid-19th century if not earlier.



> This is the source of the oppositional youth culture that has grown so widely, both among the minority who belong to gangs and the majority who share their antinomian stance.



Overstatement. I would argue that the "rise" of youth gangs is culturally based and is due to a whole host of causes. Most of these people, IMHO were never interested in education in the first place, so this entire issue would be meaningless to them.



> The content of education is not predominantly set by technological demand; most technological skills—including the most advanced ones—are learned on the job or through informal networks, and the bureaucratic organization of education at best tries to standardize skills innovated elsewhere.



Yes-I could probably buy most of this. To me "education" has become badly confused with "skill training".



> In the current US economy, one of the biggest growth sectors is tattoo parlors: a non-credentialed occupation, small-scale business, low-paying and thus far immune from corporate control—and selling emblems of alienation from mainstream culture.



OK now he is just talking rubbish. I think that a very basic examination of the economy would show that there are a number of  areas of growth by small entrepeneurs, none of which involve "getting ink"


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## ModlrMike (24 Nov 2013)

> In the current US economy, one of the biggest growth sectors is tattoo parlors: a non-credentialed occupation, small-scale business, low-paying and thus far immune from corporate control—and selling emblems of alienation from mainstream culture.



I have to call BS as well. Good artists can command top prices and make over 100K per year. Average artists can be in the 60K range. The limiting factor is how well the business is managed. Well managed shops are hugely profitable, poorly managed ones not so much.


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## a_majoor (8 Dec 2013)

Tailoring Hight School for success. A long term goal for my wife and I is to found a private high school, and one of our disagreements (besides finding) has to do with exactly this issue: what market will we be tailoring the schoo for? She is interested in a performing arts type school, while I am more interested in a STEM based school (in essance, we really want two schools, but resource wise....). I think that students are preceptive enough to already ahve an idea of what they do want farther downstream, and high school _could_ be tailored to help them reach their goals. A general diploma could still be offered for those who are adrift (not everyone develops at the same rate, after all), and even this isn't too difficult, home schools and I believe Finland can teach the "core" subjects in as little as 3 hr per day by staying focused. Indeed our own presumptive school(s) are modeled on that idea: the morning is given over to core instruction while the afternoon is given over to the specialties:

http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2013/12/we-cannot-forget-people-who-did-not-graduate-from-high-school/282124/



> *'We Cannot Forget People Who Did Not Graduate From High School'*
> A community college in New York City offers GED classes tailored to specific careers—with great results.
> Fawn Johnson
> Dec 7 2013, 10:03 AM ET
> ...


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## Pieman (8 Dec 2013)

> Tailoring Hight School for success. A long term goal for my wife and I is to found a private high school, and one of our disagreements (besides finding) has to do with exactly this issue: what market will we be tailoring the schoo for?



Curious to know if you have considered home schooling or correspondence courses? IMHO private schools are nice, but a colossal waste of money that would be better spent elsewhere on the development of a kid. Public high schools can be a total nightmare depending the economic demographic in the area, but some some are pretty darn good. Both my Nephews are being home schooled, and their father is a private high school teacher if that tells you anything.


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## Fishbone Jones (9 Dec 2013)

Thucydides said:
			
		

> Tailoring Hight School for success. A long term goal for my wife and I is to found a private high school, and one of our disagreements (besides finding) has to do with exactly this issue: what market will we be tailoring the schoo  for? She is interested in a performing arts type school, while I am more interested in a STEM based school (in essance, we really want two schools, but resource wise....). I think that students are preceptive enough to already ahve an idea of what they do want farther downstream, and high school _could_ be tailored to help them reach their goals. A general diploma could still be offered for those who are adrift (not everyone develops at the same rate, after all), and even this isn't too difficult, home schools and I believe Finland can teach the "core" subjects in as little as 3 hr per day by staying focused. Indeed our own presumptive school(s) are modeled on that idea: the morning is given over to core instruction while the afternoon is given over to the specialties:



Hope your not the spelling teacher! ;D

j\k


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## a_majoor (9 Dec 2013)

No, just unable to access the spell check due to timeouts


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## Pieman (18 Dec 2013)

> Hope your not the spelling teacher! ;D


I'm the first to admit I'm lost without spellcheck. I'm also forever ruined in trying to spell any word with 'ie' vs. 'ei' through my German language classes.  I'm definitely going to be the math and physics teacher.


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## a_majoor (6 Jan 2014)

A possible future for the university campus:

http://www.the-american-interest.com/blog/2014/01/04/the-column-the-academy-hopes-no-one-will-read/



> *The Column the Academy Hopes No-One Will Read*
> 
> Here’s a column the academy hopes no-one will read: Glenn Reynolds’ insightfully advocating in the WSJ for deep reforms to the American college system. Reynolds argues that mounting college debt paired with stagnant wages will catalyze solutions that could drastically disrupt the academy. Some of his predictions will be familiar to regular VM readers: online education will become more important, and schools will have to find ways to reduce administrative bloat. One particularly interesting suggestion he makes is that colleges might keep physical spaces but still conduct their classes online:
> 
> ...



In a way this is like the "reverse" model for public schools; students do their lessons on line at home and see a tutor/mentor during the day to help with the homework, ask follow up questions etc. For College/University students, the idea of living on campus provides some real life preparation (pay rent, budget, balance school, work, social life) in a semi controlled setting, but using this model the student isn't sucked into endless, lifelong debt payments.


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## Dissident (7 Jan 2014)

Thucydides said:
			
		

> A possible future for the university campus:
> 
> http://www.the-american-interest.com/blog/2014/01/04/the-column-the-academy-hopes-no-one-will-read/
> 
> In a way this is like the "reverse" model for public schools; students do their lessons on line at home and see a tutor/mentor during the day to help with the homework, ask follow up questions etc. For College/University students, the idea of living on campus provides some real life preparation (pay rent, budget, balance school, work, social life) in a semi controlled setting, but using this model the student isn't sucked into endless, lifelong debt payments.



Don't know about that. I know technology has evolved, but what this is detailing is fairly close to what the intent behind the original concept for the College Montmorency. I was told that at the time the idea was to have classes taught by TV's with tutors available. My memory is fuzzy on the details (and it is second hand information in any case). But this didn't pan out at all. Seems people like to have teachers...

And while distance learning is great (I use it regularly), a big part of formal schooling is the social aspect: learning how to interact with people and building a social/peer network. Sure having a campus with amenities does provide chances for interaction, but I predict that this will never be enough.


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## The_Falcon (7 Jan 2014)

I am already the kind of student mentioned in that article.  By May I will be enrolled in 5 different programs, each at a different institution.  Mind you my own cicumstances are a little unique, in how I am able to do that.


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## a_majoor (10 Jan 2014)

More on the evolution of education. Unbundling is the wave of the future (and the bane of existing institutions and their defenders, since bundling is the source of much of their power, influence and wealth):

http://blogs.hbr.org/2014/01/the-degree-is-doomed/



> *The Degree Is Doomed*
> by Michael Staton  |   8:00 AM January 8, 2014
> 
> The credential — the degree or certificate — has long been the quintessential value proposition of higher education.  Americans have embraced degrees with a fervor generally reserved for bologna or hot dogs.  Everyone should have them!  Many and often! And their perceived value elsewhere in the world — in Asia in particular — is if anything even higher.
> ...


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## GAP (10 Jan 2014)

> Employers have never before had such easy access to specific and current information pertaining to a candidates’ potential.  It is truly unprecedented in all of human history.



I disagree.....up until fairly recently craftsman applicants had to provide a sample of their abilities eg: a carpenter built a multi chambered tool box that displayed his ingenuity, his skill, his dovetailing, and finishing abilities, as well as who he apprenticed under....the same was true for many trades. 

The measure was not certifiable certification, but ability.


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## a_majoor (12 Jan 2014)

Agree this is still a viable model for trades and skills that can be objectively tested (OK, write a script to make the computer do the following....), but this might also be cumbersome and time consuming in many diciplines and maybe even impossible to do for "soft" skills.

On more models of low cost education:

http://www.the-american-interest.com/blog/2014/01/10/is-the-college-of-the-future-in-new-hampshire/



> *Is the College of the Future in New Hampshire?*
> 
> Changes in the higher-ed marketplace are forcing colleges to radically rethink their approach to education, and those struggling with the challenge may find inspiration in Southern New Hampshire University, which is the subject of an excellent profile at Slate.
> 
> ...



As far as finding a flexible model, I have run across some products which offer to teach basic proficiency in a very short amount of time ( the Duolingo app offers basic language proficiency in 39 hr http://www.duolingo.com/). I plan to put Duolingo to the test (my OC is Franco, so if I can make myself understood then it actually does work.) Ultra short and intensive courses might also be a way to go for special circumstances.


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## a_majoor (13 Jan 2014)

An interesting observation by a reader of Instapundit about education. The idea of a certain amount of homogeneity is required for schools to function at a high level makes sense; you need to have or instill a common "culture" of learning and academic success if you want schools to perform at a high academic level. You can see similar "cultural" adaptations in other directions as well; one I spent a lot of time fighting as a military instructor is the "C's a P" attitude among some candidates. If you let that one go then you are failing as an instructor and a leader.

http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/182401



> I enjoyed The New School very much, and have been shipping copies around to my small circle of academic friends with open minds. Great stuff.
> 
> Being a one-time faculty brat and more or less surrounded in consanguinity and geography by liberal educators, these are all topics that have intrigued me even before you started linking away on Instapundit. So I have a couple of unsolicited thoughts and reactions, which you may or may not find worthy.
> 
> ...


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## a_majoor (16 Jan 2014)

Another experiment, this time on a focused campus and program which has the incentives tied to education and teaching:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/georgeleef/2014/01/16/small-new-university-does-something-radical-only-hires-professors-who-want-to-teach-and-only-admits-students-who-want-to-learn/



> *Small, New University Does Something Radical -- Only Hires Professors Who Want To Teach And Only Admits Students Who Want To Learn*
> George Leef, Contributor
> 
> Is a college degree worth what it costs? More and more Americans are questioning the conventional wisdom that it is, as the price tag climbs while the educational value (at least for many students) falls.
> ...


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## a_majoor (29 Jan 2014)

An interesting interview with the founder of the Khan Academy. One of the key take aways is the model's focus on education rather than credentials; you move at your own pace and level of understanding rather than according to a course syllabus and getting a diploma at the end. I think there is some value to both approaches: you certainly don't want to hire a person for a skilled trade or profession if they have not mastered the skills needed to do the job, but for background and preparatory work (as well as "lifelong learning" and developing the critical thinking skills that the Humanities are supposed to develop) the Academy would seem to offer a much more flexible approach:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/28/science/salman-khan-turned-family-tutoring-into-khan-academy.html?ref=science&_r=1



> *It All Started With a 12-Year-Old Cousin*
> Salman Khan Turned Family Tutoring Into Khan Academy
> JAN. 27, 2014
> 
> ...


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## a_majoor (23 Feb 2014)

One of the reasons for the rot in conventional education is the insular "culture" of modern academia. Many of the criticisms posted here apply in spades to Canadian "Higher" education as well. Many of the ideas that I have floated upthread have one thing in common: the student is not enclosed by the Academy. Now you might argue that the enclosure has the purpose of allowing the Academy to "shape" the student, and in some instances (like military academies and seminaries) that is entirely appropriate and even desirable. For general purpose education to equip a student to function in the wider world, not so much....

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2014/02/21/how_to_improve_our_colleges_and_universities_121657.html



> *How to Improve Our Colleges and Universities*
> By Peter Berkowitz - February 21, 2014
> 
> Liberal education is in decline. And professors and administrators at our best liberal arts colleges are hastening its demise.
> ...


----------



## Colin Parkinson (4 Mar 2014)

I note a trend, many of the people pushing new ideas seem to have a poor grasps of history and how things were. Some of the comments here highlight this knowledge gap that is in the articles. Now to be fair the articles are snapshots written by journalists who primary goal is to get published and paid and may be high on the fluff and lower on accuracy.


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## a_majoor (5 Mar 2014)

An interesting idea to turn higher education around: "Home Schooling" college and University students:

http://www.the-american-interest.com/blog/2014/03/04/home-schooling-for-higher-ed/



> *Home-Schooling for Higher Ed*
> 
> Here’s a new idea for the thousands of underemployed PhDs competing for the dwindling tenure-track jobs: college by homeschooling. Over at the Chronicle of Higher Education, JHU’s Hollis Robbins proposes that students, either alone or in small groups, hire trained PhDs to be their own private professors. This is basically tutoring at the collegiate level:
> 
> ...


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## a_majoor (23 Mar 2014)

A piece in defense of the Liberal Arts. The highlighted paragraph shows the strength of what Liberal Arts is supposed to deliver, the weakness is that in many cases, it no longer does so. In many Canadian and American universities, a legion of Brownshirts will come out and use everything up to physical violence to silence voices they do not "approve" of (generally ideas that are not in line with the Politically Correct orthodoxy), and other interesting ideas that resemble Maoist thought control (Queens University was planning to salt the dorms with Thought Police who would report on anyone who displayed thoughts, words or actions that were on the "not approved" list, and by this I don't mean activities like vandalism or smoking in the rooms...). Since the administrations of the Universities approve of these sorts of activities, or take no steps to discourage them, alternative learning venues which do not place any sort of ideological indoctrination on their teaching packages will provide much of what Liberal Arts was supposed to give:

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2012-01-06/postrel-how-art-history-majors-power-the-u-s-?utm_content=buffer8806a&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer



> *How Art History Majors Power the U.S. Economy: Virginia Postrel *
> 
> Jan 5, 2012 7:05 PM ET
> By Virginia Postrel
> ...


----------



## a_majoor (31 Mar 2014)

More pushback by the gatekeepers. Rather than innovate or try to change and compete on the basis of price or quality, they simply seek to ban the potential competition.

http://www.the-american-interest.com/blog/2014/03/30/regulatory-roadblock-for-online-ed/



> *Regulatory Roadblock For Online Ed*
> 
> The Department of Education is revisiting a fight it lost in 2012: to make states authorize every distance education provider that enrolls students within their borders. Ever since a federal judge struck down this requirement on procedural grounds, states have been able to exempt online programs from the authorization process as long as it’s accredited somewhere else. If the Department of Education wins this fight, this would change.  And if distance education programs aren’t locally authorized or exempted from the requirement, their students won’t receive federal student aid.
> 
> ...


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## a_majoor (18 Apr 2014)

Another gatekeeper reaction. Look for Canadian provinces to try this as well to protect Educrats:

http://www.the-american-interest.com/blog/2014/04/17/maryland-throws-up-roadblocks-to-online-ed/



> *Maryland Puts Up Roadblocks to Online Ed*
> 
> Maryland has decided to stand athwart the internet, yelling “Stop!” The Maryland Higher Education Commission recently sent letters to numerous institutions across the country that offer online courses, demanding that they pay registration fees for the Maryland residents enrolled in them. However, there is no data available on how many are enrolled in online programs, or which programs they attend. As Inside Higher Ed reports:
> 
> ...


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## a_majoor (2 Aug 2014)

Jerry Pournell offers proof that educational standards have declined; publishing a 100 year old school textbook. From instapundit:



> FORWARD, INTO THE PAST! Jerry Pournelle republishes a book of stuff sixth graders used to read in school a hundred years ago.
> 
> When I was in junior high in the 1970s, I often read the old textbooks from the 1950s, which seemed to be written at a higher level than the ones we were using. When the Insta-Daughter was the same age, she looked at old textbooks from the 1970s, which seemed to be written at a higher level than the ones her classes were using. . . .



http://www.amazon.com/California-Sixth-Grade-Reader-Pournelle-ebook/dp/B00LZ7PB7E/?_encoding=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=ur2&refRID=0360CVK8TWTZXH5YKEF1&tag=insta0c-20&linkId=CFRIIRLAUUE23CS6


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## Bruce Monkhouse (2 Aug 2014)

That's proof enough for you??   I guess when it follows your way of thinking it is.
In case you haven't noticed kids today learn about things that are miles over our heads............evolution, and being left behind, is not a reason to complain about the young 'uns.  The kids are alright...........


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## Halifax Tar (2 Aug 2014)

Bruce Monkhouse said:
			
		

> That's proof enough for you??   I guess when it follows your way of thinking it is.
> In case you haven't noticed kids today learn about things that are miles over our heads............evolution, and being left behind, is not a reason to complain about the young 'uns.  The kids are alright...........



I particularly love the "I have a high school diploma from the 60s/70s and that equals a current degree stuff...."  

Outstanding stuff, really, really great comedy....wait it was meant to be comedy right ?


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## Bruce Monkhouse (2 Aug 2014)

Halifax Tar said:
			
		

> I particularly love the I have a high school diploma from the 60s/70s and that equals a current degree stuff....
> 
> Outstanding stuff, really really great comedy....wait it was meant to be comedy right ?



I would crap all over my kids for whatever grammar/ structure your post tried to construct and, by the way, English is their second language.


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## Bruce Monkhouse (2 Aug 2014)

I just looked at the Govt. of Ontario job search and I couldn't find where it said University degree or, failing that,  a high school diploma from the "60/70's".    ???


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## Halifax Tar (3 Aug 2014)

I think you missed my sarcasm and facetiousness

I was actually agreeing with you.


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## Bruce Monkhouse (3 Aug 2014)

Well then it was miles over my head.......my bad. :-[


EDIT: You obviously read it more than I did.  My interest waned to a quick skim very, very quickly, hence why I didn't catch your shot at it.


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## Brad Sallows (3 Aug 2014)

It is a pity that the things kids learn that are "miles over our heads" do not negate the need for remedial courses in first year university.


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## a_majoor (24 Oct 2014)

Since Canada slavishly follows the trends in the United States, it is instructive to understand where these ideas actually come from and why they were implimented. In this case, we also see the negative uninteded consequences of eliminating "internal" training and testing. (As a BTW, Boeing used to have an internal "apprentiship" program which qualified people to work as engineers, so the ability to do internal training can go to a very high level when there are no regulatory impediments):
(Part 1)

http://spectator.org/articles/60741/how-supreme-court-created-student-loan-bubble#!



> *How the Supreme Court Created the Student Loan Bubble*
> It all starts with Griggs v. Duke Power Co.
> 
> By Bill McMorris – From the September 2014 issue
> ...


----------



## a_majoor (24 Oct 2014)

Part 2



> Two years ago I interviewed Den Black, a former automotive engineer at GM supplier Delphi whose pension was slashed to speed up the auto bailout. His backstory interested me nearly as much as his grievance with the Obama administration. A few years before the Supreme Court issued the Griggs decision, he set out to join his brother as a line-worker at General Motors. He hadn’t been the best student, didn’t care much for school, but submitted to the hiring exam. The test revealed that he had an advanced understanding of physics and mathematics. Within a few years, he was given the opportunity to take the entrance exam to General Motors University. After two years at GMU, where he combined shiftwork with education, he emerged an engineer in management. It’s no bachelor’s degree, but judging by the patents he helped generate, it was a worthy investment.
> 
> The Griggs decision has made that organic rise through the ranks impossible, as disparate impact left businesses liable for those who failed to pass hiring tests.
> 
> ...


----------



## Edward Campbell (26 Oct 2014)

Here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from _The New York Times_ is an opinion piece by Nicholas Kristof (a columnist who is hard to pigeonhole as 'left' or 'right') that touches on Thucydides' last posts:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/26/opinion/sunday/nicholas-kristof-the-american-dream-is-leaving-america.html?smid=nytcore-ipad-share&smprod=nytcore-ipad&_r=0


> The American Dream Is Leaving America
> 
> Nicholas Kristof
> 
> ...




Let's, indeed, "fix the escalator," but let's make sure, first, that it's headed to someplace we want need to go ... let's fix the right escalator.

Richard Haas, _tweeted_, in response to Mr Kristol's column, ".@NickKristof on why making quality education available to all is key to reducing inequality-& why America is failing". There is one key word in Dr Haas' brief _tweet_ that is missing in Mr Kristof's column and in the sources he cites: *"quality."*

Going back a few years decades centuries, education, beyond enough "readin' and writin'" to understand one's bible (the reason John Knox introduced universal elementary into Scotland in the 16th century) and keep a simple account book (the reason all those Hudson's Bay Company _factors_ were Scots in the 17th and 18th centuries) was, indeed, the purview of the _elites_ and it was a very _general_ (liberal arts) education ~ heavy on philosophy and the classics and theology. Doctors, lawyers and engineers were _trained_, rather then being _educated_, as skilled _practitioners_ ~ they didn't need to be 'gentlemen' or, therefore, 'educated.' That changed in the 19th century when we put a premium on _certification_ ~ but some professions, most notably, medicine and the law, never bought, wholly, into the notion that one could learn to be a doctor or a lawyer in a university: that's why we still require MDs to do internships and residencies and why law school graduates must "article" before attempting the bar exam. It's also why engineers, for example, require a second level of _certification_, by their professional associations, before being "professional engineers." (I know, I know, many people think the professions are little better than trade unions, protecting a 'closed shop,' and there is, certainly, some truth in that ~ but there is more truth in the notion that the professions don't quite trust the universities.)

In the 20th century we moved even farther down the _certification_ path: faculties like commerce (and the MBA), education and journalism were allowed to create academic disciplines from what are, essentially, _crafts_.

But there as a problem that became evident in the 1950s and '60s in America: the American public education system did not, because it could not, prepare everyone for university. But the US equivalent of our _Laurentian elites_ demanded rigid adherence to the principle of equality and when blacks and white 'succeeded' at different rates they took it as being self-evident that a lack of equality was the problem ... and they were, largely, right. Elementary and secondary education were not, and still are not, anything like "equal" in _*quality*_ in the US or Canada. There are a whole host of social and economic reasons for that - ranging from income inequality (higher income people tend to live in defined neighbourhoods and they pay higher taxes for better schools) to less tractable social problems (well educated parents have books in the home, they 'value' education and help their children succeed; low income people often cannot do either) - and throwing money at e.g. inner city schools didn't help (because of the social problems, putting lipstick on am pig, etc).

The solution was to pass almost everyone into university ... where, _quelle surprise!_, a huge slice of the freshman intake failed. 

The solution to that problem was to create programmes that anyone could pass and, thereby, earn a BA; programmes like: Afro-American Studies, Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies, Journalism, Gastronomy, Emerging media studies (all those were taken from the web site of a 'high quality' US university which ranks in the top 100 of some "Top World University" lists). I'm sorry but graduating with any of those degrees does *NOT* equate to being educated.

Our universities can and should serve two functions:

     1. Provide a broad, general education ~ which will, I'm afraid, be of most 'use' to the _elites_, but are also excellent 'foundation' programmes for teachers; and

     2. Provide specialized educations to prepare people to enter several skilled occupations: scientists, obviously, doctors and lawyers (and theologians), too, and engineers and accountants and so on;
         whatever _*the real market demands*_. 

Most young people in Canada and the USA do not need a university education. Most useful skills can be learned on the job (apprenticeship or just starting to the bottom) of in a local 'community college.'

University is valuable ... and expensive. It is too valuable to be wasted on the majority of the young people who are there right now.


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## a_majoor (17 Dec 2014)

Google moves back towards the idea of aptitude testing vs credentialism in order to identify the best candidates:

http://qz.com/180247/why-google-doesnt-care-about-hiring-top-college-graduates/?utm_source=fb1205_5



> *Why Google doesn’t care about hiring top college graduates*
> Max Nisen
> February 24, 2014
> 
> ...


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## CougarKing (26 Dec 2014)

Student loan debt in both Canada and the US is something many graduates have acquired recklessly...to the point that some end up living in a car or on the streets with 150K in debt after dabbling in different courses they can't decide on. 

Business Insider



> *Mark Cuban Warns A Housing Bubble-Like Crash Is Coming To The Student Loan Business*
> By Myles Udland | Business Insider – Thu, 25 Dec, 2014 11:05 AM EST
> 
> Mark Cuban thinks colleges are going to go out of business.
> ...


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## ModlrMike (26 Dec 2014)

Thank God my kids are focused and funded. It's worth having them at home so that they graduate debt free. Of course I had the foresight to start saving for their education from the moment they were born.


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## a_majoor (30 Jan 2015)

While an American example, this is relevant to the discussion. Looking at the books my own children were required to read generates a similar list, and that means many of the issues are the same as well. I have tried to find similar discussions about Canadian educational changes, but there does not seem to be a systematic discussion about this (not to say there isn't, but I haven't discovered it yet):

http://www.thefederalistpapers.org/education-2/middle-school-reading-lists-100-years-ago-vs-today-show-how-far-american-educational-standards-have-declined



> *Middle School Reading Lists 100 Years Ago vs. Today Show How Far American Educational Standards Have Declined*
> BY JASON W. STEVENS - 505 COMMENTS · IN EDUCATION
> 
> There’s a delightful and true saying, often attributed to Joseph Sobran, that in a hundred years, we’ve gone from teaching Latin and Greek in high school to teaching remedial English in college.
> ...


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## a_majoor (9 Mar 2015)

Well the results are in, and it isn't pretty. We shold not be preening, since much of our educational agenda and methodology is imported from the US. I'm sure the Premier of Ontario is going to push a real STEM, problem solving and language education plans with the same determination she is going to push the new sex education agenda </sarc>

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/03/02/u-s-millennials-post-abysmal-scores-in-tech-skills-test-lag-behind-foreign-peers/?hpid=z4



> *U.S. millennials post ‘abysmal’ scores in tech skills test, lag behind foreign peers*
> By Todd C. Frankel March 2 
> 
> There was this test. And it was daunting. It was like the SAT or ACT -- which many American millennials are no doubt familiar with, as they are on track to be the best educated generation in history -- except this test was not about getting into college. This exam, given in 23 countries, assessed the thinking abilities and workplace skills of adults. It focused on literacy, math and technological problem-solving. The goal was to figure out how prepared people are to work in a complex, modern society.
> ...


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## cryco (9 Mar 2015)

I can't say I'm surprised. When I was in Uni in the 90s, a lot of the people I knew that came from Greece to study in Engineering were at least a year ahead in their math skills. Then we had the dumb @ass reforms that stopped grading and failing our poor little sensitive kids. 
Reap what you sow.


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## GnyHwy (10 Mar 2015)

I'm not surprised by this either. Knowing how to press buttons with software and apps that are specifically designed to make things easier is hardly tech savvy, nor is it multitasking. The only tech savvy persons are the ones designing the software (and even that is getting easier), not the ones using it.

How many of you old farts have been told by their kids and grand kids that they are out of date and technologically challenged, only to have those same kids beg them for help when something goes wrong?  :facepalm:    

I don't care if Einstein said this or not, it certainly applies.


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## The Bread Guy (10 Mar 2015)

GnyHwy said:
			
		

> How many of you old farts have been told by their kids and grand kids that they are out of date and technologically challenged, only to have those same kids beg them for help when something goes wrong?  :facepalm:


I know "anecdote" isn't the singular for "data", but a few months ago, when my fave bulk food store's point of sale/cash register unit crapped out (around Xmas, the busy baking season), the teenager said s/he couldn't even do the math on a calculator.  YMMV


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## larry Strong (10 Mar 2015)

milnews.ca said:
			
		

> I know "anecdote" isn't the singular for "data", but a few months ago, when my fave bulk food store's point of sale/cash register unit crapped out (around Xmas, the busy baking season), the teenager said s/he couldn't even do the math on a calculator.  YMMV




Seen that happen as well. Computer till was down and I handed over a twenty and the exact change.....screwed the kid right up, she could not do the math in her head.



Cheers
Larry


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## Brad Sallows (10 Mar 2015)

Mere "tech savvy" does help.  I agree with Tyler Cowen's "Average is Over" themes, one of which is that people who can use tech to support their job will prosper more than people who cannot.

Still, I lament the basic innumeracy which plagues many.  There is a reason to learn basics before learning to use tech tools.


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## GnyHwy (11 Mar 2015)

While I agree with you wholeheartedly, we will inevitably be dealing with this in the CAF also, probably a lot already.

The introduction of new techy type equipment into our inventory has made or is making us change the way we do things; much to many people's dismay.

Just speaking on education and training, it is tough to still teach the basics when the techy stuff needs to be taught in addition to the basics and no additional time is allotted to the courses.  Good thing distant online learning enables us to practice hands on drills with a mouse.  ;D


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## The_Falcon (13 Mar 2015)

This was posted on the FP site at the end of February, it's still up so I am reposting here

http://business.financialpost.com/2015/02/24/is-university-or-college-worth-the-investment-be-careful-who-you-listen-to/



> Is university or college worth the investment? Be careful who you listen to
> 
> 
> 
> ...


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## GnyHwy (13 Mar 2015)

Here you go, free as it gets. Probably costs a significant amount of time and the piece of paper saying you graduated will probably cost you too.  ;D

"Lecture 1 | Modern Physics: Classical Mechanics" - Leonard Susskind (Stanford).  
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyX8kQ-JzHI


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## a_majoor (24 Mar 2015)

While the American Interest is obviously reporting about US Institutions, I have anacdotal evidence that the same attitudes infest the Canadian Universities that I can observe (Queen's and UWO), and I suspect this is probably true of other Canadian Universities as well (particularly the ones which allow more extreme "Progressive" behaviour like sanctioned anti semetism, supressing free speech if it is against leftist tropes and so on). WRM makes a very good case that this is not only counter productive, but actively dangerous:

http://www.the-american-interest.com/2015/03/23/the-wrong-time-to-coddle/



> *The Wrong Time to Coddle*
> 
> Our classrooms have become more and more like cocoons just as the real world has become harsher. A piece in the NYT this weekend highlighted how sensitive students have become to anything that challenges their beliefs or makes them uncomfortable—and how far colleges have gone to accommodate them. That piece has already gotten a lot of attention, but here’s a follow-up to it, about one of the examples mentioned in the NYT piece (h/t Matt Yglesias):
> 
> ...


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## daftandbarmy (24 Mar 2015)

Well, as long as you're not 'religious' all should go well   ;D

Why Are Religious People (Generally) Less Intelligent?

Understanding the negative relationship between IQ and religiosity 

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/mr-personality/201312/why-are-religious-people-generally-less-intelligent

Catching up on my Xmas readings, I dived into the recent meta-analysis(link is external) on the negative correlation between IQ and religious beliefs, which, at least in my case, makes sense: I am highly religious but not very intelligent… or is it the other way around? [Sorry, I’m not smart enough to figure it out]. 

The paper has very few methodological weaknesses, but as we know correlation does not mean causation – though correlations do have causes.  

The key question, then, is why religious people are generally less intelligent. And the authors did not shy away from the answer, offering three compelling explanations:

(1) Intelligent people are generally more analytical and data-driven; formal religions are the antithesis: they are empirically fluffy and their claims are often in direct contradiction with scientific evidence, unless they are interpreted metaphorically – but maybe intelligent people are not that keen on metaphor. Another way of putting it is that people with a high IQ are more likely to have faith in science, which isn’t religion’s best friends (yes, yes, I do know about Einstein’s quotes).


(2) Intelligent people are less likely to conform, and, in most societies, religiosity is closer to the norm than atheism is. Although this interpretation is based on extrapolation, it still makes sense: first, smarter people tend to be less gullible; second, in most societies religious people outnumber atheists and agnostics - though global levels of religiosity have been declining(link is external), and there is substantial cultural variability(link is external) in religiosity levels.

(3) Intelligence and religiosity are “functionally equivalent”, which means that they fulfil the same psychological role. Although this intriguing argument contradicts points 1 and 2, it deserves serious consideration. Humans will always crave meaning. Religion – like science and logical reasoning – provides them with a comprehensive framework or system to make meaningful interpretations of the world. At times, religion and science are in conflict; but they can also act in concert, complementing each other to answer non-falsifiable and falsifiable questions, respectively. The authors conclude that some people satisfy their desire to find meaning via religion, whereas others do so via logical, analytical, or scientific reasoning – and IQ predicts whether you are in the former or latter group.


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## a_majoor (24 Mar 2015)

Frankly that is the most nonsensical thing I have seen in a long time.

Religion and science are two different things (and philosophically they can be thought of as complimentary; Science looks at "How" things are the way they are while Religion looks at "Why" things are the way they are). Many of the greatest minds in science were also very religious people, (indeed in the early enlightenment Natural Philosophy, as Science was then known, was often used as a means of glorifying the Creator), which suggests that intelligence isn't positively or negatively coupled to religion at all.

This is much like the study that purported to prove that conservatives were "less intelligent" than liberals, and I suspect that the same sort of methodology may have been used as well.

Of course since this supports the "narrative" then it will be endlessly circulated and quoted to prop up the Progressive worldview and shout down anyone who is religious and entering the public square to participate in debate or political office.


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## GnyHwy (26 Mar 2015)

I would simplify the crap out this and ask one question.  What do you spend your time thinking about each day?

If the answer is math facts, sciences and writing, you'll probably do pretty well on an IQ test.  If it is anything other than that, probably not.

But an IQ test alone is somewhat one dimensional.  There are many other attributes that could be chalked up as intelligence. 

I can't help but think about the show "Canada's Smartest Person".  I think they may be on to something. Of course they could probably ramp it up a notch two, but they would probably sacrifice home participation and entertainment value to do it (gotta pay the bills).


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## a_majoor (15 Jun 2015)

The State of Nevada comes up with a workable means of getting more educational choice to parents. A similar program would also work to lower health care costs, when people actually get "market" information (in the form of how much they have to pay) for various services, and can choose among "vendors":

http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/208592



> *BETTING ON SCHOOL CHOICE: Clint Bolick explains Nevada’s new “Education Savings Account.”*
> 
> ESAs allow parents to pull their children out of public schools and put the allotted tax dollars toward an education they prefer. This makes the phrase “school choice” a reality.
> 
> ...


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## kratz (13 Feb 2016)

Reference:  CBC.ca : NSCC instructor frustrated with 'entitled' students

This college instructor is adding to the discussion.

<snip>


> High school students are being "coddled" when it comes to assignment deadlines, according to one instructor at the Nova Scotia Community College.
> 
> Steffie Hawrylak-Young has been teaching communications at NSCC for almost 30 years. She says in the last decade, there has been a shift in how her students adjust to college learning — and it's not good.
> 
> ...


</snip>


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## ueo (13 Feb 2016)

Add to this sense of entitlement the fact that most high school grads and many university grads read and write at a significantly lower level relying on spellcheck and grammar checks to get a paper that somewhat resembles English/French, we have an almost perfect storm of institutionalised and accepted illiteracy. Does not bode well for the future IMHO.


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## mariomike (31 Aug 2016)

Aug 31, 2016 

Peel School Board:

1) Launches gender-neutral washrooms.

2 ) Ban students and staff from wearing clothing with logos that may be “hurtful and offensive.” Logos for the Chicago Blackhawks, Atlanta Braves, Cleveland Indians and Washington Redskins are all expected to be banned by the end of this year.

3 ) The board will also tackle the controversial issue of the black-male experience in the education system. Education Director Tony Pontes said these students are too often streamed into non-academic courses and are more likely to be suspended or expelled.
http://www.680news.com/2016/08/31/peel-school-board-launches-gender-neutral-washrooms-new-directives/

Same day in the news,
http://www.680news.com/2016/08/31/half-of-ontario-grade-6-students-failed-to-meet-provincial-math-standard/
Half of Ontario Grade 6 students failed to meet provincial math standard


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## Ostrozac (31 Aug 2016)

mariomike said:
			
		

> 2 ) Ban students and staff from wearing clothing with logos that may be “hurtful and offensive.” Logos for the Chicago Blackhawks, Atlanta Braves, Cleveland Indians and Washington Redskins are all expected to be banned by the end of this year.



I feel for the Kansas City Chiefs. Only one Super Bowl, and they have so few fans that their jerseys aren't even worthy of being banned.


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## ModlrMike (31 Aug 2016)

mariomike said:
			
		

> 2 ) Ban students and staff from wearing clothing with logos that may be “hurtful and offensive.” Logos for the Chicago Blackhawks, Atlanta Braves, Cleveland Indians and Washington Redskins are all expected to be banned by the end of this year.



Where in the Charter does it protect the right to not be offended?


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