Thursday, April 21, 2011

Students not eager to redistribute GPA scores

Petition to Redistribute GPA Scores:



The College Republicans at the University of California-Merced ask fellow students, who support raising taxes on the rich, if they would be willing to redistribute their GPAs. They don’t think it’s a good idea because they earned their grades.

SOURCE





Academic Rot

Walter E. Williams

The average American, as parent, student and taxpayer, has little idea of the academic rot at so many of our colleges. Save for a tiny handful of the nation's colleges, what distinguishes one college from another is the magnitude of that rot.

One of the best sources of information about our colleges is the New York City-based Manhattan Institute's quarterly Web magazine, Minding the Campus, edited by John Leo, former columnist for U.S. News & World Report.

The magazine's Winter 2010 edition contains an article by Dr. Candace de Russy, former member of the board of trustees of the State University of New York (SUNY), titled "Hate-America Sociology." De Russy's colleague sent her a copy of a student's exam from an introductory sociology class found lying in a room at an East Coast public college. The professor had given it a perfect score of 100. Here are some of the questions asked and the student's written response:
"Question: How does the United States 'steal' the resources of other (third world) countries?

"Answer: We steal through exploitation. Our multinationals are aware that indigenous people in developing nations have been coaxed off their plots and forced into slums. Because it is lucrative, our multinationals offer them extremely low wage labor that cannot be turned down.

"Question: Why is the U.S. on shaky moral ground when it comes to preventing illegal immigration?

"Answer: Some say that it is wrong of the United States to prevent illegal immigration because the same people we are denying entry to, we have exploited for the purpose of keeping the American wheel spinning." ...

"Question: What is the interactionist approach to gender?

"Answer: The majority of multi-gender encounters are male-dominated. (F)or example, while involved in conversation, the male is much more likely to interrupt. Most likely because the male believes the female's expressed thoughts are inferior to his own.

"Question: Please briefly explain the matrix of domination.

"Answer: The belief that domination has more than one dimension. For example, Males are dominant over females, whites over blacks, and affluent over impoverished."

Out of retaliation fears, de Russy withheld the name and university of her colleague who sent the exam. Teaching students hate-America indoctrination is widespread, as I've documented in the past.

A few years ago, according to UCLA's Bruin Standard, Mary Corey, UCLA history professor, instructed her class, "Capitalism isn't a lie on purpose. It's just a lie." She continued, "(Capitalists) are swine. ... They're bastard people."

Rod Swanson, a UCLA economics professor, told his class, "The United States of America, backed by facts, is the greediest and most selfish country in the world."

Professor Andrew Hewitt, chairman of UCLA's Department of Germanic Languages, told his class, "Bush is a moron, a simpleton and an idiot." The professor's opinion of the rest of us: "American consumerism is a very unique thing; I don't think anyone else lusts after money in such a greedy fashion."

An English professor at Montclair State University in New Jersey tells his students, "Conservatism champions racism, exploitation and imperialist war."

University officials are aware of this kind of academic rot, but not university trustees who bear the ultimate responsibility for the university's welfare. Trustees are mostly yes-men for the president. Legislators and charitable foundations that pour billions into colleges are unaware as well. Most tragically, parents who cough up thousands in tuition to send their youngsters off to be educated, rather than indoctrinated, are unaware of the academic rot as well.

You say, "Williams, what can be done?" Students should record classroom professorial propaganda and give it wide distribution over the Internet. I've taught for more than 40 years and have routinely invited students to record my lectures so they don't have to be stenographers during class. I have no idea of where those recordings have wound up, but if you find them, you'll hear zero proselytization or discussion of my political and other personal preferences. To do otherwise, I consider to be academic dishonesty.

SOURCE






Scandal of Britain's untrained teachers: Thousands don't have degrees in the subjects they teach

More than a quarter of teachers in many subjects do not have any qualification beyond an A-level in the course they teach, official figures reveal. Almost a million children are taught maths by ‘inadequately qualified’ teachers, and English doesn’t fare much better.

Government statistics on nearly 140,000 secondary school teachers – collected for the first time – show a shocking proportion of teachers do not have a degree in their subject. Education experts warn that this ‘alarming’ lack of qualifications will result in schools becoming trapped in a spiral of slipping standards.

A quarter of maths teachers in secondary schools – 26.6 per cent or 8,745 – do not have a degree in their subject, and nor do 28.7 per cent of geography teachers, 31.4 per cent of physics teachers and 55 per cent teaching religious education. Worse still, 63 per cent of business and economics teachers and 82 per cent in media studies do not have a degree in their chosen field.

Of the ‘core’ subjects included in Education Secretary Michael Gove’s new performance measure, the EBacc, biology is the only subject to have a high proportion of teachers, 92 per cent, who are subject specialists. A total of 7,560 of 36,600 secondary school English teachers – 21 per cent – do not have an English degree.

Professor Alan Smithers, of Buckingham University, said: ‘The lack of qualifications held by teachers is alarming and will have consequences. ‘It is little wonder that in comparison with the rest of the developed world, our standards are slipping. It takes more than a good degree to make a good teacher. But sound subject knowledge, gained from a degree, is absolutely key. ‘How can teachers passionately communicate their subject if they do not have a good level of understanding about it?’

He said the Government urgently needs to break the cycle of inadequate training because it results in less qualified students and, as a result, a smaller pool from which to find the teachers of the future.

Yesterday’s figures, from the Department for Education, were collected as part of the 2010 school workforce census. In previous years the Government has used a sample of staff to gauge the level of teachers holding degrees. This year they sought to gather information on all 200,000 qualified teachers, and 140,000 responded.

The figures follow Mr Gove’s pledge to attract more graduates with first-class honours into teaching to raise the status of the profession. However, the Coalition has also cut the number of training places and axed ‘golden hellos’ for all but maths and science teachers. Graduates with less than a 2:2 degree will no longer be eligible for teacher training funding.

Schools Minister Nick Gibb said: ‘We are trying to increase the number of graduates in subjects coming into teacher training.’

A Department for Education spokesman added: ‘It’s clear that the leading systems are built on teachers with expert, specialist subject knowledge. ‘We’ve struggled to attract enough graduates in shortage subjects like physics, chemistry and maths for a long time. That’s why we’re taking radical steps to toughen up recruitment and training. ‘We are going to overhaul professional development so existing teachers keep their skills and knowledge up to scratch.’

SOURCE

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