Republicans can no longer be trusted to restore fiscal sanity, control
spending, and restrain corruption. Old ones need to be thoroughly flushed down
the toilet in shame (except
for Jeff Flake) before new ones can evolve. If we have a Democratic Party sweep the Presidential and
Congressional races in 2008, we can anticipate a much more friendly liberal media
toward Israel since Jews are intensely loyal (over 87% in the 2006 election) to
the Democratic Party. American Jews were a leading force bringing the Democratic
Party back in power in 2006. They must know something we don't know.
Sadly all sides of the terrorism wars in the Middle East
continue to commit civilian atrocities with
intent on the part of jihadists and
recklessness on the part of Israel. Israel appears to be placing its
last shred of hope on the Democratic Party to save Israel from Iran, Syria, and a fully-nuked
Pakistan.
Premature Israeli bombing of nuclear sites in Iran will badly damage
Democratic Party support for Israel. Let's hope that Israel does not make such a
huge blunder. Why interrupt crude and uncertain homemade nuclear bomb construction efforts and,
thereby,
force oil-rich Iran to immediately buy fully, albeit very expensive, operational Russian, Pakistani or
Asian nukes on the black market ? That's a much faster and surer way, perhaps in an
insane temper tantrum, to "wipe Israel off the map."
A Possible Solution to the University of
Michigan's Latest Affirmative Action DilemmaMary Sue Coleman is president of the University of
Michigan, which has already spent millions of taxpayers' dollars defending its
racial preferences in courts. She addressed what Tom Bray of the Detroit News
called "a howling mob of hundreds of student and faculty protestors" last week.
"Diversity matters at Michigan," she declared. "It matters today, and it will
matter tomorrow."
John Fund, "Preferences Forever? The
University of Michigan's president does her best George Wallace impersonation,"
The Wall Street Journal, November 20, 2006 ---
http://www.opinionjournal.com/diary/?id=110009275
Jensen Comment
Rather than spend millions more in taxpayer money fighting the new law (making
race-based admission and financial aid preferences illegal) or exposing the
University of Michigan to lawsuit risk, President Coleman should engineer the
University of Texas System solution to affirmative action in Michigan's higher
education system --- that highly effective Ten Percent Rule. Public universities
in Texas must give student admission and financial aid priorities to the top ten
percent of the graduates of any high school in the State of Texas without regard
to race.
An applicant of any race with a low SAT and high grades from an
inner-city or poor rural high school may thereby have priority over a high SAT
applicant from a wealthy suburban Texas high school or a high SAT applicant from
out of state.. Many educators in Texas praise the results
in in both encouraging more integration in housing and high schools as well as
the tremendous affirmative action success that cannot really be challenged in
court.
Some educators criticize that many of the best students in the
states are punished due to geographic happenstance. That is unavoidable as long
as all universities in the state are not perceived as having the same prestige
and opportunity. Actually I see nothing wrong with spreading the highest SAT
graduating seniors around to all state universities rather than concentrating
that talent at the two largest flagship state universities in Texas.
I'm a vocal supporter of the Ten Percent Rule, although it
greatly complicates high school grading where the top ten percent of a high
school class must be designated out of perhaps twenty percent of the graduates
having straight A grades under current grade inflation practices by teachers
and/or easy curriculum choices by devious students. (The
Boston Globe reports We're seeing 30, 40 valedictorians per class).
Learning is more than grades but grades have become the focal point for
opportunities in life. The President of the
University of Texas also expressed concerns that the Ten Percent Rule showed
signs of eventually taking all admission discretion away from the leading
universities in the system. Pros and cons of this Texas affirmative action
initiative were highlighted in a CBS Sixty Minutes video.
See "Is The
"Top 10" Plan Unfair?" at
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/10/15/60minutes/main649704.shtml
I've not seen where this affirmative action alternative has been advocated for
Michigan --- the state where affirmative action seems to be the most
controversial at the moment. To read about other alternatives tried in other
states
click here.
I recommend that President Coleman lobby for the Ten Percent Rule in
Michigan.
Grade Inflation from High School to Graduate School
The Boston Globe reports seeing 30-40 valedictorians per
graduating class
Extra credit for AP courses, parental lobbying and genuine hard work by
the most competitive students have combined to shatter any semblance of a
Bell curve
An increasing number of Canada's business schools are literally selling MBAs
to generate revenue
[some] professors who say their colleagues are so afraid of bad student
evaluations that they are placating students with A's and B's.
From Jim Mahar's blog on November 24, 2006 ---
http://financeprofessorblog.blogspot.com/
Grade inflation from HS to Grad school
Three related stories that are not strictly
speaking finance but that should be of interest to most in academia.
In the first article, which is from the
Ottawa Citizen,
accelerated and executive
MBA programs come under attack for their supposed detrimantal impact
on learning in favor of revenue.
MBAs dumbed down for profit:
"An increasing number of Canada's business
schools are literally selling MBAs to generate revenue for their
ravenous budgets, according to veteran Concordia University
finance professor Alan Hochstein.
That apparent trend to make master of business administration
degrees easier to achieve at a premium cost is leading to
'sub-standard education for enormous fees,' the self-proclaimed
whistleblower said yesterday"
The second article is a widely reported AP
article that that centers on High School grade inflation. This high
school issue not only makes the admissions process more difficult
but it also influences the behavior of the students ("complaining
works") and their their grade expectations ("I have always gotten
A's and therefore I deserve on here").
A few look-ins from
Boston Globe's version:
"Extra credit for AP courses, parental
lobbying and genuine hard work by the most competitive students
have combined to shatter any semblance of a Bell curve, one in
which 'A's are reserved only for the very best. For example, of
the 47,317 applications the University of California, Los
Angeles, received for this fall's freshman class, nearly 21,000
had GPAs of 4.0 or above."
or consider this:
""We're seeing 30, 40 valedictorians at a
high school because they don't want to create these distinctions
between students...."
and
"The average high school GPA increased
from 2.68 to 2.94 between 1990 and 2000, according to a federal
study."
This is not just a High School problem. In
part because of an agency cost problem (professors have incentives
to grade leniently even if it is to the detriment of students), the
same issues are regular discussions topics at all colleges as well.
For instance consider this story from the
Denver Post.
"A proposal to disclose class rank on
student transcripts has ignited a debate among University of
Colorado professors with starkly different views on whether
grade inflation is a problem....
[some] professors who say their colleagues
are so afraid of bad student evaluations that they are placating
students with A's and B's.
The few professors who grade honestly
end up with dismal scores on student evaluations, which affect
their salaries, professor Paul Levitt said. There is also the
"endless parade of malcontents" in their offices."
I would love to wrap this up with my
own solution, but obviously it is a tough problem to which there are
no easy solutions. That said, maybe it is time that I personally
look back at my past years' class grades to make sure I am not
getting too soft. If we all did that, we'd at least make a dent in
the problem.
"Admissions boards face 'grade inflation'," by Justin Pope, Boston
Globe, November 18, 2006 ---
Click Here
That means he will have to find other ways to
stand out.
"It's extremely difficult," he said. "I spent
all summer writing my essay. We even hired a private tutor to make sure
that essay was the best it can be. But even with that, it's like I'm
just kind of leveling the playing field." Last year, he even considered
transferring out of his highly competitive public school, to some place
where his grades would look better.
Some call the phenomenon that Zalasky's
fighting "grade inflation" -- implying the boost is undeserved. Others
say students are truly earning their better marks. Regardless, it's a
trend that's been building for years and may only be accelerating: Many
students are getting very good grades. So many, in fact, it is getting
harder and harder for colleges to use grades as a measuring stick for
applicants.
Extra credit for AP courses, parental lobbying
and genuine hard work by the most competitive students have combined to
shatter any semblance of a Bell curve, one in which 'A's are reserved
only for the very best. For example, of the 47,317 applications the
University of California, Los Angeles, received for this fall's freshman
class, nearly 21,000 had GPAs of 4.0 or above.
That's also making it harder for the most
selective colleges -- who often call grades the single most important
factor in admissions -- to join in a growing movement to lessen the
influence of standardized tests.
"We're seeing 30, 40 valedictorians at a high
school because they don't want to create these distinctions between
students," said Jess Lord, dean of admission and financial aid at
Haverford College in Pennsylvania. "If we don't have enough information,
there's a chance we'll become more heavily reliant on test scores, and
that's a real negative to me."
Standardized tests have endured a heap of bad
publicity lately, with the SAT raising anger about its expanded length
and recent scoring problems. A number of schools have stopped requiring
tests scores, to much fanfare.
Continued in article
"Regents evaluate grade inflation: Class Ranking Debated," by
Jennifer Brown, Denver Post, November 2, 2006 ---
http://www.denverpost.com/headlines/ci_4588002
A proposal to disclose class rank on student
transcripts has ignited a debate among University of Colorado professors
with starkly different views on whether grade inflation is a problem.
On one side are faculty who attribute the
climbing grade-point averages at CU to the improved qualifications of
entering students in the past dozen years.
And on the other are professors who say their
colleagues are so afraid of bad student evaluations that they are
placating students with A's and B's.
One Boulder English professor said departments
should eliminate raises for faculty if the GPAs within the department
rise above a designated level.
The few professors who grade honestly end up
with dismal scores on student evaluations, which affect their salaries,
professor Paul Levitt said. There is also the "endless parade of
malcontents" in their offices.
"You have to be a masochist to proceed in that
way," said Levitt, one of 10 professors and business leaders who spoke
to CU regents about grade inflation Wednesday.
CU president Hank Brown suggested in August
that the university take on grade inflation by putting class rank or
grade-point-average percentiles on student transcripts.
Changing the transcripts would give potential
employers and graduate schools a clearer picture of student achievement,
Brown said.
At the Boulder campus, the average GPA rose
from 2.87 in 1993 to 2.99 in 2004.
Regents are not likely to vote on the issue for
a couple of months.
Regent Tom Lucero wants to go beyond Brown's
suggestion and model CU's policy after Princeton University, where
administrators instituted a limit on A's two years ago.
"As long as we do something to address this
issue, I'll be happy nonetheless," he said.
But many professors believe academic rigor is a
faculty issue and regents should stay out of it.
"Top-down initiatives ... will likely breed not
higher expectations but a growing sense of cynicism," said a report from
the Boulder Faculty Assembly, which opposes Brown's proposals.
Still, the group wrote that even though grade
inflation has been "modest," the issue of academic rigor "deserves
serious ongoing scrutiny."
"More important than the consideration of
grades is the quality of education our students receive," said Boulder
communication professor Jerry Hauser.
CU graduates are getting jobs at top firms,
landing spots in elite graduate schools and having no trouble passing
bar or licensing exams, he said.
But faculty who believe grade inflation is a
serious problem said they welcome regent input.
Bob Jensen's threads on grade inflation are at the following two sites:
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm#GradeInflation
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#AcademicStandards
They're Ignorant of Their Ignorance
My undergraduate
students can’t accurately predict their academic performance or skill levels.
Earlier in the semester, a writing assignment on study styles revealed that 14
percent of my undergraduate English composition students considered themselves
“overachievers.” Not one of those students was receiving an A in my course by
midterm. Fifty percent were receiving a C, another third was receiving B’s and
the remainder had earned failing grades by midterm. One student wrote,
“overachievers like myself began a long time ago.” She received a 70 percent on
her first paper and a low C at midterm.
Shari Wilson, "Ignorant of Their
Ignorance," Inside Higher Ed, November 16, 2006 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2006/11/16/wilson
Jensen comment
This does not bode well for self assessment.
Bob Jensen's threads on assessment are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm
Honesty may be the best policy, but it's important to
remember that apparently, by elimination, dishonesty is the second-best policy.
George Carlin as quoted by Mark Shapiro at
http://irascibleprofessor.com/comments-11-25-06.htm
"The Infinite Mind" program on Cheating
Email message on November 15, 2006 from Richard
Reams [rreams@trinity.edu]
I heard the program Monday night on KSTX,
and some of you may find it interesting, especially the first 30 minutes or
so that focuses on academic cheating. Here’s the link:
http://www.lcmedia.com/mind452.htm
RR
---------------------------------------------------
Richard Reams, Ph.D.
Assistant Director
Counseling Services
Trinity University
One Trinity Place
San Antonio, Texas 78212-7200
215 Coates University Center
www.trinity.edu/counseling
**************************
In this hour, we explore
Cheating. Four out of five high school students say they've cheated. More
than half of medical school students say the same thing. Even The New York
Times has cribbed from somebody else's paper. Is everybody doing it? Guests
include Dr. Howard Gardner, professor in Cognition and Education at the
Harvard Graduate School of Education and co-director of a large-scale
research study called the GoodWork Project; renowned primate researcher Dr.
Frans de Waal, professor of psychology at Emory University; Dr. Helen
Fisher, research professor in the department of anthropology at Rutgers
University and author of Anatomy of Love: A Natural History of Mating,
Marriage, and Why We Stray; and country music group BR5-49, who perform the
Hank Williams classic, "Your Cheatin' Heart."
Host Dr. Fred Goodwin begins
with an essay in which he explores some of the reasons why attitudes toward
cheating seem to be more permissive than ever. He mentions "moral
relativism" in elite education; a media culture that end up making
celebrities of high-profile cheaters like Jayson Blair and Stephen Glass;
and the construction of elaborate laws and rules to codify and enforce moral
behavior, which sends the implicit message, "if it's legal, it's ethical."
Cheating among students is
rampant. Four out of five high school students admit to having cheated at
some point. Why is it so common? And why don't more students speak out? To
begin today, we hear from Mary Weed Ervin. She is now a freshman at Duke
University, but when she was a senior in high school in Virginia, she caught
her classmates cheating and did something about it, despite the
consequences.
After catching students in
her AP Biology class cheating, she told the teacher. Her classmates treated
her as if she were the bad guy. She felt even her friends would not stand up
for her, since they continued to hang out with the kids who cheated and
others who outright shunned her. She was insulted by some kids and, after
one party, she was even worried she might be attacked. As a result, she
stopped doing normal senior activities, and she felt very alone. At the end
of the year, though, she was awarded "Senior of the Year" by her peers, so
she knows a lot of her classmates must have supported what she did, even
though they never said so.
Then the Infinite Mind's
Devorah Klahr reports on cheating in schools. Remember when cheating meant
looking over your friend's shoulder? Well, not anymore. Today, many students
use technology to cheat. In addition to buying term papers off the Internet,
they use cell phones, text messaging, and digital computers, sometimes in
elaborate schemes to outwit teachers. "I’m just using my technology to my
advantage pretty much," says one high school cheater. "They gave me all the
tools to do it and I’m just using it to help myself. Because my parents
expect me to have good grades."
To catch these cheaters,
teachers are realizing they, too, have to become more tech savvy. Lou
Bloomfield, a professor at The University of Virginia, created "copyfind," a
computer program to catch cheaters. And many schools use an even larger
search engine called turnitin.com, which scans term papers against a large
database, ensuring that writing is original and not plagiarized. At the
University of Pennsylvania, Michele Goldfarb directs the office of student
conduct. She investigates suspicious looking papers. She remembers a term
paper that was especially obvious. "The faculty member thought the paper was
unusually sophisticated for the student," Goldfarb says, "… use of words
like, 'the pock marked landscape' and 'the steep sided hollows.'
Undergraduates do not talk that way, do not write that way.”
Educators seem to agree that
teaching integrity is the only way to stop cheating. Nobody's going to win
this technology arms race. Elizabeth Kiss is a professor of political
science at Duke University and a board member of the Center for Academic
Integrity. At the beginning of the semester, she tells her students to look
up at the ceiling and think about the trustworthiness of the architect who
designed the structure and the builders who built it. "So I get them to
think about the ways we depend every day on the honesty of other people. And
when people aren't trustworthy, others get hurt."
Next, Dr. Goodwin interviews
the distinguished developmental psychologist and neuropsychologist Dr.
Howard Gardner. He's a professor in Cognition and Education at the Harvard
Graduate School of Education and co-director of a large-scale research study
called the GoodWork Project. Perhaps best known for his theory of multiple
intelligences, he's the author of eighteen books and hundreds of articles.
Most recently, he co-authored the book Good Work: When Excellence and Ethics
Meet. A new book, Making Good: How Young People Cope with Moral Dilemmas at
Work will be out in February, 2004.
For The GoodWork Project,
Dr. Gardner has been interviewing people working in different fields --
science, journalism, and theater -- about good work, which he defines as
excellent and ethical. Everyone he spoke to knows the difference between
what is ethical and what is not, but the disturbing thing is how many people
said they cannot afford to do the right or honest thing if they want to get
ahead in their careers. He says there is a tension between the people they
want to be and the people they think they need to be to succeed.
He says that scientists --
geneticists, in particular -- had the easiest time doing good work, since
everyone wanted the same thing from them, and there was plenty of money and
support for their work. Many said they felt their only limitation was their
own abilities. Journalists, on the other hand, were in a very different
situation. They felt pulled in many directions -- to work faster, to cut
corners, to be more sensational ("if it bleeds, it leads") -- and, as a
result, it was difficult to do good work. As an example, Dr. Gardner
discusses the Jayson Blair case at The New York Times. Blair was caught
fabricating elements in stories, submitting receipts for trips he never
took, and, ultimately, plagiarizing. But, even before these things were
discovered, he had numerous corrections in his stories. Dr. Gardner says the
problem was that he was not chastised, but promoted. He did not have any
kind of deep mentoring -- in which someone conveys the larger purpose of the
work, explains why it is important not to cut corners, and provides regular
support.
In contemporary society,
particularly with the Internet, there are many ways to get around doing your
own work. He says being ethical requires a good, old-fashioned conscience --
even though we might be able to get away with cheating, we need to be able
to stop ourselves because we knows it's wrong and because we would not want
to live in a world where everyone cheated. In such a world, we would not be
able to trust anyone or anything.
To contact Dr.
Gardner, please write to: Dr. Howard Gardner, Harvard Graduate School of
Education, 201 Larsen Hall, 14 Appian Way, Cambridge, MA 02138. Or visit
www.pz.harvard.edu/Research/GoodWork.htm
To order Good Work: When
Excellence and Ethics Meet, click here.
Believe it or not, cheating
- and feeling cheated - is not unique to humans. Even monkeys want to be
treated fairly. Dr. Goodwin interviews primate researcher Dr. Frans de Waal,
a professor of psychology at Emory University and the author of many books,
including The Ape and the Sushi Master and, his latest, My Family Album:
Thirty Years of Primate Photography.
Dr. de Waal discusses two
different kinds of cheating found in primates. The first, deception, is
generally seen only in the great apes, who are our closest relatives and
capable of the highest levels of cognition. He says that in one chimp
colony, in which lower ranking males were not allowed to court females, he
saw one openly inviting a female to mate (which he does by showing her an
erection). At that moment, the alpha male rounded the corner, and the
lower-ranking male covered his penis with his hands -- hiding the evidence
of his wrongdoing. Dr. de Waal has also seen a chimp try to disguise his
nervousness in front of a rival. Chimps show nervosity by baring their
teeth, and this chimp used his fingers to press his lips together over his
teeth. This kind of behavior requires that the animal be aware of how others
perceive him or her. Chimps end up distrusting other chimps who often
deceive -- they develop methods for detecting cheaters. All this requires
high-level thinking.
Dr. de Waal then discusses
the other kind of cheating -- being shortchanged. He describes a recent
study he and a student, Sarah Brosnan, conducted with capuchin monkeys. They
set up a bartering system with the monkeys, in which they would give the
monkeys pebbles, and then the monkeys would exchange the pebbles for
cucumber pieces. Alone, a monkey would do this over and over again, until
the cucumber was gone. They then put two monkeys next to each other, and, in
exchange for the pebbles, they gave one of them a cucumber slice and the
other a grape, which is much better. The monkey getting the cucumber seemed
to have a very strong emotional reaction. He threw the pebbles out of the
cage, wouldn't accept the cucumber, and basically refused to participate in
the experiment. Dr. de Waal says this illustrates that monkeys have a sense
of fairness. In cooperative societies (whether monkeys or humans),
individuals need to make sure that they are not doing more work than others
for the same reward, or the same work for less reward. He says economists
have studied this in humans, since the reactions can seem irrational -- for
example, a person who was perfectly happy making $40,000 a year may get very
upset and quit her job if she realizes a co-worker doing the same job is
making $80,000. He believes his work with the monkeys may give us clues to
the evolution of the emotions behind this sort of reaction.
To contact Dr. de
Waal, please write to: Dr. Frans de Waal, C. H. Candler Professor of Primate
Behavior, Department of Psychology, 325 Psychology Building, Emory
University, 532 N. Kilgo Circle, Atlanta, GA 30322. Or visit
http://www.emory.edu/LIVING_LINKS/
To order My Family Album:
Thirty Years of Primate Photography, click here.
Next, we turn our attention
to a different kind of cheating -- adultery. In a special performance just
for The Infinite Mind, the country music group BR5-49 performs what may be
the ultimate anthem for spurned lovers -- Hank Williams' "Your Cheatin'
Heart."
To find out more about
BR5-49 or order a CD, please visit http://www.br549.com/.
It's hard to get an accurate
picture of how common adultery is -- surveys estimate it occurs in anywhere
from 15 to 80% of all marriages. Why do so many people do it? And has
technology redefined cheating? Dr. Goodwin speaks with Dr. Helen Fisher, a
research professor in the department of anthropology at Rutgers University.
She's the author of Anatomy of Love: A Natural History of Mating, Marriage,
and Why We Stray. Her new book Why We Love: The Nature and Chemistry of
Romantic Love will be out in early 2004. Dr. Fisher has joined us previously
for shows on Romance and Sexual Attraction.
Dr. Fisher says that she has
studied societies all over the world, and, in all of them, people cheat.
Because it seems to be so universal, she believes there must have been some
kind of evolutionary payoff. Looking back to our ancestors, she guesses that
since, in Darwinian terms, children are the way we spread our lineage to
future generations, a man who cheated might have doubled the number of his
genes getting passed on while a woman who cheated might have either received
more resources for her babies or increased the genetic variety of her
offspring. While none of this was conscious, of course, it would result in
the genes for this kind of behavior being passed on. Dr. Fisher says that
monogamy is not a common reproductive strategy in animals -- it only occurs
in species where both parents are needed to rear the young. But even among
birds, in which most species form pair bonds, there is "cheating." DNA
testing shows 10% of birds' offspring are not biologically related to the
supposed father.
Dr. Fisher then discusses
what she believes are three different circuits in the brain -- one for the
sexual drive, one for romantic love, and one for attachment. She think these
developed to serve different functions. The sex drive evolved so that we
would go after anything at all; romantic love evolved to focus our mating
energy on one person, and therefore be more efficient; and attachment
evolved so that we could tolerate the individual we are with, at least long
enough to raise one child. These systems often interact (i.e. at the start
of a relationship, we generally feel both sexual attraction and romantic
love), but they don't always interact, and that's where adultery comes in.
We can feel attachment for one person while we feel romantic love for
another. This does not mean, however, that we are destined to cheat. Dr.
Fisher says the part of the brain that makes us human is the prefrontal
cortex -- where we make decisions.
In response to a caller,
Jon, who is involved in a very serious email relationship with a married
woman, Dr. Goodwin and Dr. Fisher talk about how technology is allowing
people today to be more secretive about their affairs (hence all the
services advertising they'll catch your cheating spouse). Another caller,
Sheila, says that she thinks that any email relationship (like Jon's) or
serious office friendship that takes time and energy away from a spouse is
cheating. She asks what the costs are to a marriage, even with this kind of
cheating, which is not sexual. Dr. Fisher says the costs are enormous --
instead of building a relationship, you're undermining it. Ultimately, all
three people will get hurt. And although a spouse who is cheated on may get
over the betrayal, he or she will never forget it. She concludes by saying
she thinks forming an attachment to another person is the most ornate and
worthwhile single thing that the human animal can do.
To contact Dr. Fisher,
please write to: Dr. Helen Fisher, Department of Anthropology, Ruth Adams
Building, 131 George Street, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey,
New Brunswick, NJ 08901-1414. Or visit
http://anthro.rutgers.edu
To order Anatomy of Love: A
Natural History of Mating, Marriage, and Why We Stray, click here.
Finally, commentator John
Hockenberry wonders, just what defines cheating these days? He says, "In the
landscape of American culture, you can find cheating all over the map.
Cheating is that place between triumph and immorality, between out of the
box thinking and exploitation of the unsuspecting. The cheat-free similarly
inhabit a murky place between naïve stupidity and sainthood."
Bob Jensen's threads on cheating are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Plagiarism.htm
And educators are blaming everybody except for the cheaters doing the cheating
"Malaise," by Peter Berger, The Irascible Professor, November 25, 2006
---
http://irascibleprofessor.com/comments-11-25-06.htm
Thirty-seven summers ago Jimmy Carter spoke to
the nation about our "crisis of spirit." His address became known as his
"malaise" speech, even though he never actually used that word. Webster
defines malaise as an "indefinite lack of health" or "vague sense of
mental or moral ill-being." In order to grapple with problems like the
energy crisis and unemployment, President Carter called on us to examine
our outlook and our priorities.
Public schools have been staggering through
their own crisis for more than a generation. Part of the blame rests
directly on culprits we can see at school: bankrupt education theories
and assorted follies like self-esteem, whole language, and enfeebled
classroom discipline. The roots of the problem also extend to our homes
and civic institutions and appear as children from single-parent
families, drug use, and crime.
These are all issues we should address, but
we're also suffering from an underlying malaise of unsound priorities
and entitlement that's less visible but just as destructive to American
education. Here are a few symptoms of our ill-being.
There's nothing new about classroom
troublemakers. They've been disrupting other people’s education since
before chalk was invented, but today we don't call them troublemakers.
Instead, we obfuscate and invent syndromes for what they do. We say
they're "behaviorally challenged." We turn their conduct into ailments
like "oppositional defiance disorder." According to the psychologist who
coined this syndrome, when kids with ODD have tantrums and refuse to do
what they're told, they aren't "using coercion or manipulation to get
what they want." They're just the victims of their own "inflexibility"
and "poor frustration tolerance."
ODD isn't alone in the pantheon of euphemistic,
exculpatory conditions. Horn-blasting, tailgating, and obscene gestures
are no longer just unsafe, obnoxious driving. They’re not even "road
rage" anymore. They're evidence of "intermittent explosive disorder."
Remember that the next time some driver cuts you off and treats you to a
one-fingered salute.
IED also causes "temper outbursts," "throwing
or breaking objects and even spousal abuse," although "not everyone who
does those things is afflicted." How do you tell the difference?
Apparently, IED outbursts are characterized by "threats or aggressive
actions and property damage" that are "way out of proportion to the
situation," as opposed presumably to threats, aggressive actions, and
property damage that aren't way out of proportion to the situation.
According to researchers, a recently
administered questionnaire determined that IED afflicts sixteen million
Americans. Fortunately for the rest of us who have to endure IED
tantrums and assaults, they aren't "bad behavior." They're "biology."
Critics frequently charge that too many high
school graduates aren't prepared for college. The new bad news is that
too many college graduates aren't prepared for life. Universities are
responding with "life after college" programs. These "transition
courses" in what officials term "real life" skills teach college
students everything from "managing their credit cards" and "paying
taxes" to "making a plate of pasta" and "choosing a bottle of
Chardonnay."
We're not talking about second-rate
institutions. Alfred University's cooking program includes lessons in
"boiling water." Across the continent Caltech awards three credits for
its kitchen survival course. Sympathetic experts explain that today's
college seniors "lack practical skills because they spent their teens
more preoccupied than previous generations with racking up the grades,
SAT scores, and activities needed to get into top colleges."
That’s ridiculous. My 1960s high school peers
and I lived and died by our permanent records. Claiming that college
admissions suddenly became competitive is like arguing that today's
youth need extra self-esteem because they live under a nuclear threat, a
popular rationalization that conveniently ignores the fact that little
kids like me spent the 1950s hiding under our desks.
According to the Los Angeles Times, "preparing
meals" ranks high among parents' and students' "major concerns." This
begs two questions: Why aren't the concerned parents teaching these
skills, and is learning how to boil water and pay your bills really what
universities are for?
While they may be lost in the kitchen, students
are proving themselves adept in other endeavors. Aided by cell phones
and the Internet, cheating is on the rise at public schools and
colleges. In a Rutgers survey, ninety-seven percent of students polled
admitted to cheating in high school. Even allowing for the notorious
inaccuracy of student polls, the figure is alarming.
Still more alarming, cheating has its champions
among education reformers. One enlightened Northwestern University
professor blames schools when students copy answers, purchase term
papers, and steal exams. He's outraged that students can't copy each
other's work during tests. He endorses plagiarism and objects when a
student "receives no credit" for a paper just because it "was written by
somebody else." "No wonder", he fumes, that students "feel compelled to
lie" and put their own names on work they've "found."
He encourages "honest copying" where students
get credit for copying other people's work as long as they put the real
author's name on it. The professor maintains that allowing this species
of larceny would "reinforce the correct behaviors." Instead of being
"punished," the copier should be "rewarded" for "knowing where to seek
the information." In short, we need to "recognize cheating for the good
that it brings."
He's not the only advocate of cheating out
there. The Educational Testing Service's "teaching and learning" vice
president puts the blame for cheating on tests squarely on the tests
themselves and the schools that give them. She holds that it’s "small
wonder" that students "attempt to affect the outcomes" by cheating. She
argues that until we allow kids to "assist each other" during tests,
we're "inviting a culture of cheating."
Let's review. Psychologists are declaring
obnoxious, antisocial behavior a disease. Colleges are teaching adults
to boil water. And educators are blaming
everybody but the cheaters for cheating.
Sounds like a malaise to me.
Peter Berger
Bob Jensen's threads on cheating are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Plagiarism.htm
From The Wall Street Journal Accounting Weekly Review on November 17,
2006
TITLE: Colleges, Accreditors Seek Better Ways to Measure Learning
REPORTER: Daniel Golden
DATE: Nov 13, 2006 PAGE: B1
LINK:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB116338508743121260.html?mod=djem_jiewr_ac
TOPICS: Accounting
SUMMARY: The article discusses college- or university-wide accreditation by
regional accreditation bodies and reaction to the Spellings Commission report.
Questions extend the accreditation discussion to AACSB accreditation.
QUESTIONS:
1.) What is accreditation? The article describes university-wide accreditation
by regional accrediting bodies. Why is this step necessary?
2.) Does your business school have accreditation by Association to Advance
Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB)? How does this accreditation differ from
university-wide accreditation?
3.) Why are regional accrediting agencies planning to meet with Secretary
Spellings?
4.) Did you consider accreditation in deciding where to go to college or
university? Why or why not?
5.) Do you think improvements in assessing student learning are important, as
the Spellings Commission argues and accreditors are now touting? Support your
answer.
SMALL GROUP ASSIGNMENT: Find out about your college or university's
accreditation. When was the last accreditation review? Were there any concerns
expressed by the accreditors? How has the university responded to any concerns
expressed?
Once these data are gathered, discuss in class in groups:
Has this information been easy or difficult to find? Do you agree with the
assessment of concerns about the institution and/or the university's responses?
Reviewed By: Judy Beckman, University of Rhode Island
TITLE: Colleges, Accreditors Seek Better Ways to Measure Learning
REPORTER: Daniel Golden
DATE: Nov 13, 2006 PAGE: B1
LINK:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB116338508743121260.html?mod=djem_jiewr_ac
At the University of the South, a highly regarded
liberal-arts college in Sewanee, Tenn., the dozen professors who teach the
required freshman Shakespeare course design their classes differently,
assigning their favorite plays and writing and grading their own exams.
But starting next fall, one question on the final
exam will be the same across all of the classes, and instructors won't grade
their own students' answers to that question. Instead, to assure more
objective evaluation, the professors will trade exams and grade each other's
students.
The English department adopted this change --
despite faculty grumbling about losing some classroom independence -- under
pressure from the Southern Association of Schools and Colleges. The
association, one of the six regional groups that accredit nearly 3,000 U.S.
colleges, told the University of the South that, to have its accreditation
renewed, it would have to do a better job of measuring student learning.
Without such accreditation, the school's students wouldn't qualify for
federal financial aid.
The shift "does cut into the individual faculty
member's autonomy, and that's disturbing," says Jennifer Michael, an
associate professor. "On the other hand, it's making us think about how do
we figure out what students are actually learning. Maybe having them take
and pass a course doesn't mean they've learned everything we think they
have."
Regional accreditors used to limit their
examinations to colleges' financial solvency and educational resources, with
the result that well-established schools enjoyed rubber-stamp approval. But
now they are increasingly holding colleges, prestigious or not, responsible
for undergraduates' grasp of such skills as writing and critical thinking.
And prodded by regional accreditors, colleges are adopting various means of
assessing learning in addition to classroom grades, from electronic
portfolios that collect a student's work from different courses to
standardized testing and special projects for graduating seniors.
The accreditors aren't moving fast enough for the
Bush administration, though. In the wake of a federally sponsored study
published in 2005 that showed declining literacy among college-educated
Americans, Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings and a commission she
appointed on the future of higher education want colleges to be more
accountable for -- and candid about -- student performance, and they have
criticized accreditors as barriers to reform.
Congress sets the standards for accreditors, and
the Education Department periodically reviews compliance with those
standards. Congress identified "success with respect to student achievement"
as a requirement for accreditation in 1992, and then in 1998 made it the top
priority. That imperative, along with the advent of online education, has
spurred accreditors to rethink their longtime emphasis on such criteria as
the number of faculty members with doctorates. Since 2000, several regional
accreditors have revamped their rules to emphasize student learning.
"Accreditors have moved the ball forward," says
Kati Haycock, a member of the Spellings commission and the director of the
nonprofit Education Trust in Washington, D.C., which seeks better schooling
for disadvantaged students. "Not far enough, not fast enough, but they have
moved the ball forward."
An issue paper written for the commission by Robert
Dickeson, a former president of the University of Northern Colorado,
complained that accreditation "currently settles for meeting minimum
standards," and it called for replacing regional accreditors with a new
national foundation. "Technology has rendered the quaint jurisdictional
approach to accreditation obsolete," Mr. Dickeson wrote.
The commission didn't endorse that recommendation,
but its final report last month cited "significant shortcomings" in
accreditation and called for "transformation" of the process. In a Sept. 22
speech marking the release of the report, Secretary Spellings said that
accreditors are "largely focused on inputs, more on how many books are in a
college library than whether students can actually understand them....That
must change."
David Ward, a commission member and the president
of the American Council on Education, a higher education advocacy group,
declined to sign the report, in part because he objected to its criticism of
accreditors as overly simplistic.
Russell Edgerton, president emeritus of the
American Association for Higher Education, says "there's no question that
American colleges are underachieving," but he argues that accreditors are
rising to the challenge. "Ten years ago, I would have said that regional
accreditors are dead in the water and asleep at the wheel," he says. But
"there's been a kind of renaissance within accreditation agencies in the
past five to six years. They're helping institutions create a culture of
evidence about student learning."
Mr. Edgerton also thinks the federal government's
emphasis on new accountability measures is flawed because it bypasses the
judgment of traditional arbiters like faculty and accreditors. "The danger
is that the standardized testing approach in K-12 would slop over into
higher education," he says. "Higher ed is different."
Jerome Walker, associate provost and accreditation
liaison officer for the University of Southern California, agrees that the
administration's attacks on accreditors are unfair. The Western Association
of Schools and Colleges, which accredits USC, "has been extremely sensitive"
to student learning, he says.
According to the Western Association's executive
director, Ralph Wolff, the group revamped its standards in 2001 to require
colleges to identify preparation needed by entering freshmen and the
expectations for student progress in critical thinking, quantitative
reasoning and other skills. Its accreditation process now takes four years,
up from 1½, and it features a detailed, peer-reviewed proposal for
improvement and two site visits, including one devoted to "educational
effectiveness."
Historically, research universities like USC "used
to blow off" accreditation, Mr. Wolff says. "Now this has become a real
challenge for them in a good way."
Encouraged by Mr. Wolff, USC last year assigned the
same two essay questions -- one about conformity, another based on a
quotation from ethicist Robert Bellah -- to freshmen in a beginning writing
course and juniors and seniors in an advanced course. A group of faculty
then evaluated the essays without knowing the students' names or which
course they were taking. The reassuring outcome, according to Richard
Fliegel, assistant dean for academic programs, was that juniors and seniors
"demonstrated significantly more critical thinking skills" than freshmen,
and that advanced students who had taken the first-year course outperformed
transfer students who hadn't taken beginning writing at USC.
Because the writing initiative is tailored to USC's
curriculum, the results -- while helpful to administrators and accreditors
-- wouldn't necessarily help the public compare USC to other schools. That
is a big drawback as far as the Bush administration is concerned. "I have
two kids in college now," says Vickie Schray, deputy director of the
Spellings commission. "It's a huge expense. Yet there's very little
information on return of investment or ability to shop around for the
greatest value."
She adds, though, that it is a "misconception" to
think that the administration wants to have "one standardized test for all
institutions" or to extend the testing requirements of the "No Child Left
Behind" law for K-12 schools to higher education.
Even so, one standardized test of critical
thinking, the Collegiate Learning Assessment, is becoming popular. It
adjusts for students' scores on the SAT and ACT college-entrance exams,
potentially allowing more meaningful comparisons of the value added by
colleges. The number of schools using the assessment has soared from 54 two
years ago to 170 this year. Among those using the test this fall: the
University of Texas at Austin, Duke University, Arizona State University and
Washington and Lee University.
Roger Benjamin, president of the nonprofit Council
for Aid to Education, which sponsors the test, says state officials and
university administrators have been the principal forces behind its
increasing use. "Accreditors are coming to the party, but a bit late," Mr.
Benjamin says.
Meanwhile, Secretary Spellings plans to meet with
accreditors in late November to discuss how to "accelerate the focus on
student achievement," Ms. Schray says. Accreditors say they welcome the
opportunity to tout their progress. "We have made a lot of reforms," says
the Western Association's Mr. Wolff. "We'd like to bring the secretary
up-to-date on the significance of these reforms and the impact they're
already having on institutions."
Colleges, Accreditors Seek Better Ways to Measure Learning
Assessment/Learning Issues: Measurement and the No-Significant Differences ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Assess.htm#AssessmentIssues
Bob Jensen's threads on assessment are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm
Bob Jensen's threads on higher education
controversies are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm
The NFL's Highest Paid Quarterback Finds His Most Reliable Use for Both Hands
Michael Vick apologized for making an obscene gesture
toward Atlanta fans as he walked off the field after the Falcons' fourth
straight loss Sunday. Vick used both hands to deliver the gesture and flashed an
angry look toward the handful of fans remaining in the Georgia Dome.
Paul Newberry, The Herald Tribune, November 26, 2006 ---
Click Here
Next time this store clerk most certainly won't forget to go to confession
The Rev. Joseph Tu Tran, 51, from St. Charles Borromeo
Catholic Church in Pointe-aux-Chenes, was "highly intoxicated" when he went into
Roland’s Mini-Mart in Bourg around 8 p.m. carrying a 12-gauge shotgun and later
threatened a store clerk with a .270-caliber rifle,
"Karina Donica, "Houma-area priest charged with assaulting officer, firing
weapon," WWLTV New Orleans, November 26, 2006 ---
http://www.wwltv.com/local/stories/wwl112606tprampage.293fc161.html
Grants Available from the FASB: YOU
MUST ACT SOON
November 21, 2006 from Neal Hannon at the FASB --- Neal Hannon
[njhannon@f-a-f.org]
The Financial Accounting Foundation and XBRL
US, Inc. are looking for a few SEC notes and disclosures experts for a
short-term assignment. The primary need is to build a data model for the
XBRL tagging of notes to financial statements. Subject matter experts
need to research authoritative literature, research current reporting
practice, and assemble the results into a data model that can be coded
with XBRL. Focusing on SEC filings, our team has identified over 175
notes and is in the process of assembling accounting subject matter
experts. The work is fully funded at corporate rates. It may be possible
that some assignments can be completed during the Christmas break.
Training in XBRL for subject matter experts is scheduled for Dec 13-15
at the FDIC training center in the Washington, DC area. If you are
interested, please forward your resume to
njhannon@f-a-f.org
Thanks, Bob and I wish both of you all the
best.
Neal
PC World's Digital Duo Videos (Tech Advice) ---
http://www.pcworld.com/digitalduo/video/224-0/video.html
"The Single Worst Thing About MS Office 2007," by Jim C, PC World,
November 20, 2006 ---
http://blogs.pcworld.com/techlog/archives/003172.html
I've said here that I'm a fan of
Microsoft Office 2007. After using it even
more, for most of my daily work, I still am. But one major downside
merits mention: It's kind of an unfinished product.
What I mean by that is that the suite's
new interface, which is by far the major
reason to consider upgrading, has only been implemented in some of the
applications. Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Access have it throughout;
Outlook has it for the tools relating to composing e-mails, tasks, and
contacts.
But everything else in Office 2007 has the old,
traditional, menu-oriented interface--the one which Microsoft says its
own research shows users think pales in
comparison to the new one. Here, for instance, is a bit of Word 2007's
tabbed, visual look:
Jensen Comment
So what's new? Every Microsoft product is an unfinished product!
Since when does lack of interest count when setting curriculum
requirements?
The University of Reading, in Britain, announced
Monday that it would go ahead with plans to close its physics department,
The Guardian reported.
The university has cited a lack of fund and declining student interest, but
the decision has been widely criticized by scientists throughout Britain,
who see it as a sign of potential erosion of the country’s science capacity.
Inside Higher Ed, November 22, 2006
New Gizmos for Spying On Your Spouse or
Your Kids or Your Employees
One evening two months after I installed the
CarChip, I suggested to my wife that we light some candles, put on some soft
music, gather at my computer, and review her driving record. Although the
CarChip records only how fast the car is moving, the patterns in my wife's
daily routine made it easy for us to figure out where it had been traveling
at which points on the graph. When the car starts at 8:50 a.m., drives three
miles, and stops at 9:15 a.m., that's a pretty good indication that my wife
has just taken our twins to school--and gotten there 15 minutes late. She
does this with staggering regularity.
Simpson Garfinkel, "Spying On My
Wife: Surveillance gizmos are a part of my life. What do they reveal?"MIT's
Technology Review, November 14, 2006 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/InfoTech/17720/