American Secondary Education: FAIL

Here's a video that shows just how bad our high school educational system is...




via NewsAlert.com

Inflating the Higher Education Bubble

A short video by the BlogFather, Glenn Reynolds...



via Instapundit

Rand Paul On Letterman Show

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) was on the Letterman show last week.  Here's the video via Hit & Run,



Here's where Rand is right, and Letterman is wrong, according to Thomas Woods, 

Rand correctly noted that the top 1% of income tax earners pay one-third of all the income taxes, with the top 50% paying 96%. So the "rich" are already paying plenty. Letterman's response? There must be something wrong with those numbers, he said to applause from the audience. So the audience is in effect saying, "We also refuse to believe those numbers!" But those numbers are correct....


Rand explains, again correctly, that spending more money on education has not improved educational outcomes. Letterman's response? Well, education is important, so we've got to try something -- how about spending more money? But by the time of George W. Bush's term, per-pupil spending, adjusted for inflation, had already doubled since LBJ....

Letterman wonders why we can't just loot the "rich" some more. Well, if we'd like to make still more firms leave the U.S., that'd be a good start. Want to strangle the growth on which everyone's welfare depends? By all means pursue this strategy....

Rand points out, correctly, that the compensation package for Wisconsin teachers is extremely attractive, amounting to over $80K annually. Letterman, to general applause, says that figure should be doubled. Isn't education important? This is the level of reasoning people appear comfortable with. On Big Rock Candy Mountain there's a giant pile of cash overlooked by the governor and the rest of us. Don't worry that the pension systems are going to bankrupt the states -- that's nothing a doubling of teacher salaries won't solve.

This is an excellent illustration of the ignorance that abounds on the Liberal left's [self deluded] "intelligencia."   Not enough money in the state's budget, just raise taxes.  Teacher's don't make enough raise their salaries.  Unforunately for tax payers, teachers aren't paid, based upon the performance of their students.  Just over 50% of Wisconsin children graduate from high school...yet these people are paid upwards of $80,000.00 per annum in total compensation...for what in academia are...failing grades.

We, as a nation have fed hopper after hopper's full of cash into the education system, yet that system hasn't produced the desired results.  Eventually, the taxpaying public is going to revolt...and begin demanding results, or else the termination of those teachers who aren't doing their jobs.  After all, if kids are failing in school...who's fault is it?  It can't possibly be the parents fault, after all, they probably don't ensure that their kids are actually doing any homework...but then, our system tends to just throw more money at problems rather than actually attempting rational solutions. 

After all, the Obama Administration terminated the one program in the Washington, DC school system that was actually producing results...vouchers and school choice...

Glenn Reynolds On Higher Education Bubble

Here's Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit.com fame's lecture on the higher education bubble that he delivered at Clemson University.


Glenn Reynolds - The Higher Education Bubble and What Comes Next from Clemson Institute on Vimeo.

Most Expensive Public School In History

Here's a report on the most expensive public school in history.  It's in Los Angeles, and cost $578,000.000.00, yep 578 million dollars.

More Women Admitted to Colleges & Universities Than Men

The percentage numbers of men attending have been dropping for the past three decades.  Recently, the Philadelphia Inquirer carried a story relating this.  It goes on at great length about how men are only making up roughly 35% of enrolements at major universities while at other institutions, female enrolement is topping 70%. 

Since the late 1970's when political correctness became the course de rigour for the American left, and by extension, American universities, the our educational system has developed a bias that emphasises the importance of women.  Our entire society has become geared that way.  Just look at any of the sitcoms that have been broadcast since 1980.  The show "Father Knows Best" has given way to "Tim Taylor the Tool Guy" a man so inept that nothing he does works as he intends...

In the Inquirer piece, several academics are quoted,

Margaret Anderson, a sociology professor and an acting associate provost at Delaware, echoed a common sentiment among students and administrators when she said women seemed more motivated to go to college and more assertive about how to get in.  I think women do know they need some education to have security in their lives," she said. "If you don't get an education, you know you're going to be dependent on someone." But that is not the same message young men seem to be getting.

Because it's not.  Men, in our public educational system are not treated at all the same.  They are often relegated to second class status and  young women are pushed much harder to finish high school.

Michael Kimmel is a sociologist at the State University of New York at Stony Brook and author of Guyland: The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men...And a recent report shows the gender gap is no longer widening. But inside the numbers is another story.   According to Kimmel, upper-income men are going to college at the same rate as their female counterparts. But black men make up only 35 percent of black college students. Latino men make up 40 percent of Latino students. And working-class men make up only one-third of working-class students. "The crisis of attendance is not uniform but affects poor and minority students more significantly," Kimmel said.

Men, he believes, have not figured out how to navigate a changed economy that increasingly demands a college degree for a good job. And more often, studies show, they shrug off the value of a college education, Kimmel said. "They think that studying is wimpy, that studying and caring about what happens in classes is sissy." [emphasis is mine, ed.]

And that view point is common in academic circles.  That is how academia views the vast numbers of American men.  That men are too stupid to understand what is good for them and play sports...womeen do books   This stems from the plethora of "**** Studies" degree programs that have supplanted many more traditional areas of study.  Many of these "Studies" programs emphasize that men and Western men in particular are the source of evil in the world today.  The view that school is "sissy" stems from the bias that women "do better" that has insinuated itself and become endemic throughout the system.

An additional problem is the looming education bubble.  With tuition rates having grown since the early 1970's by more than 450% while inflation has risen by less than 30% means that far fewer people are afording education, and those that do manage to complete a degree program, often have a tremendous level of debt sometimes rising above $250,000.00.  After all, if you get a psychology degress (one of the most prevelent degrees today) you generally end up flipping burger in McDonalds because unless you get at least a masters degree there aren't enough jobs to go around.  If your degree is a "***** Studies" diploma, anything less than a Ph.D. means much the same thing.  Today, less than 20% of liberal arts degrees gain employment in the field in which they studied.

But, of course Big Brother must investigate that some universities and colleges have "lower admittance standards" to gain more male students.  That's discrimination...not realizing that this is EXACTLY what is being done for "affirmative action" wherein minority students are given spots in universities, often with much lower admission requirements than a male of European descent.  But if male students are given a preference, then

"Colleges will then be unable to attract the female students they want most - or so they fear," wrote Gail Heriot, a professor of law at the University of San Diego and a member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.  Alerted by media reports that some admissions officers may be accepting less-qualified male students over female applicants, the Civil Rights Commission is investigating whether women are being discriminated against in college admissions.  "Everybody should feel very uncomfortable by the notion that it is more difficult for a woman to get into a college than a man," Heriot said in an interview.

Thus...the guv'mint will now be involved, trying to undo what they did in the first place...Catch 22...if you really want to FUBAR something...let the government get involved.  Better yet, let CONGRESS try and "fix" it. 

From the comments comes the most succinct argument: 

djdekok
The article COMPLETELY misses the reason for the lack of men attending college: The feminization of K-12 education. From the earliest grades onward, men are minimized, dismissed, and otherwise left out of the equation. Anyone who disputes this--try being the only male faculty member at an elementary school (I've been there). To begin with you're looked upon with suspicion (Why is he so interested in teaching little kids? Why doesn't he have a real man's job? hmm...). Teachers without a clue try to apply the same teaching and discipline techniques to boys as they do to girls and then wonder wny the boys act out. These boys are labeled ADHD (when in most cases it's simply a matter of wanting to be treated like a boy), drugged into submission, put into special education classes, and from there the downward spiral speeds up. Fewer boys are ready for honors or AP classes; fewer boys are ready for college upon graduation (if they DO graduate at all), and the result is what you're seeing today. It's not a new phenomenon, and the solution is neither easy nor politically expedient.

Let's face it: this is a major societal screwup, and the sooner we grasp what it is to raise a boy to become a man, and that it IS different than raising a girl to become a woman, the better off we'll be as a society. Don't know where to begin? Start in the home, start at your place of worship, with someone you TRUST--but for society's sake, START. [emphasis is mine, ed.]

You really want to fix higher education?  Institute an admittance test.  If you pass it, you get in, if you don't you don't.  Even better would be to remove all names from applications, use only SSN's for identify applicants.  That way, their records would speak for themselves...not their names or photographs.

Fed Turns Down New Jersey For Hundreds Of Millions Of Education Funds

The Federal Dept of Education turned down the State of New Jersey for having ONE incorrect page of a 1,000 page grant application.