Posted on 08/15/2006 9:10:59 AM PDT by JSedreporter
It’s official. We are a nation of illiterates, with college degrees. “As if this weren’t enough, there are also disturbing signs that many students who do earn degrees have not actually mastered the reading, writing and thinking skills we expect of college graduates,” the U. S. Commission on the future of higher education found. “Over the past decade, literacy among college graduates has actually declined.”
“Unacceptable numbers of college graduates enter the workforce without the skills employers say they need in an economy where, as the truism holds correctly, knowledge matters more than ever.” The commission members, who serve without pay, were appointed by the U. S. Secretary of Education—Margaret Spellings. On August 10th, they approved for submission to the Secretary their report with its gloomy findings on college literacy.
“According to the most recent National Assessment of Adult Literacy, for instance, the percentage of college graduates of all ages deemed proficient in prose literacy has actually declined from 40 to 31 percent in the past decade,” the commission reported. “These shortcomings have real-world consequences.”
“Employers report repeatedly that many new graduates they hire are not prepared to work, lacking the critical thinking, writing and problem-solving skills needed in today’s workplaces.”
So what did the commission recommend? “The federal government, states and institutions should significantly increase need-based student aid.” And how did the business leaders on the committee react to that finding? They promised to support it.
None mentioned the trendlines on student aid that already show that this subsidy is zooming off the charts while colleges and universities jack up fees and spending every year. In other words, the commission meeting looked much like board of trustees meetings on most college campuses.
“We do better by the best but not by the rest,” Trinity University’s Arturo Madrid observes. “We are privileging the privileged.” Dr. Madrid is a Murchison Distinguished Professor of Humanities in the Department of Modern Languages and Literature at Trinity.
In a commission dominated by academics and their allies, economist Richard Vedder stood out at the unveiling of the report at the Department of Education by bringing up salient issues that other members would not address. For example, he noted that two-thirds of college spending is already paid for by public funding.
“For me it was a tough decision to vote for this report,” Dr. Vedder said at the meeting at the DOE. Specifically, he criticized the deletion of any reference to “the $80 billion student loan industry omitted due to protests to the chair [Charles Miller].” For the record, the chair did not respond nor did any of Dr. Vedder’s fellow commissioners.
Dr. Vedder is a distinguished professor of economics at Ohio State University. He went on to criticize other “errors of omission” in the report including the lack of references to:
• “The deplorable lack of intellectual diversity” on college campuses.
• “Hedonism on campus.”
• “Members of Congress who politically interfere in research allocations.”
Still, Dr. Vedder, who is an adjunct scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, does note that “the report calls for more transparency in college and university administration and that could be a transcendent change.” Yet, in the end, could there be a link between the lack of intellectual diversity that only Dr. Vedder of the 19 commission members would discuss and the illiteracy that the advisory panel could not ignore?
If you focus your classroom activities on indoctrination, how much time is left over for the imparting of basic skills?
Malcolm A. Kline is the executive director of Accuracy in Academia.
NOT a new concept. I taught high school
English (Lit/composition) for 34 years,
retiring in '92. I told my colleagues
back in the 70's, "When these kids get
to positions of influence in this country,
the United States is going to be in serious
doo-doo."
Well...those kids are in the head
positions now. Spawn of the baby-boomers
and liberal philosophy: "I-trust-my-kid-
no-matter-what." With the kid responding,
"I got my parents right HERE!"
If you want on/off this ping list, please let me know.
Y du eye nede 2 b literate when I can buy my PhD online?
With my PhD, I can open a Canadian online Pharmacy and sell imitation rolexes.
Pinging.
In the current academic climate, actual learning is a side-dish. The main course at most institutions of higher learning is a large helping of leftist group-think.
B-friggin-S
"It's a silent R."
(movietickets.com advertisement)
That and "girls-gone-wild" partying.
This looks like it warrants a higher education ping.
I spent 8+ years working actively in politics (local, state, and federal level) trying to get basic skills back into the public school system. Unfortunately, American parents don't want to know or face the reality that Johnnie can't read, write, or compute (thank you Liberals and the NEA). I assisted a subcommittee under President Reagan that issued the report, "A Nation At Risk." I highly recommend that publication to everyone. Everything in that report, which was issued in the 1980's, has become reality. Unfortunately, parents still don't want to face the truth. Corporations in America are waking up as they have millions of employees who have limited job skills, limited communication skills, and minimal common sense.
One-room school houses (in the 1800's) supplied a far superior education without the billions that has been spent on an educational system that produces illiteracy. Thank you American Liberals, who don't allow discipline, and the NEA for touchy-feely Liberal brainwashing.
I know, you send me offers everyday.
And where's the discussion that kids are admitted into colleges for which they are not qualified, so long as they can pay tuition.
Ask the California State system - 65% of their incoming freshmen are taking remedial courses in english, math, or both.
The real culprit - K-12 education.
This is the inevitable result of government schools, parents too busy working and keeping up with the Joneses to care, kids playing video games for hours on end, etc., etc., ad nauseam.This neglect will soon reach critical mass. And our country will be much the worse for it.
Fighting the urge to go on a multi-paragraph rant, I will stop now :)
Yes that is part of the problem too but more importantly it is the total LACK OF SUBSTANCE in what those who attend are TAUGHT.
What is being taught - or not taught - is the key. And I don't mean the ABCs or basic math or science. From my reading I understand that education and more specifically what we call "higher education" once had at its core the study of the meaning of creation and Man's place in it. The sciences and liberal arts were adjuncts to this central theme meant to enhance our understanding and ability to communicate on that overriding question. There are still schools that address this but they are rarely, if ever, mentioned in the same class as our "best" colleges and universities.
Secular curricula lead to graduates who have little or no idea of why they are here, teach no stable foundation for morals or ethics and produce people who are spiritually and morally illiterate. But because they have invested much time and money in a "higher education" and been told that there is no finer available they are convinced of their own superior knowledge and wisdom. Challenge the depth or scope of their education and they will not become defensive but will attack and pillory anyone so bold as to point out their almost total lack of knowledge and understanding of God, Man the universe and the relationships that exist among these. Because they are ignorant in these matters they often fall for well-packaged, skillfully marketed fads and philosophies which, to people who do have moral and spiritual grounding, appear to be foolish, stupid and dangerous. And these are the very people who wind up in positions of leadership and authority in academe, the media, business and government. And then we wonder why the moral decay of the west is so advanced.
Typical leftist BS. Gotta prob? No prob, just throw lots and lots of taxpayer money at it. Still not fixed? You obviously didn't throw enough money at it. Throw some more.
Repeat.
Repeat.
Repeat.
Repeat.
Repeat.
Repeat.
My Dad (God rest his soul) worked 40 something years for AT&T. I can remember him telling me back in the mid 80s that AT&T was having trouble finding entry level people who could read and write at a ninth grade level. AT&T's solution? They, at their own expense (which means you and I paid :), set up remedial schools to fix the problem. Sad. Really, really sad.
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