I remember how it was -- JR
Should Low Earnings Degrees Be Eliminated?
There are few advantages of getting old, but one of them is professors gain a body of former students whose accomplishments provide great pleasure. One of mine is Andrew Gillen, who graduated from college 20 or so years ago, got a Ph.D. at Florida State, worked for me for a while at the Center for College Affordability and Productivity, and now flourishes as a scholar at the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF).
Like me, Andrew loves data, and when the U.S. Department of Education did a rare useful thing by publishing data on college student earnings by school and major, I knew Andrew would be in statistical nirvana for years. The ratio of accumulated student debt to early postgraduate annual earnings is an excellent measure of the financial burden of earning a college degree relative to the benefits of doing so. While the “college for all” crowd tells us “it pays to get a degree,” that sweeping generalization does not apply to all
individuals, schools or fields of study, as Andrew reminds us in new studies from TPPF. Looking at Texas schools, he found dozens of programs where the debt-earnings ratio is precariously high. And some schools fared better than others: Texas Southern University had five programs ranked “excellent or good” by Gillen, but an astonishing 15 ranked “mediocre”, “poor,” or in four cases “terrible.” By contrast, at the main campus of Texas A&M, 63 programs were rated “excellent”, but only one as mediocre. Should someone (Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board?) exercise some quality control and close the awful programs?
Inspired by Andrew, I had my intrepid student Braden Colegrove analyze my mid-quality university (Ohio University) to observe variations in graduate earnings by major. The results were astonishing. For example, the history and economics departments are neighbors—literally a few dozen feet away from one another. We share classrooms in Bentley Hall. Yet those claiming a major in economics had median earnings after graduation that were 57 percent higher than history majors taking many of the same general education courses in our College of Arts and Sciences. Located just across the street is Copeland Hall, home of the accounting department. The median earnings of the accountants was 143% !!! higher than for the historians learning nearby. Averaging even higher earnings were the civil engineers, toiling a couple of blocks away, while the Department of Education tells us that the Ohio University English majors studying five minutes from my office typically earned after graduation less annually ($22,329) than some new full-time workers at Wal-Mart with a high school diploma.
Of course, this is not the whole story—maybe not even half of it. First of all, there is more to life than money. Many English majors I know lead joyous fulfilling lives even without enormous material abundance. Second, earnings rise enormously for most workers over their career, and the low paying history major of 2021 might be a plutocratic fat cat executive 25 years later. Historians are usually good writers and good thinkers, good qualities in seeking career advancement.
Third, “median” earnings often disguise wide variations around that number, and exceptionally good individuals do well. One of my favorite students graduating in 2021 is no doubt making with bonuses a six digit income at the Private Bank of J.P. Morgan Chase in New York, while another is toiling for far less in a clerical role in a nearby rural law office. I like them both, and think both will be happy in life.
Lastly, most human beings find a mate (some more than one) to live with during their adult life. What is relevant is not individual earnings so much as “household income.” The $25,000 English major might marry a $60,000 finance major who in five years will be making $150,000 a year. College is where many find love and ultimately marriage. College is about learning and earning, but also about developing life-long friendships—its also about love and sex.
Bottom line: majors are as important, often more important, than choice of college. For most students, good advice is to “Think about what you like and are good at, and explore different options early in your college career before choosing a major.”
https://www.independent.org/news/article.asp?id=13786
******************************************De Blasio cancels gifted and talented schools program in NYC because it 'discriminates against black and Hispanic students' - but parents AND teachers say it will halt smart kids' learning and leave others 'behind'
New York City is ending its gifted and talented schools program for exceptional students and will put all children in the same classes, claiming that the current system discriminates against black and Hispanic kids.
Announcing the decision on Friday, Mayor Bill de Blasio - who is in the final months of his term - said: 'The era of judging four-year-olds based on a single test is over'.
Critics of the program said it was racist because most of the gifted schools were filled up with white and Asian American students.
But parents and teachers say ending the program in its current state will create more problems for students: the gifted kids will be bored and slowed down in classrooms of mixed ability, and those who need more attention will be 'left behind,' they say.
Students were being accepted to the special Talented and Gifted (TAG) schools after passing a standardized test at the age of four. In some parts of the city that are predominantly black and Hispanic, fewer kids were passing the tests, so the schools closed.
Now, all kids will be put into same-level classrooms, but gifted kids will be given different work.
It's not yet clear how teachers will determine which children are considered gifted and which aren't.
Parents and teachers say it is a flawed decision that punishes gifted children and holds them back.
They say it will slow down their progress and will also lead to other, less gifted kids being 'left behind' because teachers won't be able to cope with the multiple levels of students' abilities in large classrooms.
Beforehand, the program accepted 2,600 gifted kindergarteners but now, some 65,000 kids will be considered under de Blasio's replacement plan, which he is calling Brilliant NYC. 'Brilliant NYC will deliver accelerated instruction for tens of thousands of children, as opposed to a select few,' he said.
Parents reacted angrily to the change that de Blasio made without consulting them or teachers.
Some also pointed to TAG Young Scholars, one of the gifted schools in Harlem, where more than 36 percent of students are from black or Hispanic households.
Previous debates over the issue said it was proof that the program was not racist or discriminatory.
'I grew up in a place where being gifted and talented was not only a blessing, it was a necessity. It's quite unnerving that Bill de Blasio would end the program as he's about to exit. Leaving a mess for the incoming Mayor and communities to clean up as he goes,' tweeted Alicia Hyndman.
'Hopefully [mayoral candidate] Eric Adams will reverse this,' one parent tweeted. 'Accelerated learning in general classroom sounds good on paper but in reality, they just give smart kids extra work to do.'
'Not the same experience as being in an environment where they are challenged by other smart kids.'
Others went further, claiming it was proof that NYC purportedly 'hates smart kids'.
'It is critical that all teachers are able to recognize different learning needs including students who need more depth and complexity,' tweeted Inform NYC, a voter activist group.
'Talented and gifted describes our Nobel Prize winners, scientists, doctors, sports stars/teams, actresses/actors, all forms of artists, singers, researchers... does everyone see where this is going?'
Another critic tweeted: 'No reward... no compensation for unique... ALL EQUAL.'
There are also examples of how the system can work against racism.
TAG Young Scholars in Harlem had an intake of pupils that was 36 percent black and Hispanic in 2019, according to a New York Times article, which quoted several parents who explained how the school benefited their kids.
One was the father of a Hispanic boy, who said his son would never have learned to read so quickly in a non-gifted class.
A white mother with two kids told the reporter for the same article that her 'gifted' child needed a different environment than her non-gifted child.
'I do worry that my son would have been bored in a general-education classroom,' the mother said.
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"Anti-Racism" Comes to Australian schools
Parents beware! Anything which the corruptors of society get away with in America will eventually be introduced into Australia. And the obvious place to introduce it is in the schools, under the radar of the parents. We have already been alerted to the "Safe Schools" abomination, and questions are now being asked about how the new curriculum undermines the national identity.
Now we have a three-part ABC documentary on "The School That Tried to End Racism". No doubt the intentions were good (which is more than can be said for some other teaching programs), but the sum result was to introduce racial tension into an area where it did not previously exist.
First of all, you should understand that about a fifth of Australia's population is of non-European background, and while we see a few of them scattered around here in Brisbane, the vast majority are concentrated in Sydney and Melbourne. Not only that, but they are concentrated in specific suburbs, some of which do not look like Australia at all. This is a relatively new development. Pauline Hanson warned about it, but they vilified her, demonized her, and put her in jail.
The program was introduced to a class of 10 and 11 year olds in a Sydney state school with a broad mixture of European and non-European children, with an idea of teaching them about racism before it started. It was acknowledged that the various pupils got on well together. This, you might think, is how racism is defeated: by having people, particularly the young, mixing together and discovering that a lot more unites them than divides them. Heck! My nephew's best friend in primary school was a "blackie" (his word) from Fiji. My wife grew up playing with the black kids in Papua New Guinea, so when she went to school in the U.S., she automatically gravitated to the negro girls (and got stones thrown at her as a nigger lover). However, they were now going to be put through a course to make them conscious of racial differences that hadn't bothered them before.
First of all, they asked the children to draw their friends. I suppose they were trying to establish that they picked their friends according to race, but we didn't hear much more about it. What did they expect? The drawings were so inexpert, it was hardly possible to identify the friends, or even their race.
So the kids were taken outside to learn about "white privilege". This is a definite import from America. The concept was invented by Peggy McIntosh, a specialist in "women's studies". In other words, she is one of those unnecessary academics who make their money creating tension and resentment between the sexes, and now she was intent on doing the same with the races.
To give her credit, she did not pretend that a white hillbilly was more privileged than a middle class black man. Instead, she talked of being able to get a "flesh coloured" Band-Aid close to the colour of her skin, to easily find a hairdresser familiar with her kind of hair, to open newspapers or turn on the TV and see white people widely represented, and know that her bad behaviour would not reflect on her race.
All these, of course, are simply a reflection on being in the majority ethnic group. I suppose my cousin, who works in Japan, finds himself surrounded by Japanese privilege. She did, however, add the fact that, if she gets a job with an affirmative action employer, people won't assume she got it because of her race - evidence that there is such a thing as "black privilege" in America.
But the managers of the school program were determined to teach the kids that being white gave them a head start in life, and for this they adopted a program straight from the US. They took them to a race track outside, and told them to take one or two steps forward or backwards depending on certain qualifications. The system was rigged to make the white children win, and left one poor little Vietnamese boy stuck at the back because he spoke Vietnamese at home, and was once asked where he really came from.
And what were the factors which allowed the white kids to step forward and win the race? Such things as speaking English at home, seeing people predominantly of their own race in advertisements and on TV, having most Members of Parliament of their own race, and so on. Is there any evidence that these factors give anyone a head start in life? It was never proved, just asserted.
The most ludicrous was for them to take two steps forward if they had blue or grey eyes. Are brown eyed white people at a disadvantage to those with lighter coloured eyes? Don't these idiots know that brothers and sisters can have eyes of different colours?
And no-one ever mentions the elephant in the room: immigration. If non-Europeans are really at a disadvantage in Australia - no matter whose fault it is - then bringing in more of them can only make the situation worse. Why import an underclass?
Through their agencies, Governments inflict us with contradictory propaganda. When they want to justify their unpopular immigration policies, they assure us that we are a "proud multicultural country", and we are all getting on swimmingly. But when they want to justify their procrustean anti-discrimination legislation and the indoctrination of children, they claim that there is racism everywhere.
Having now convinced the non-Europeans that they were hard-done-by second class citizens, they took them all back inside and told them to divide into two groups: whites and non-whites. One girl from the Lebanese Muslim community initially failed to act as planned. She looked around and decided she belonged with the whites. This of course was correct; non-European is not the same as non-white.
But in the second round, she decided to join the non-whites. (I might add, that we saw her family a couple of times, and a disturbing thought occurred to me: when she becomes a teenager, will she be forced to wear the headscarf like her mother? Will the school permit it? If so, this will isolate her from mainstream Australia more than anything else.)
The non-white groups consisted of children whose origins lay in the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent, southeast Asia, and east Asia. In other words, they were a mixture of races, religions, and cultures, with nothing in common except they were non-mainstream.
Instead of the teachers encouraging them to consider how they might fit in, they asked them to consider their experiences of being non-white - which meant rehearsing the occasional slights they had received in the past, plus what they had been taught about "white privilege".
The teachers noted that the white children were reticent when asked to reflect on what it meant to be white. What did they expect? Prior to that, it had never been part of their world view.
The program was a success; they had introduced racial tension where little had existed before. When they grow up, the non-Europeans will not assimilate, and they will assume that any difficulties they encounter will not be due to their own fault, or bad luck, but to Australian racism. The whites had been taught to feel guilty just for being white. I hope the parents of both groups were suitably impressed.
It will no doubt be a while before it is introduced to white cities such as Brisbane, but they are sure to expand it in Sydney and Melbourne. When this happens, parents will have to refuse to permit their children to get involved, and they must make a fuss at the local PTA, and with their Members of Parliament. This is why parents must be very diligent at investigating everything their children are being taught at school. The days are past when they could assume the education system was their servant.
https://malcolmsmiscellany.blogspot.com/2021/10/anti-racism-comes-to-australia.html
***********************************My other blogs: Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
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