Friday, June 20, 2008

Declining university standards in Britain

Academic standards are in decline in many British universities. Students who would once have been failed their degrees pass, and students who would once have been awarded respectable lower seconds are now awarded upper seconds and even firsts. Students - British as well as those from overseas - commence their studies with levels of English so poor that universities run remedial English courses to ensure at least basic literacy. Cheating is rampant, encouraged partly by lenient penalties.

How do I know all this? Part of the evidence is statistical. Over the past decade the number of firsts has more than doubled, while the undergraduate population has increased by less than a half. The standard leaving qualification for most students is now an upper second - the lower second is an endangered species and the third on the verge of extinction.

A recent survey by the Higher Education Academy suggested that, of 9,000 or so cases of plagiarism recorded last year, only 143 resulted in expulsion. The survey pointed to an alarming variation in penalties. In many mainly post-1992 "new" universities, lecturers must take national, ethnic and even social background into account when punishing cheaters.

But statistical evidence is no more than a signpost. In recent years I have become alarmed and depressed at the number of inquiries I receive from usually young scholars just embarking on their careers and coming under intolerable managerial pressure to pass students who should fail and to "massage" students into higher qualifications.

It is not only probationer lecturers who are victims. Last year Paul Buckland, Professor of Environmental Archaeology at Bournemouth University, resigned in protest at the decision of university authorities that 13 students whom he - and a formal examinations board - judged to have failed a course should be passed. In so doing, the authorities appear to have endorsed the view of a senior official - an official, mind you, not an academic - that students should have been able to pass merely on the basis of lecture notes, without doing the required reading. Universities UK should have issued a formal public rebuke. Its silence on this and similar cases is a scandal. Faced with criticism that academic standards are being dumbed down, British vice-chancellors customarily point to the external examiner system as a guarantee that it cannot happen.

It can and does. In the typically modularised degree system run by the now typical university, external examiners - academic specialists from other institutions - no longer oversee the entire assessment process, and are not permitted to review individual grades. Their job, at most, is simply to ensure as best they can that correct procedures are applied. To quote from an e-mail I received yesterday from an external examiner, "the externals are not permitted to alter marks or comment on individual scripts in any way. Their function is to comment merely on adherence to procedures. I complained about this repeatedly, to no avail."

How has higher education got itself into this mess? An insidious managerial culture obsessed with league tables and newspaper rankings is partly to blame. The more firsts and upper seconds a university awards, the higher its ranking is likely to be. So each university looks closely at the grading criteria used by its near rivals in the league tables, and if they are using more lenient schemes, the argument is put about that "peer" institutions must do the same. The upholding of academic standards is replaced by a grotesque "bidding" game, in which standards are sacrificed on the altar of public image, as reflected in the rankings.

This is only part of the problem. League tables are here to stay. A robust university management, however jealous for its own reputation, will never let them dictate the terms upon which its guards its academic standards. Part of the problem stems from gross underfunding. Non-EU students attract full fees, and have become a lucrative source of cash. Failing or expelling a non-EU student can have serious implications. Was this, I wonder, why at one university last year, a lecturer was criticised for neglecting to give "token credits" to failures? In the modern, mass higher education system, there must be prizes for all, because the student is the customer and the customer must have something for his money.

What can be done about these evils? British universities are self-regulating, and I would not want it any other way. But with self-regulation comes responsibility. The representative bodies, and the Quality Assurance Agency to which all their members subscribe, should summon the courage to name and shame miscreant institutions, and perhaps even to suspend them.

Ultimately, the buck stops in the vice-chancellor's office and with the governing body that is legally responsible for the general character of the education at the university. Quality in higher education cannot be reduced to a simplistic rankings list, however appealing rankings may be to newspapers and their readers, not to mention university governors whose attention span (it seems) cannot extend beyond a set of numerical performance indicators.

When a professor says that a student should fail, the wise vice-chancellor will support that decision, and the governors will publicly congratulate both for putting first standards rather than student retention and "customer satisfaction".

Source





A moronic government school system in Canada

All involved should be seriously disciplined for their foolish and destructive behaviour -- but they won't be. That they have greatly harmed a mother and her disabled child is no worry to them -- all in the name of "protecting" the child, of course

The mother of an autistic girl says the public school board was "completely unprofessional" to formulate a theory that her daughter was being sexually abused based on a psychic's perception. Barrie [Ontario] resident Colleen Leduc wants an apology from the Simcoe County District School Board, which called in the Children's Aid Society (CAS) to investigate. According to the board, the case is still under investigation, although Leduc says it was closed.

Leduc immediately pulled her 11-year-old daughter, Victoria Nolet, out of Terry Fox Elementary School in north-end Barrie. "I have trust issues now," Leduc said. "What are they going to concoct next week?"

Dr. Lindy Zaretsky, a school board superintendent whose portfolio includes special education, said the school was just following protocol, adding the board is bound by the same legislation (Child and Family Services Act) as the CAS when it comes to suspected neglect or sexual abuse. "It is clear in all cases that this (information) must be reported," Zaretsky said.

The local CAS won't comment on specific investigations, but said the legislation stipulates that all cases of suspected abuse be reported "if there are reasonable grounds." "The schools are our eyes and ears in the community," said Mary Ballantyne, executive director of the Simcoe County chapter. "They are with children more than anyone else in the community and are the first to spot a child who may be in need of our protection." About 80% of the CAS's calls reporting abuse and neglect come from schools, she added.

But Leduc said information gleaned from a psychic shouldn't be the impetus for the board to launch a CAS investigation. "First of all, what were they doing taking a psychic's word? Then they correlated that with (Victoria's) behaviour to design a theory," Leduc said.

The board stands by its decision, despite where the initial information came from. "It has not been board practice to use psychic readings," Zaretsky said.

On May 30, Leduc picked Victoria up from school, where she's enrolled in an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) class with several boys around the same age. When Leduc returned home, there was an urgent call asking her to return to the Livingstone Street East school. Frightened, Leduc rushed back to the school. She and Victoria entered a room where they were met by the principal, the vice-principal and the teacher.

Leduc said they advised her that Victoria's educational assistant (EA) had visited a psychic, who said a youngster whose name started with "V" was being sexually abused by a man between 23 and 26 years old. Leduc was also handed a list of recent behaviours exhibited by her daughter. School principal Brian Tremain -- who referred phone calls seeking comment to the board -- advised Leduc that the CAS had been contacted. "That's when I got sick to my stomach," she said. "I was shocked the whole meeting."

Source. More detail here and here






Dan Rather's education distortions

Some might have thought that the 2004 election scandal would have ruined the career of Dan Rather. Instead, he was given his own show at HDNet.

Now, four years later, Rather's show, Dan Rather Reports, offers viewers a glimpse into what the former CBS news anchor considers good reporting: not citing sources, overlooking conflicts of interest, and sensationalizing material to promote marxist class-warfare perspectives. All this is touted as news, even when Rather relies solely on anecdotes and ignores publicly-available statistics.

"And college admissions also strike at some of the most controversial issues facing the country-questions of race, wealth, privilege, and economic class," said Rather in a recent episode of his show, Stress Test. "Fact, fiction, or hard to tell that the current system clearly favors wealthier students?," he asks his star guest, Lloyd Thacker. Thacker answered yes.

Lloyd Thacker is the President of the Education Conservancy, a non-profit which opposes the growing commercialization of higher education. Aware of Thacker's activist agenda, Rather describes him as an activist who "leads a movement to change the status quo," starting with the ranking system.

Like Thacker, Rather is intent on demonstrating that the system of higher education is broken and governed by elitist, wealthy interests. Rather claims that these views are widely shared among the educational community. "The process of applying to college has become so tortured and demanding that many people-students, teachers, and experts-say the system is broken," he asserts.

But Rather's "analysis" amounts to little more than the repackaging of quotes and the careful casting of Thacker's supporters as independent sources. The mother he interviews is reacting to one of Thacker's speeches. Rather doesn't deign to show the question she's actually answering, however.

Other sources promoted by Rather have given large sums of money to Thacker's organization. Three of the four college presidents invited to Rather's roundtable discussion preside over schools which donated between $2,500 and $5,000 dollars to the Education Conservancy. Two of these four colleges, Earlham College and Kenyon College, have staff on the Education Conservancy's advisory board.

Did Rather know this beforehand? "Thacker is supported by contributions from over a dozen universities and foundations and one recent success was this May 2007 letter labeling the current ranking system misleading...," he said during the show. Clearly, Rather had some prior knowledge of Thacker's financial backing.

Ironically, the Educational Conservancy-which strongly opposes the rankings system-has received high-profile donations connected to 5 of the top 11 schools (U.S. News and World Report ranking) including:

Yale University ($5,000+)
Harvard University
Dartmouth College
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
University of Chicago

Besides promoting Thacker's rhetoric, Rather seems intent on proving that our educational system perpetuates pervasive class and racial inequities. To do this, he takes the viewers first to upscale Great Neck South High School (Long Island) and then to the impoverished Central High (Providence, Rhode Island). According to Rather, Great Neck sends 99% of its seniors on to college. "Wealthy students are not what you'll find in Central High School...Here only about 20% of seniors will attend a four-year college, well below the national average," says Rather.

This is an unfair comparison. Rather fails to mention that Great Neck is listed by U.S. News and World Report as one of the 50 best high schools in the nation. Central High, on the other hand, is failing in virtually every measure.

According to the Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE), Central High has

9% Math Proficiency
21% English Proficiency
SAT scores 127 to 138 points lower than the state average.

According to a National Center on Public Education and Prevention survey, 86% of Central High students receive free, federally-funded school lunches. Nearly half (48%) of student respondents reported speaking Spanish, not English, as their primary language at home.

But poverty is not Central High's problem. According to RIDE, students at Central High living above the poverty level do worse in school. "Non-poverty" students have 4% Math and 18% English proficiency, a 4%-7% gap, RIDE reports.

While Great Neck still has a significant achievement gap, its "disadvantaged students" achieve 82% proficiency, reports the U.S. News and World Report. Great Neck South High is, quite simply, a better school.

Facts like these do not seem to persuade Dan Rather, who focuses more on anecdotes and rhetorical arguments than actual data. In some cases, Rather's comments are just plain wrong. He said, for example,

"But this [financial aid] money isn't just earmarked for students from low-income families. They have to compete for it with students from middle and upper-income families. That's because an education at a private, four-year college can cost up to $50,000 a year...It's numbers like these that make students at Central High think college is an impossibility."

College is out of reach for many Central High students because only 9% of them achieve math proficiency and they have terrible SAT scores, not because college costs too much.

Rather has apparently never heard of the "expected family contribution" or Federal Pell Grants-or the Federal Application for Student Aid, for that matter. Each heavily favors low-income families. Pell Grants are exclusively for low-income families.

Rather says that Central High students don't know they can receive financial aid and that "they just think college is not for them." To exemplify the problems facing first-generation college applicants, Hannah Lewis, a College Advising Corp member, tells Rather she had helped students who didn't know that the SATs were necessary "to get started with the application process."

RIDE reports that just below half (46%) of Central High seniors take the SAT, another statistic Rather does not mention.

Getting into a high-ranked school can often cost low-income students very little, especially at high ranking ones. Take Princeton and Harvard-the nation's two highest-ranked schools-for example. Harvard prides itself on its need-blind applications. "Harvard is one of the few remaining colleges in the country to maintain a true need-blind admissions policy. Need-blind admissions means that freshmen are accepted on the basis of their scholastic achievements and other talents, not their ability to pay tuition," states its website.

The College Board estimates the expected family contribution (EFC) for a family of four earning $20,000 as, well, nothing. Many colleges calculate their financial aid based on the EFC.

The Princeton financial aid estimator places the expected family contribution, including student earnings, at about $2,000 a year for a family earning $20,000. This remains the same even at a more comfortable salary, such as $40,000. Because Princeton gives all its financial aid as grants, not loans, the low-income student could likely graduate debt free. Can many middle class students say the same?

Source

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