Left-Wing College Industrial Complex Puts Diversity Ahead of Merit

Families saving for college and encouraging their children to aim for the top are getting scammed by the left-wing college industrial complex. Colleges distort and outright lie about who gets accepted, education quality, and what it costs. If they were selling auto loans and used the same deceptive tactics, they’d be in jail.

Columbia University announced last Wednesday that it is permanently eliminating SAT and ACT test scores as part of the undergraduate admissions process — the first Ivy League school to go permanently test-optional. Columbia issued a slippery statement about making admissions “nuanced” and “respecting varied backgrounds, voices and experiences.”

Truth is, Columbia is ditching merit for diversity. Without admitting it, Columbia has replaced an academic mission — providing a rigorous education to a group of prepared students — with a new one: social engineering. Expect other colleges to follow. Elon Musk commented Saturday that “very few Americans seem to realize the severity of the situation.”

President Biden made equity the mission of all federal agencies. On March 1, the Secretary of Education, Miguel Cardona, blasted the higher education industry’s “unhealthy obsession with selectivity” and urged a focus on “upward mobility.”

That’s politics. But parents making the biggest investment of their lives, except buying a home, ought to know what they’re paying for: a rigorous classroom experience for their youngster, or a bit part in a social experiment.

Colleges don’t want the public to discern what’s going on. That’s why they’re railing against U.S. News & World Report rankings, published annually. The rankings factor in, among other things, test scores, graduation rates (after six years), how much debt students have when they leave, class size and faculty credentials — precisely the facts families need.

Nearly all colleges made SAT and ACT tests optional during the pandemic. And most institutions are sticking with that temporary policy for the current year. Not the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which already reinstated testing. Dean of Admissions Stu Schmill explains that it’s “not all about who comes in the door but also who goes out.”

A quarter of students admitted to MIT in the fall of 2020 scored a perfect 800 on the math SAT, and none scored below 700. Mr. Schmill recalled that a decade earlier, when MIT admitted students with a wider range of scores, fewer made it to graduation.

The American Civil Liberties Union slams ACT and SAT tests as “unjustifiable barriers for historically underrepresented students of color.” The issue is more complicated. The tests have been screened to prevent bias. But high schools in areas serving Black and Hispanic students tend to be lower quality and offer fewer advanced placement courses, leaving students unprepared.

Sadly, most colleges are more interested in being politically correct than ensuring their student body can do the work.

They’re also apprehensive about a Supreme Court ruling, due in June, that is expected to curtail or outlaw considering race in admissions. In lawsuits against Harvard University and the University of North Carolina, test scores were used as evidence showing how these universities rejected high-scoring Asian and white applicants to promote diversity.

After the June ruling, many institutions will likely eliminate testing to get rid of any evidence of racial favoritism. Erwin Chemerinsky of the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law predicts that institutions will find ways to prefer minorities “that can’t be documented as violating the Constitution.”

A majority of Americans consider it wrong to favor any racial group in admissions. But right versus wrong be damned. The left-wing higher education establishment will likely find ways to do it, and worse, cover it up.

Race isn’t the only thing colleges lie about. The Education Department’s College Scoreboard lists colleges’ graduation rates. But check the fine print. Graduation is defined as earning a diploma within eight years. Who has time or money for that?

A staggering 91 percent of colleges misrepresent their costs, according to a Government Accountability Office investigation. Columbia confessed it falsified class sizes and faculty credentials to U.S. News & World Report. Despite nonstop virtue signaling, the higher education establishment is anything but virtuous. Americans need to stand up to these liars.

https://www.nysun.com/article/left-wing-college-industrial-complex-puts-diversity-ahead-of-merit

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The problem on campuses isn’t ‘wokeness’—it’s certainty

Stories of campus political excesses pile up like bodies. To cite a few recent examples: There was the law student group at Berkeley that banned Zionist speakers, the Stanford Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative, and the Valdosta State University professor who taught that sex isn’t dichotomous.

I am not a fan of the word “woke.” I find it to be dismissive, snarky, and generally unhelpful. Yet, it’s the go-to term for many people who wish to express their concerns about colleges today. It’s meant to refer to a narrow, progressive political ideology that, critics say, limits free speech, suppresses debate, and forces students and faculty alike to self-censor. But the very real challenges have been misdiagnosed by both higher education’s critics and its defenders. Campuses don’t have a “wokeness” problem. They have a certainty problem.

Righting the ship, as they say, requires understanding what’s making it sink. I’ve written here and here about the “Certainty Trap.” The Certainty Trap refers to a resolute unwillingness to consider the possibility that we’re wrong or that we’re not right in the way we think we are. It has cousins in intellectual arrogance and incuriosity, but those concepts don’t quite go far enough. After all, if I tell someone to be intellectually humble or curious, there’s a tacit assumption that they can identify where they lack those things in the first place.

It turns out that we’re not great at recognizing exactly what it is we should be either humble or curious about. It’s a bit of a paradox in the sense that, if you understand your own need for humility, you’re already halfway to a solution. So how do we tackle a problem we can’t directly observe? We tackle it by learning to think differently—by recognizing that our clue that we’re falling into the Certainty Trap isn’t a feeling of being certain. No, the clue that we’re falling into the Certainty Trap is when we feel the urge to harshly judge and demonize those who disagree with us. When we see the answers as simple, only a stupid or evil person could think otherwise.

Here’s what this can look like in practice, taking the three examples I mentioned at the beginning. First, when things get heated over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, don’t just point to the need for viewpoint diversity. In the Berkeley case, when a student group at Berkeley Law School “barred supporters of Zionism from speaking at its events,” it was because they thought the right answers were obvious. The trick is to show them they’re not. As I wrote here, this might include asking questions like: Can people on both sides be aggressors and victims? Whose claim to victim status matters more? What is the difference between self-defense and unprovoked aggression? What is the right way to compensate people who have been wronged? Who deserves compensation, in what form, and when? And, of course, who should decide all these things? Certainty keeps us from considering these questions.

Second, when Stanford initiates its “Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative” to “address harmful language in IT at Stanford,” they’re making various assumptions that have gone unspoken. One of the biggest is that intent doesn’t matter. To take one example from the linked document, “crazy” is considered offensive. But, who declared this to be the case? How should we think about people’s sensitivities? Are the norms of what’s acceptable set by the most sensitive person in every room? Should they be? Taking it one step further, how should we think about the role of intent? My point isn’t that people’s feelings of being offended don’t matter or that having good intent is exculpatory. The point is that certainty keeps us from diving in.

In the third example, at Valdosta State, a parent complained about the “woke” way the professor was leading a discussion about gender and biology. The instructor had taught that “sex, instead of being a dichotomy, is bimodal, meaning there are two large lumps (male and female) with other in between (intersex).” The real problem? Certainty. There are debates in biology about whether what the professor said is right (which is part of the reason this is in the opinion section). There are also debates about the prevalence of intersex conditions and whether biological sex should be considered binary or bimodal. None of this means the instructor shouldn’t have said what she said. But it can’t, in good faith, be presented as definitive.

Certainty has at least two implications, both of which are powerful. One is that it leads us to stop asking questions. Given we can’t know ahead of time where the next question will lead, this forecloses our ability to create or access new knowledge. The second, related but subtly different, is that it leads us to conclude that there are no questions to be asked, by anyone. And this changes social norms. It changes what we think is socially acceptable and what isn’t, leading us to view dissenters and contrarians as moral abominations who deserve to be punished.

The good news is that the problem of certainty is actually easier to solve than a battle over political ideologies. That’s partly because certainty can come from the left, right, or center. Right now, the certainty that underpins several of the left’s views on hot-button issues has powerful effects on higher education, simply because that’s the prevalent political orientation on campus. But, if the pendulum were to swing in another direction, and campuses were made up of people convinced the 2020 election was stolen, certainty would still be just as much of a problem. The way to address it is twofold. The first step is to recognize the root problem. The second is to start asking questions, and to do so while understanding that the most important thing often isn’t answering the questions, but generating them.

Certainty can take any of these forms: declaring knowledge as definitive, treating the path forward or the solution to a contentious problem as though it’s obvious, behaving as though there is a clear “right” decision in conflicts between different values or the interests of different groups, or failing to recognize that, when it comes to heated issues and problems we care about, pretty much any solution has both costs and benefits. Each of these elements of the Certainty Trap assumes a simplicity that not only doesn’t stand up, but actively constrains our thinking.

In 2023, lean into ambiguity. It’s not as bad as you think.

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/campuses-certainty-problem

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Australia: The Left’s aversion to teacher quality is harming our kids

The Productivity Commission has recently thrown down the gauntlet on teacher quality, and its importance to the nation’s economic health. Despite the difficulties and complexities, we should pick it up and finally embrace the challenge.

Australia’s educational woes are well documented, with student learning outcomes in free-fall over the last two decades. But a recent report by the Productivity Commission has provided a ray of light.

Its report into Australia’s education system found the largest single factor in student success, and their ability to go on and make a meaningful economic contribution, is teacher quality. As a former teacher myself, I would say: quelle surprise!

The commission determined that students taught by above-average teachers will earn almost $500,000 more over their lifetimes than those taught by average teachers. Not exactly loose change. So, we need to have an overdue and difficult conversation about teacher quality.

Let’s get one thing straight: the majority of our teachers are amazing. They care for the students they teach. They’re dedicated and expert. Before entering Parliament, I was the head of a large secondary school in my electorate, so I know this first-hand.

Nonetheless, as is the case in any profession, some teachers are not currently up to scratch. Do you know someone who, as a result of struggling to get a job elsewhere, ultimately fell into teaching?

I do. And recently, I’ve been really concerned to find out that one in 10 new teachers can’t meet the necessary standard in critical learning areas like numeracy and literacy. Moves are afoot to change this.

Back in 2016 a Literacy and Numeracy Test for Initial Teacher Education Students was introduced. I’m hopeful that it will ultimately become a valuable tool. It’s also good that universities are lifting the ATAR scores required for admission to teaching degrees.

I’ll concede that not every teacher has to be a brain surgeon or a rocket scientist. Yet mastery of their chosen subject area is essential. Teaching requires significant intellectual grunt.

There’s a lot more to do at the front end, but here’s a much trickier question: how do we support the 300,000 Australian teachers – currently plying their craft – to be their very best?

One response must be to put in place meaningful and rigorous systems of teacher appraisal.

I commenced my teaching journey fifteen years ago. As a 24-year-old, entirely new to the profession, I could not believe the amount of autonomy I had. There was certainly no appraisal. What’s more, there were no key performance indicators. Indeed, there was very little oversight of any kind.

This meant that I could teach whatever I wanted, however I wanted. Coming from the fishbowl of politics, as a staffer, I loved my newfound freedom.

Teacher autonomy is hard-wired into the culture of our school systems which we borrowed from the British public school model. After a hundred and fifty years, that’s no easy thing to change. But it’s certainly not conducive to best-practice, or personal growth.

Change has started, albeit slowly, in the best private schools. A small proportion of schools have excellent models in place.

These involve regular lesson observations by a school leader and targeted feedback; student surveys about teacher performance; professional development informed by a mentor; and goal setting with ongoing reviews to assess progress.

Of course, powerful public sector unions are stridently opposed to processes such as these. Yet, in my personal experience, they can be enacted in a way that is highly supportive of staff.

I’ve been appraised myself on many occasions. It’s nerve-wracking, sure. But what I’ve seen is that the many fantastic teachers are affirmed, while those who are struggling are supported to get better, or find a job that better fits their skills.

These conversations are difficult. As a (biased) former teacher I have a high regard for those still in the profession. Yet facts are facts. Our students have never performed worse in the crucial areas of literacy, numeracy, and science – at least not since the Program for International Student Assessment commenced publishing its reports in 2000.

Of course, the quality of teaching is not entirely to blame for this. But it can play a huge part in arresting Australia’s learning decline. That, says the Productivity Commission, will pay real dividends for us all.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/03/the-lefts-aversion-to-teacher-quality-is-harming-our-kids/ ?

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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)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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