"Higher" Education, Part One

Today I'm passing on to you a thoughtful column by a favorite writer on the current state of "higher" education in the U.S. More to come in future days...


Costly Lessons and a Problem that is Getting Worse, not Better

By David L Bahnsen on October 11, 2009

Dr. Richard Vedder is one of the finest economists in America. More specifically, he is an economic historian, a respected academic, and an important contributor to the dialogue on higher education in our country. In the most recent issue of National Review he wrote a crucially important article on the utter disaster that is our under-graduate education system (unfortunately, it is only available online to subscribers of the magazine). A few points need to be made …

Dr. Vedder begins by pointing out that the only other area in American society that have seen the kind of price inflation that college tuition has seen over the last generation is, well, health care. It is no coincidence to this economist that the only two areas that successfully separate the person paying the bill from the person receiving the good or service are the two areas with the highest price inflation. Neither the consumer nor the producer pays the bills, leaving resources to be allocated ever so inefficiently. College universities are “non-profit institutions”, begging them to add to this inefficiency. They have no profit motive to cut costs, and no profit motive to increase revenues. Shockingly, the only criteria available for how well they are doing comes from the U.S. News and World Report, which bases its analysis on how many “customers” they turn away (the alleged selectivity of who gets into various university programs).

Administratively, Vedder frets about the ambiguity as to who it is who runs our universities. Is it the trustees? Administrators? Faculty? Students? Alumni? Donors? (all candidates Vedder wonders out loud about). It would seem to be a problem to a rational person that the average GPA has risen from a 2.5 to a 3.2 in the last generation (do college graduates seem that much smarter to you?). Vedder laments, as any person with any sensory skills whatsoever would, the culture that actually defines today’s academic life: a life completely focused on partying, booze, and sex. This epidemic is not limited to a few hot cities like Tucson, AZ and San Diego, CA, but permeates every major college from Harvard down to Humboldt State. The Presidents are toothless to do anything about it.

Most shockingly, Vedder indicts the “research” capabilities of today’s academic instituions, wondering why 22,000 new articles of Shakespeare have been submitted since 1980 alone. “Are there that many new and insightful thoughts to be had about the Bard?” Economic growth is suffering as a result of our subsidization of this half-ass research; it is not being stimulated.

Vedder’s proposals and solutions include common sense ideas that will absolutely have to be considered, and soon. We need to reduce the federal student loan programs, and allow a market system to work. Develop vocational competence programs – like the CPA exam – and allow students who want to learn a specific niche field to do just that (without the burden of a Sociology 101 class). More than any time in academic history, the benefits of a higher education right now are being shown to be utterly worthless. Allow the private market to change this, and quit cultivating a system that is doing far more harm than good.

I could not agree more with Vedder on every point he makes. If we want to advance a massive system that perfects the art of shooting tequila and participating in abundant one-night-stands, we have that down; the status quo should continue. And if we want to continue disillusioning young people by telling them that the liberal arts education we are pillaging them or the taxpayers or their parents for (in terms of cost) will actually prepare them for a professional career, we seem to have that down pretty well too. If, however, the goal is to study the masters, prepare young people for life in the real world, and to see a generation of balanced young people tap into the resources and tools they need to truly excel, we have a lot of work to do.

Let’s stop by getting the federal government out of this mess. I know this will not solve it all. But it is never, ever a bad place to start.

Success in the semi-public sector

An article entitled “The Instigator,” in the May, 2009, edition of the New Yorker magazine tells the story of a group of charter schools in Los Angeles called Green Dot schools, which were started two years ago by ”Rock the Vote” founder Steve Barr, a (more or less) businessman who had previous success with an unusual charter school in an Latino neighborhood. With no educational background whatsoever, Mr. Barr had to actually call a teacher friend to help him interpret the very test scores which proved that his first school was succeeding.

Now the successes of the Green Dot schools among low-income students from primarily single-parent homes are attracting national attention, starting with Arne Duncan, current Secretary of Education. Pragmatists on both sides of the party lines are hailing their success and clamoring for “more Green Dot schools” to be founded – everywhere.

The article is revealing, but not so much for what it says about how the Green Dot schools succeed – they are remarkably “ordinary” in their teaching methods, and often employ teachers who have (mercifully) not had the traditional teacher college education. “At his schools, the principals lay out firm curricular guidelines, in keeping with California state standards and Green Dot benchmarks, but teachers are free to huddle, and decide what to teach and how to teach it, for the most part, as long as students pass quarterly assessments.” According to charter school entrepreneur Don Shalvey, “There is no secret curriculum-and-instruction sauce at Green Dot at all. Steve just hires good people. They’re just doing old-school schooling.”

What is more revealing is one of his critiques of the traditional public schools the students are coming from. “These poor schools, you have an Advanced Placement track, and the teachers only believe in triage, so they put the kids who have a chance in that track,” Barr explains. “It’s built on the back of the other three tracks.”

What can we learn from this?

1. Failing public schools teach the most able and fail the serve the rest effectively.
2. People with no educational background can run successful schools.
3. Teachers with no specific training in education will tend to use tried and true methods, and will tend to be successful with them.
4. It is more important that the teacher know the objective (in this case, state standards and test scores) than teaching methods and the latest philosophies.

It’s not rocket science.

Outcomes of State Coercion

It doesn’t take a very discerning reader to have figured out by now that one of my principal gripes about schooling in America is that we assume it must be controlled by government. This has irked me even more since the hysteria has arisen over the concern that national health care might lead this nation “into” socialism, a place where we have already been, in terms of kindergarten through twelfth grade education, for over a hundred years.

One doesn’t have to be very discerning to realize that I write from the perspective of an unashamed, Biblical Christian. A recent column by Joel McDurmon for American Vision addresses the question of whether socialism is justified in the historical practices of Israel as recorded in the Old Testament or by some of the teachings of Jesus Himself. If this kind of Biblical analysis interests you, you can read the whole article here.

I like this paragraph from near the end of McDurmon’s article:

“God kept the State out of the charity business. There’s a good reason for this. If the power of the sword ever mixed with the power to distribute bread, there would be no end to political corruption: the State would use its powers of distribution to control the people; worse, people who grew dependent upon the State’s bread would also then be dependent upon the State’s sword. Acquiring provisions would no longer be an issue of personal responsibility, but of institutionalized force. It would teach the dependent of all shapes and sizes that deriving food at gunpoint is legitimate. Thus, State socialism would be nothing short of legalized armed robbery.”

With apologies to McDurmon, consider the same paragraph, with just a few alterations:

God kept the State out of the education business. There’s a good reason for this. If the power of the sword ever mixed with the power to form minds, there would be no end to political corruption: the State would use its powers of information to control the people; worse, people who grew dependent upon the State’s thinking would also then be dependent upon the State’s sword. Acquiring knowledge would no longer be an issue of personal responsibility, but of institutionalized force. It would teach the dependent of all shapes and sizes that deriving education at gunpoint is legitimate. Thus, State schooling would be nothing short of legalized armed robbery.

I can’t imagine why this doesn’t concern more people.