UNDESERVED ACADEMIC CREDENTIALS: why are they multiplying?

Anxious to maintain enrollment, school administrators cleverly use equity "concerns" to covertly press for lower standards. Professors, worried about class numbers and eager to "earn" good "course evaluations" (which everyone knows are really student evaluations of professors) pass way too many dolts. Politicians simultaneously push for increasing high school diplomas and college degrees. But as these things happen, what else occurs? 

The law of supply and demand provides the answer. As the percentage of students receiving diplomas and degrees increases, the value of those credentials decreases. That's because their value depends on their scarcity. If nearly everyone has one, any credential offers little competitive advantage. The only remaining value becomes defensive That is, not having one now becomes a devastating handicap. 

So suppose high schools and colleges really do turn out even more graduates. Who pays the highest price? High school youngsters who do not, perhaps cannot, go to college. That's because they heavily depend on their high school diploma to open doors for them. The same ultimately applies to college degrees. In short these credentials become even less valuable than they are now. 

You might think that if we do graduate more kids, at least they will be better educated. But the easiest way to increase the number of high school graduates is to quietly reduce the requirements for graduation. Many inner city and rural poverty schools already have already done that. Their tacit policy is: "Come to school most of the time, generally behave yourself and we will give you a diploma."  This often degenerates into: "Come to school at least some of the time, don't create major disruptions and we will still give you a diploma even if you can barely read." 

These dynamics of degeneration are not confined to basic education. They also are active in higher ed. Encouraged by political correctnes, by ranking equity over excellence, and by a scarcity of customers, professors and administrators who try to maintain high standards have become unwelcome. Instead, professors are encouraged by the new breed of administrator to cox, cajole, coddle 'students' and "be the student's friend." 

Spurred on by political correctness, fear of negative student evaluations and a paucity of students in their classes, professors, in turn, often decide, "I'm not going to be a policeman"and ignore both their student's subject matter ignorance and their often remarkably egregious plagiarism. Some so-called professors even completely abandon their duty and openly say things like, "I couldn't sleep at night if I prevented someone from graduating." (An actual quote from a Georgia State professor.) Consequently we're getting more and more college graduates who, to put it crudely, can't tell shit from Shinola.

Of course it isn't just political correctness that feeds this cancer. In fact it is often merely a cover for a more basic concern: the need for ever scarcer tuition income. Administrators ultimately have to pay the bills or shut up shop; and college applicants are frighteningly scarce these days. So they subtly pressure professors to not discomfort or discourage students by actually maintaining standards. It's become, "the customer is always right."

Of course college degrees are subject to the very same law of supply and demand that applies to high school diplomas. The more plentiful they are, the less value they have. That's why it is now often necessary to get an advanced degree to gain the same competitive advantage that a bachelor's degree used to confer.

So how can we reverse these trends? Toughen graduation requirements at every level thereby reducing the number of high school and college diploma recipients. This will increase the diploma’s value and offer a boost to those who must depend on them for competitive advantage. It will also reduce the number of "students" who not only have no interest in reducing their own ignorance. 

This is a drastic solution to a drastic problem. It means fewer students, fewer school administrators, fewer professors, and fewer institutions of higher education. Educator jobs will disappear. Unemployment roles will swell with youngsters who are currently engaged in pretending to be students. Will this prove politically and practically unacceptable? Yes. That's why it probably won't happen. But that doesn't mean it shouldn't.  -GKC 

 For a more detailed examination of this and related issues See Dissecting School Benefits" 

#"HIGHLY QUALIFIED TEACHERS?" you've got to be kidding

 

If you enjoy dark humor you might get a laugh out of this. Schools in Arizona, Colorado, Florida and Illinois are importing teachers from the Philippines! Yep, they're staffing their schools with teachers who are not Americans, they're green card holders from the Philippines! 

Why? Perhaps because the politicos who run those states and the voters who elected them, don't really care what happens to other people's children, so long as it doesn't happen to theirs.

One hopes these Filipino teachers can speak some semblance of American English. Though such a requirement might be too stringent, given the present urgent need for teaching cannon fodder. If they don't, being taught by them might resemble the telephone help one gets from a firm that's exported their help desk to a land where people speak nearly indecipherable English.

Exploiting the folks who teach in our public schools dates way back to the beginnings of mass public education. But in those days our "leaders" could rely on a steady supply of bright, hard-working women to teach our kids. Why? Because they had few other opportunities. Secretary, nurse, teacher, housewife, that was it. When, well over a century later, females were finally presented with many other opportunities, a teacher shortage ensued that has never been remedied. 

There has been a whole lot of hot air directed at this problem. Remember when former President Obama's Secretary of Education (and basketball buddy) an utterly unqualified guy named Arne Duncan, toured the country wringing his hands about the urgent need to improve teacher preparation. Yet, he himself lacked even rudimentary training, much less experience in education. Nevertheless, he still was distressed to find that many teacher aspirants were being almost as poorly prepared for their job as he was for his.

Was Secretary Duncan worried when Obama blatantly classified thousands upon thousands of wanna-be teachers still in training as "highly qualified?"  "Highly qualified" teachers were required by the federal No Child Left Behind law. No, no, no!. Arne wasn't worried about that at all. Under his 'leadership,' the Education Department simply applied to apply this ridiculously weak standard. And when a federal judge eventually ruled that Obama's administrative ruling clearly violated the No Child Left Behind requirement, Congress passed a bill lowering that NCLB standard to the equivalent of breathing. 

Did "highly qualified"  mean anything before Obama castrated it? Was it just hot air? Actually, yes. Though it didn't look so at first glance. The law clearly stipulated that if you wanted to teach math, science, social studies, the arts, reading and languages you must have obtained a long-term teaching certificate, and demonstrated your subject matter knowledge by either obtaining a college major in the subject, by passing a test in the subject taught; OR (and here's the where the politicians proved their slipperiness) "by some other means established by the state." 

That's right, every state was provided with an escape clause. Never mind all the seeming hard-nosed requirements. Each state could decide what "highly qualified" meant for them. This shielded state's where teaching has long been so underpaid, under-respected and under-appreciated that the only qualification they could realistically impose on candidates was the ability to pee a hole in snow. This "by some other means" wording rendered all the preceding requirements meaningless. Only in the lala-land of public school policy could such a weak-knee requirement be taken as too tough. Later, though, both the George W. Bush and Obama administrations further weakened this already neutered law.

For practical purposes No Child Left Behind is largely dead. But this' half-cocked, weak-kneed approach to teacher selection is still extant. In fact, things have actually gotten worse since the far right began systematically undermining faith in our teachers and public education while the far left tries simultaneously imposes it's brand of "woke" political indoctrination and racial bias. Teachers. of course, are caught in the middle.

Abandon hope if you favor the tough, high quality teacher preparation our schools desperately need. Thanks to both Democrats and Republicans, that dream has metamorphosed into either a nightmare or an obscene joke. Take your pick. Of course if you're financially well off, never mind any of this. You likely have no kids, or grandkids, in public school to begin with.

For more such considerations please visit Highly Qualified Teachers: misgivings

-- GKC