An incisive view on what for many of us is an urgent and very real concern.
A few years back, Paul E. Lingenfelter began his report on the defunding of public education by saying, “In 1920 H.G. Wells wrote, ‘History is becoming more and more a race between education and catastrophe.’ I think he got it right. Nothing is more important to the future of the United States and the world than the breadth and effectiveness of education, especially of higher education. I say especially higher education, but not because pre- school, elementary, and secondary education are less important. Success at every level of education obviously depends on what has gone before. But for better or worse, the quality of postsecondary education and research affects the quality and effectiveness of education at every level.”
In the last few years, conversations have been growing like gathering storm clouds about the ways in which our universities are failing. There is talk about the poor educational outcomes apparent in…
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August 15th, 2012 at 09:46
Reblogged this on Voiceless in America.
June 18th, 2013 at 07:53
This is all true, but a significant part of the professoriat deserve the blame as well, namely
1) Mainstream “economists” who have no more understanding of the economy that those who study animal entrails and
2) The broad class of utterly useless-verging on fraudulent- class of self-interested BS-ers broadly described as “postmodernists”
That much of the middle class would want to de-fund these groups is actually understandable. Not that there is not a lot of excellent research and development of ideas in parts of academia. But the fraudulent seriously began to overshadow the good in large swaths of the humanities and social sciences in the last 40 years.