America Has An Existential Civics Education Crisis That More ‘Civics Education’ Will Only Make Worse
“So 'allowing alternative teacher certification' and banning CRT may be the best recommendations in the report. But we need a heck of a lot more. Republicans have been appointed watchmen against these kinds of threats by their voters for decades, only to sleep while anti-American barbarians have taken over the country.” - The Federalist, 6/14/21
The Revolt against Left-Wing Schooling
“For conservatives, too, this newer revision of American history threatens their own view of what good public schools can do, which is to help students from diverse backgrounds cohere as a people. Instead, this education is taken to be an attempt to further enjoin students into mutual antagonisms, or to pronounce that they are permanently locked into these by the American system itself. No wonder conservatives find it 'demoralizing.' That seems to be the point.” - National Review, 6/14/21
Supreme Court Seeks Biden Administration Views on Harvard Admissions Policies
“The Supreme Court asked the Biden administration to weigh in on a legal challenge to Harvard University’s race-conscious undergraduate admissions policies. The justices, in a brief written order on Monday, asked the U.S. Solicitor General’s office to submit the federal government’s views on an appeal that argued Harvard unlawfully discriminated against Asian-American applicants.” - Wall Street Journal, 6/14/21
Why It’s Impossible To Teach History Only Using ‘The Facts’
“There’s not anything essentially wrong with spending more time discussing racial or social history. If done professionally and factually, it’s still history. But it also means students will get less of other forms of history (typically political, military, religious, or economic), many of which are necessary to understand their nation’s story as it relates to their duties as citizens.” - The Federalist, 6/14/21
The Money Not Everyone Wants
“California Community College system budget officers are at odds with faculty members and their union over what is usually a cause for celebration -- an increase in state funding. Faculty members are in favor of a budget proposal by the state Legislature that includes $170 million for the hiring of 2,000 full-time faculty members, which would make the system less reliant on adjunct instructors. But the system’s number crunchers are wary about the long-term implications of such a funding decision.” - Inside Higher Ed, 6/14/21
Stith: “The Best Community College System In the Country”
“In the past year, the North Carolina Community College system said goodbye to one president and gained another. After former president Peter Hans took up his new role as the head of the University of North Carolina system, the community college system began its search for a new leader. In December 2020, Thomas Stith was elected to be that new leader. Stith officially began his work as the community college system president on January 11.” - The James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal, 6/14/21
Loudoun County Parents Rally Against Critical Race Theory ‘Indoctrination’
“There is a war in Loudoun County, Virginia, but no troops are on the ground. Instead, parents and teachers are fighting for the next generation amid a critical race theory clash that has boiled over into a national controversy. Like-minded community members, with planning help from The Heritage Foundation and Parents Against Critical Race Theory, came together Saturday to sign petitions, wave signs, deliver speeches, and connect with one another for an 'Education, Not Indoctrination' rally.” - The Federalist, 6/14/21
The Imperative of A Boring Judiciary
“If we really are in a jurisprudential or political crisis, the answer lies among our laws’ authors: our legislators and, frankly, us, the people who elect them. Our failures have been aggravated by judges who think they know better, engaging in illegitimate lawmaking masquerading as textual interpretation. But the solution is not more illegitimate lawmaking.” - Law & Liberty, 6/14/21
Anatomy of the Woke Madness
“Do we revert to the norms of the civil rights movement where the content of our character alone matters, not the color of our skin? Or have we sunk so deeply into the woke quicksands, that we cannot thrash our way up to the air, and thus suffocate from the ancient pressures of the bog that have always destroyed civilizations?” - American Greatness, 6/13/21
We can’t fight racism if Whites see any remedy as a threat and an insult
“But the racial equity controversy also illustrates the unwillingness of many Whites to tolerate even modest efforts to account for racial discrimination in America, past and present. It’s an unmistakable example of 'White fragility,' the intense discomfort that many Whites feel at any suggestion that we have benefited from our race, or that we harbor unconscious racist attitudes instilled by a predominantly White culture.” - Washington Post, 6/13/21
Yes, it is a money chase. That characterizes it the problem, but it does not identify the cause. It is an imbalance between the number of adequately prepared applicants and the number of four-year institutions. Nearly 40 percent of high school graduates require some post admission remediation. In aggregate, our secondary schools are certifying too many of their graduates as college ready. That is unlikely to change in the foreseeable future. On the other side of the imbalance, there are too many institutions fighting to stay alive. A measured tightening of four-year admissions standards could prompt a positive rebalance.
Please differentiate between elementary-trained teachers, and their secondary counterparts (and the Liberal Arts teachers from the Math and Science teachers). Not ALL teachers rank low on the scale.
Ah, but this is only confusing if we somehow still believe that the purpose of College is education…the production of an informed citizenry….lux et veritas. If that were true, yes, we’d be absolutely baffled by the abysmal failure so evident in the reality we all wrestle.
But if the mission of College is NOT education, rather the production of degreed graduates….well, that’s another matter.
Obama made this abundantly (some might say absurdly) clear way back in ’09 declaring that “by 2020, America will once again have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world.” And of course to do that, we would have had to more than double college enrollments, to about 40 million students as of two years ago. Fortunately, that idiocy did not come to pass…. but the enthusiasm to produce just lots and lots of people holding sheepskins….that obsession (revenue driven) is with us still. And obviously, even to maintain the graduation rates for our current 20M we must continually reduce our standards (for entry & completion) and remove the hurdles (like writing and reading competency) which otherwise would stand in our way.
By God we will produce college graduates by the bushel! That is our job!
Unfortunately those who would employ our newly minted alumni continue to tell us they can neither read nor rite nor handle rithmetic. Hmmm. Perhaps we should hire another VP in Marketing? Or maybe offer remedial courses, on-site, for brand-new corporate hires??? Just think of the revenue possibilities!
Well said. “Higher” education has become just another industry.
In a word, money.
I’d agree with both EB and George Leef. The main reason colleges admit them is for the money. I remember years ago when I was working at a fairly selective public university and being appalled to hear the university president at the time talk about the need for “not just K-12 education, but K-16 education,” meaning, college for all. A few years later, Obama was elected and started pushing the “college for all” narrative, rationalized largely on the misinterpretation of basic statistics about the relative incomes of college graduates vs. those of high school graduates, as though the degree and not the ability to do college level work accounted for their subsequent career success. College administrators always seem to be in favor of growing enrollment because it means more funds flowing to their campuses, even if many of those students never graduate or accrue a fortune in debt while they are enrolled.
Beyond that, though, are factors such as grade inflation and calls for increased diversity on campus. Grade inflation frequently means that students who are incapable of doing college level work look like they are qualified or capable as a result of their grades in high school, but when they get to college, they are not able to keep up. And the topic of skills mismatches following from affirmative action in admissions has been well-established by researchers.
Yup. If thy say it’s not about the money, it’s about the money.
Obama was talking about increasing the proportion of HS grads who go on to any type of post-secondary education, and he included (and emphsized) certificates that can be earned in 3 months to a year. That is where continued emphasis should reside (along with technical 2-year programs), but the 4-year and 2-year institutions and programs, especially liberal arts, are fearful for their futures if they don’t fill those seats.
Money. Colleges have to fill their seats, and they also have spent the last 50 years expanding in a never-ending competition. At the same time, they refuse to realize that the education they are offering is not appropriate for HS grads in the bottom half of their class. While it’s true that post-secondary education in the past failed to make room for well-prepared but low-income students, they have now over-compensated and are admitting poorly-prepared students from all economic levels.
I think that, given the dumbing down of the curriculum and pressure for grade inflation over the last several decades, the problem is less that the students admitted can’t do the work (such as it is), but that many of them just don’t want to. They’re used to schooling that’s easy and expect college to be more of the same.
Why does John Leo ask a question that he doesn’t answer in his opinion piece? Education doesn’t need more rhetoric; it needs answers to questions and solutions.
And you just perfectly summarized the entire problem, Professor Tommy. You can put it back to committee and see if they can help you out.