Professor Removed for Though Grading

Thomas Lifson at American Thinker brings us this gem:

Grade inflation appears to have become policy at Louisiana State University, where Professor Dominique G. Homberger was removed from teaching an introductory biology course for giving tough grades. USA Today reports that the professor

… gives brief quizzes at the beginning of every class, to assure attendance and to make sure students are doing the reading. On her tests, she doesn’t use a curve, as she believes that students must achieve mastery of the subject matter, not just achieve more mastery than the worst students in the course. For multiple choice questions, she gives 10 possible answers, not the expected 4, as she doesn’t want students to get very far with guessing.

School Propaganda in Texas

For those who expected this post to be about the reworking of the Texas textbook standards, I’m sorry to disappoint. (Okay, not really.) No, this is about another case of left wing bias passing for education in the government school systems.

Kathleen McKinley at Right Wing News gives us this gem in which a high school teacher passed out a sheet describing the different between liberal and conservative ideologies. Students were not allowed to take the sheet home, which should have been a red flag from the get go. One student was concerned enough about the teacher’s political bias that he took the sheet home anyway and showed it to his parents (He’s probably facing suspension).

Fixing Failing Schools

Lisa Snell at Reason Magazine pens an article on methods to fix ineffective schools that have been successfully employed in New Orleans, and how they might be employed in other cities. In specific, Snell compares the innovations and free-market approaches being taken in New Orleans to he debt-laden school system in Cleveland, Ohio.

Obama Anounces Education Overhaul

From the New York Times:

The Obama administration on Saturday called for a broad overhaul of President George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind law, proposing to reshape divisive provisions that encouraged instructors to teach to tests, narrowed the curriculum, and labeled one in three American schools as failing.

Wow, that’s some pretty unbiased journalism right there. Ignore the fact that the bill was written by Ted Kennedy, bring up the “teach to the test” nonsense, and blame the bill for the fact that America’s schools are failing.

Texas Textbooks and School Social Studies Curricula

The Texas Board of Education has approved social studies curriculum changes put forth by conservative critics. The conservative push on the curriculum came partially as a result of efforts by a Hispanic groups to include more material on Hispanic figures and history in textbooks, as well as a perceived liberal bias in modern textbooks.

The New York Times covers the story:

Group Work and Group Think

Mary Grabar at Townhall delivers a scathing piece on the use of group work and emotional education techniques in modern education. Whereas many critics of government-run education have pointed to the politically and emotionally charged material and curricula being taught to students, Grabar focuses on some of the techniques used to indoctrinate educate students.

Teachers seem to love “group work.” It gives them a sense of power over children and allows them to catch up on Facebook or their nails.

I have college students coming to class expecting to spend class time sitting in little groups to discuss their “feelings.”

Today, students don’t expect to learn—especially from a teacher or professor.

Civics Quiz

Counterculture Conservative presents an interesting civics quiz by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute’s American Civic Literacy Program. The results are disturbing, to say the least. Counterculture Conservative provides a redacted summary:

Public Schools = Jobs Program

Neal McClusky at the Cato Institute analyzes government-run public schools as a jobs programs. During our economic downturn, government money has been used to make sure teachers keep their jobs, despite the fact that educational achievement hasn’t risen with he number of teachers hired, as often argued by the Left:

Rhode Island School District Pwnage

Warner Todd Huston at Right Wing News comments on a rather startling event in Rhode Island: a school district superintendant, dissatified with the dismal performance at a particular high school, fired all of the school’s teachers and administrators.

[I]n Central Falls, Rhode Island School Superintendent Frances Gallo has fired an entire high school’s worth of teachers and administrators over a labor dispute.

Central Falls High School is situated in one of the poorest sections of Rhode Island yet the teachers there make between $72 and $78 thousand per year, far above the mean income of the area. The school is also performing dismally.

So, Superintendent Gallo told teachers that they would have to work perhaps twenty-five minutes more per day and help tutor the students. Naturally the un-caring teachers union refused — proving once again that education and the kids are not of interest to a union.

The union wouldn’t budge so Super Gallo just fired them all.

The union will probably prevail and the superintendant will probably be fired, but it’s about time someone stood up to the teachers’ unions and started addressing real issues in our failing education systems — like ineffective teachers.

The Glory of Academia

As I finish my own graduate degree, I have already faced that fact that an MA isn’t too terribly marketable, unless it is used as a stepping stone for a PhD and a career in Academia. I do not wish to work in Academia (anymore), and am faced with the fact that I will either require a more substantial degree or a change in prospective occupation. This article really caught my attention.