It is a very long time since I graduated from college. I have been teaching medical students for 15 years until I finally retired two years ago.
My five children have all attended college and all but one have graduated. Three have advanced degrees.
The most recent graduate, my youngest daughter, was taught some untruths at the University of Arizona a few years ago.
For example, she was taught, in her “US History Since 1877” course that “The Silent Majority” consisted of white people who refused to accept the 1964 Civil Rights Act. That was in her final exam review study guide. There was no mention of Nixon or the Vietnam War.
My theory is that university faculties when I attended were mostly World War II veterans or older and I could never sense the political affiliation of any of them. During the Vietnam War, colleges became refuges for anti-war students who stayed in grad school to avoid the draft. Since they were mostly strongly leftist in sympathy, they have perpetuated the leftist bias in faculty by recruiting similar students and by rejecting those who hold more conservative views.
As evidence I offer Steve Hayward’s report on hiring practices today.
Evidence of ability for excellence in teaching and research grounded in political theory and focusing on topics central to the discipline at large: e.g., ancient, modern, and contemporary theories; democratic theory; critical race theory; immigration; the carceral state; postcolonial theory; identity; hybridity; intersectionality; queer theory; deconstruction’s focus on alterity; globalization, and neoliberalism.
What the hell is “the carceral state?” I suppose that refers to BLM theories that black males are unfairly incarcerated.
What about the high school level ? They are graduating illiterates who are going to college.
An internal email obtained by WAMU and NPR from April shows two months before graduation, only 57 students were on track to graduate, with dozens of students missing graduation or community service requirements or failing classes needed to graduate. In June, 164 students received diplomas.
According to a teacher at Ballou, this feat was accomplished by “smoke and mirrors.”
Teachers felt pressure from administration to pass chronically absent students, and students knew the school administration would do as much as possible to get them to graduation.
And Teachers we spoke with say if they questioned administration, they were painted as “haters” who don’t care about students.
The results have been what you would expect:
Last year, 9 percent of students there passed the English standardized test. No one passed the math test. The average SAT score last year among Ballou test takers was 782 out of 1600.
Achievement must be earned. It cannot be mandated by the authorities. Now all of these kids are in college, presumably subsisting on financial aid provided by taxpayers. Their illiteracy and habit of blowing off classes must leave them plenty of time for Black Lives Matter protests. When they are not made Chairman of the Board immediately upon graduation, they will blame it on racism, and for the most part the media will concur.
This is why I think education is in an existential crisis. These kids will never repay student loans. Eventually, the level of delinquency will overwhelm the system.
Balances of student loans have eclipsed both auto loans and credit cards, making student loan debt the largest form of consumer debt outside of mortgages. These interactive charts show how student loan borrowing and delinquency rates vary among age groups and over time.
It will never be repaid. The next question is what happens to these illiterates when they graduate from college, as they certainly will. Many will drop out but there will be some illiterate graduates.
More evidence of the left slant that is getting close to vertical.