Our Blizzard Of Snowflakes

Joe Doakes of Como Park emails:

The current Campus Crybaby Crisis is explained by Reynold’s Law:
“The government decides to try to increase the middle class by subsidizing things that middle class people have: If middle-class people go to college and own homes, then surely if more people go to college and own homes, we’ll have more middle-class people. But homeownership and college aren’t causes of middle-class status, they’re markers for possessing the kinds of traits — self-discipline, the ability to defer gratification, etc. — that let you enter, and stay, in the middle class. Subsidizing the markers doesn’t produce the traits; if anything, it undermines them.”
If fewer people were able to afford college, degrees would become valuable again. Plus, young people wouldn’t be saddled with a mountain of unpayable and non-dischargeable debt, so they could afford to buy houses and start families.
Student loans: end them, don’t mend them.
Joe Doakes

Along with making education about, well, education, rather than schooling (to say nothing of indoctrination).

Malinvestment

Macalester – at $47,195 a year – has made the list of colleges where alumni earn less than high school grads.

Now, to some extent these rankings are misleading; students’ earning potential is whatever they decide it’s going to be.

Provided they don’t think waving a degree about and saying “I want a job in  my field” is the way to do it.

Which, given the number of International Victimization Studies majors Mac turns out, may be a bigger problem than most places.

Who Says It Does No Good To Complain?

Oberlin College – which is sort of the UC Berkeley of small private schools, the school that spawned Lena Dunham, the place where the affirmative checklist for student sex was invented, which has led the academic world in “trigger warning” R&D, a place that makes Carlton or Macalester look like Hillsdale – has been on the “dodgy” list for it’s weaselly approach to free speech on campus.

But it’s nice to know they know where to draw the line, isn’t it?

Doomed To Repeat It

Wanna feel depressed about society’s future?

The daughter of a Holocaust survivor interviews kids at a Louisiana vo-tech about the Holocaust:

Well, no.  The kids are at Drexel, and at Penn State – an “Ivy League” school that supposedly recruits the “best and brightest”.

“Highlights” – the Latina woman, Ivy Leaguer and future Leader Of Our Society at around 5:36 who lumped Jim Crow in with the Holocaust.

I’m afraid we’re one generation away from completely forgetting.

Privilege

Earlier this week, while listening to Jack and Andrew on the lesser talk station, I caught them running through this piece about 38 examples of liberal privelege on college campuses. 

The piece is very much worth a read.

Of course, if you live in a place like the Twin Cities, you realize there’d be room for a similar piece for adults in places where Jon Stewart is considered news and where chanting “settled science!” is considered an argument-ender.

I’m going to take quick shot at it, off the top of my head:  if you’re an adult in a “progressive” city…:

  1. You’ve never had to learn to confront dissent as anything other than either a mortal threat to your worldview, or a joke to be scuttled away from, using ad homina if necessary.
  2. You’ve never had to learn to debate at a level beyond strawmen, red herrings, and chuckling “facts have a liberal bias” as if the saying were handed down by the ancients, rather than by a mediocre comic who made a living satirizing conservatives.
  3. After 12 years of indoctrination in the public schools, and often as not 4-8 years at an institution where dissent is treated as a pathology, you are utterly secure in your faith that your club is the sole source of truth.

35 more to go!

Priorities In Action

The Minneapolis public school district expects to realize a savings of about $11 million when it completes his layoff of about 100 administrative staff from its headquarters building.

The district’s line is the savings are going to go back to the classroom – including potentially allowing the middle and high schools to add an extra hour onto their curricula.

Those of us who live in the conservative, real world know what this actually means – but i’ll break it down for the rest of the audience:

Now that they’re forced to cut administrators, they can focus more money on education. 

See the priorities?

Minneapolis has been systematically shorting students, their classrooms, and the curricula to keep their administrative payrolls fat and happy. Now that declining enrollments have the district in trouble, the piper needs to be paid.

This has to be at least as much the case in St. Paul, where the district headquarters building, in the Stalinesque fortress at 360 Colborne St., is more stuffed with deadwood than Lake of the Woods after the big windstorm.

Paper

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Liberals exclaim that Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s lack of a college degree proves he lacks knowledge.

I knew a guy who was frighteningly well educated. He could tell you why it rained, when it was going to rain, what made it rain . . . he just didn’t have enough sense to come in Out of the rain.

Knowledge is not wisdom.

Knowledge is learned in college; wisdom is won in the world.

I wish our current President had more worldly wisdom and not so much college knowledge.

I sincerely hope our next President does.

Joe Doakes

Anyone still talking about where they went to college more than five years after they graduated, unless there in an academic field, probably has nothing to be proud of in their post-college life.

Anyone who barbers about where someone went to college, unless that person is operating on the child or building their bridge, is probably an idiot.

Nuclear Power In Newcastle

The last place to look for fearless, open, free-wheeling speech for its own sake is any university town.

See Northfield, Minnesota – home of a couple of tony private colleges – where publican Norman Butler of the pub “Contented Cow” has been doing something I wish a bar in the Twin Cities would do; hosting a series of discussions and debates over the winter.

Then things got sticky:

But when word got out that Butler invited conspiracy theorist Jim Fetzer to do a series of talks on historical events on which he holds controversial opinions, some customers revolted.

They say that Fetzer is an anti-Semite because he also denies aspects of the Holocaust. Several residents sent notes to Butler saying they would stop frequenting his pub unless he canceled the talks.

We’ve run into the whackdoodle Fetzer (and, in the comment section, his fan club) on this blog before.  He hasn’t changed:

[Fetzer’s] “truths” include Fetzer’s belief that the Sandy Hook school shootings never really happened, that the 9/11 attacks were a “reality fraud” by the government conspiring with Israel and that the plane crash that killed Sen. Paul Wellstone was a possible assassination.

Fetzer’s posting of critics’ e-mails apparently caused one of his readers to send a threatening e-mail to one professor.

By Monday, Fetzer had agreed to change the events from speeches to debates, inviting people with expertise to rebut him. On his website, Fetzer said the community response “has shattered any lingering illusions I may have had about Northfield as an enlightened and intellectual environment.”.

If Fetzer believes any university town is a place for intellectual inquiry, it’s no wonder he denies the Holocaust and thinks 9/11 was an inside job.  He’ll buy anything.  

Kudos to Mr. Butler, anyway:

As of Tuesday, Butler was not backing down on the forums.

“I almost folded this morning,” he said. “I was down on my knees almost. But I got a second wind.”

Asked if he expected the backlash, the England native channeled British comedy troupe Monty Python: “Well, I didn’t expect the Spanish Inquisition.”

And that was that – until the professors got into the rhubarb:

One of those who oppose Fetzer’s appearance is Gordon Marino, professor of philosophy at St. Olaf College.

He called the appearance “unbelievable.”

“Is this some free speech thing?” Marino wrote to Butler. “If so, why not some pro-slavery person as well?”

OK.  So why not?

I mean, it’d be a short, sharp debate, probably ending badly for the proponent – but why the hell not?

Isn’t free speech about meeting bad speech with more, better speech?

Goodness knows college kids can’t debate even easy subjects like the existence of slavery or the Holocaust these days without resorting to the left’s “debate” playbook, strawmen and ad-hominem.  Having some of them see how it’s done might be a better learning experience than they’d ever get at Saint Olaf or Carlton.

If I Were The Dean At Harvard Law School

To:  Students of Harvard Law School
From: Mitch Berg, Angry Dean
Re:  Test Schedules

Dear Most Annoying Students in the World,

Starting at 8AM Monday morning, please line up in the front hall of the administration building in alphabetical order.  You will all be issued refund checks.  Because clearly we at HarvLaw have failed you as an institution.

The evidence – you all know that term, right? – is right here:

Those Harvard students have produced an open letter, in which they demand that their examinations be delayed. “Like many across the country,” its authors claim, students “are traumatized” and “visibly distressed” — to the extent that there is now a “palpable anguish looming over campus.”

I hope I’m long dead before I have people from big law firms writing me, chocking back their outrage at his institution for turning out such a vacuous pack of hamsters and calling them not only “lawyers”, but “Harvard Law School Grads”.

The “national crisis” that has been provoked by the cases of Garner and Brown, they argue, has left them with no choice but to “stand for justice rather than sit and prepare for exams.” And, like their brethren at Columbia, they contend that their “being asked to prepare for and take our exams in this moment” amounts to their “being asked to perform incredible acts of disassociation” — requests, which taken together, have led them “to question our place in this school community and the legal community at large.”

I can’t wait to see you vacuous children of boundless class privilege try that on a client in the real world; claim the violence inherent in the system makes it impossible for you to come into the office and work on your cases.  But at least you won’t “question your place in the legal community at large”, because by that point you’ll be transferring to the “fast food community”.

Justifiably so.

The bottom line? That students must be given “the opportunity to reschedule their exams in good faith and at their own discretion.”

And in good faith, I, your dean, will allow you and your faith and discretion to move your exams to any time another law school will let you, provided you get admitted.

Pick up your checks.  You haven’t failed. I have.

That is all.

Liberal Tolerance In Action

The headline is sarcastic, of course. Saint Thomas University, a Twin Cities catholic school, has never tolerated conservative opinion or action.  Under their previous president, Father “Hanoi Dennis” Dease, they disinvited conservative speakers, harassed conservative newspapers, and – in 2000, when a Cuban national team baseball player in town to play an exhibition against Saint Thomas defected at the airport, Dease forbade any Saint  Thomas students from harboring him.

Dease is gone – he apparently retired last year – but his legacy lives on.  A Saint Thomas school mascot – some sort of rodent, I think – “wiped his rear” with Republican literature on campus:

Angie Hasek, Chairman of the Minnesota College Republicans, posted a brief description of the event on Facebook.

“Tommie Mascot just wiped his rear with some GOP lit. I wouldn’t have expected someone at UST to stoop to that level.”

“Tolerance at its finest,” Hasek said.

According to the university’s website, the Tommie Mascot Team consists of up to six undergraduate students with the goal of “foster[ing] school spirit in a positive and professional manner.”

 

They Needed More Giant Papier-Maché Puppets

It’s been my theory for a few years now that there are things young “progressives” in liberal cesspools like Madison, Macalester and the U of M never really learn.

One of them is how to debate; since they all go straight from high school through their college years with no real challenges to their lefty preconceptions, they seem to have the debating skills of junior high kids.

Another?  How to take a hit gracefully.  When you have no concept of what it means not to be in power, you have no idea what even the most minimal adversity – losing a political campaign – feels like.

And you react like these icons of the progressive <i>id</i>:

I’ve met libs like “Thistle Petterson” in Saint Paul; so full of intellectual entitlement they can’t comprehend, much less live with, the notion that they don’t own the world politically.

I won’t say this video makes the whoooole thing worthwhile – but it is a nice mental after-dinner mint.

Our Dumb Counterculture, Part II

.One of the reasons that the left’s various attempts to counter the Tea Party have all failed, and will continue to fail, is that when you look at these hamsters, they just don’t look like America.  They look like superannnuated hippies and adenoidal poli-sci students and Macalester professors and the like.

And now, they’re bringing the magic to the Twin Cities:

Minneapolis, MN. – After this Saturday’s open forum in Stevens Square Park, through a group consensus, we now stand firm in our plans to unite at the Hennepin County

Government Plaza. This plaza is the new focal point for the OccupyMN movement.

Previously our plans were to stand in solidarity with those that occupy Wall Street by rallying at the steps of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.

“Stand Firm?”  “Stand in Solidarity?”

Hey, “protesters”; Jane Fonda called; she wants her 40-year-old florid rhetoric back.

The plan has changed to reclaim the Government Plaza as the “People’s Plaza”.

It is time to establish a new system that values people over profits. We are the 99% and we are moving to reclaim our mortgaged future.

They’re going to “reclaim” big government property…for big government?

The Minnesota Occupation Begins:

October 7th, 2011 at 9:00am

The People’s Plaza (Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha! – Ed)

300 South 6th Street

Minneapolis, MN 55487-0999

(Hennepin County Government Center Plaza)

I was briefly tempted to go there and videotape the Cantina Band scene that must certainly ensue.

Then I remembered – I have a family to spend time with, and an actual life.

Norquists In The Mist At Macalester

The American left today is a complex network of conspiracy theorists.

For example, there are the “Truthers” – people who believe that George W. Bush set up 9/11.  There are also “Triggers” – those who believe that Sarah, not Bristol, Palin begat little Trig.   There are many others – check ’em out.

The latest addition:  “Grovers”.  The “Grover” believes that the wheels of the GOP are being spun by Grover Norquist, of Americans for Tax Freedom.

In a move that should prompt deja vu on the part of Minnesotans who pay attnetion (admittedly mostly conservatives),

Brian Rosenberg is the president of Macalester College in Saint Paul.  The place makes fewer bones that most post-secondary schools about the fact that its mission is to train “progressives”; according to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, it’s got the “progressive”-friendly, anti-dissent speech code to match (FIRE gave Mac a “Red” rating for atrocious commitment to free speech).

And if you’re a parent who’s spending, or pondering spending, over $100,000 to send a kid to Mac, you might want to read Rosenberg’s Strib op-ed, and ask yourself “is this the level of commitment to intellectual honesty, to say nothing of rigor, that my kid can expect at Mac?”

Because Rosenberg exhibits the great trifecta of modern “progressive” “thought”in an op-ed in yesterdays’ Strib:

  • Crushing  Illogic: we’ll see plenty of that below.
  • The exploitation of ignorance.
  • The belief that government is our society’s most important enterprise

These lead liberals to some bizarre conclusions.

He’s got a thesis = and if you follow Minnesota politics, it’ll all sound very familiar:

The most powerful figure in today’s Republican Party is not John Boehner or Mitch McConnell. It is not Mitt Romney or Paul Ryan. It is not even Rush Limbaugh or Sarah Palin.

It is, of course, Grover Norquist, the man with The Pledge.

Sound familiar, Minnesotans?  It’s like David Strom and the Taxpayers League’s “No New Taxes” pledge .

Norquist, who has never held elected office…

Isn’t it funny how liberals toss that out when it suits them?

Martin Luther King never held elective office.  Either did Keith Olbermann, James Carville or Markos “Kos” Moulitsas, and each of them is every bit as involved in setting policy as is Norquist is – where “involvement” means “using their God-given right to tell legislators what they expect of them”.

Remember my first point?  Crushing Illogic?   Rosenberg indulges in the strawman first:

…is the founder and president of Americans for Tax Reform, a group whose pledge not to raise taxes under any circumstances has now been signed by hundreds of Republican candidates and officials at both state and national levels.

And they do mean “any circumstances.” Enormous budget deficits? No. A country at war? Nope. Famine and plague? Sorry.

It’s not just a strawman, it’s a dumb one.  We’re at war – but it’s not a war for our very existence, like World War 2 or the Civil War.  And we’re not suffering famine.

Indeed, our country’s only plague is government that regards spending as a greater “right” than the peoples’ right to keep the money they earn.  That’s the plague that Norquist is trying to  address.

If the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor, get back to us.

Our grandmothers kidnapped and threatened with death until and unless we raise taxes, as Norquist was asked recently by Stephen Colbert? Well, answered the unflappable Norquist, we always have our memories and our photographs.

(Colbert was being characteristically satiric. There appeared to be nothing satiric about the response.)

There’s point two, “playing on ignorance”.  A shocking number of self-described liberals believe that “The Daily Show” is a news show; it’s not a stretch to think they think the same of Colbert.

Norquist isn’t one of them.

I want to set aside for now the political and economic wisdom of raising or not raising taxes and focus instead on an even more fundamental question: How prudent is it to take an irrevocable pledge about how to govern before one begins the actual work of governing?

Again with the strawman.

If pledges were “irrevocable”, then Alcoholics Anonymous could make Step One “I pledge to quit drinking”, and dispense with steps two through twelve.

The politicians aren’t making the pledge to Grover Norquist.  They are making it to the voters.

Just as George H. W. Bush did, famously pledging “Read my lips!  No new taxes!”.  He broke the pledge.  It helped cost him the 1992 election.

Conservatives remember this.

How wise is it to remove from the legislative toolbox one of the most important tools before one knows what particular challenges one will face?

The “toolbox” is a dumb analogy.  Taxation isn’t government’s tool.  It’s government saying “I’m going to take your tool”.

A better analogy?  The credit card. It can be an important and useful tool in running a home – unless the homeowner starts believing it’s the credit card company’s obligation to support her spending no matter what.

Credit card companies don’t do that.  Why should we?

Up next?  Rosenberg shows – for those who might have doubted it – that he’s from Planet Academia:

How many employers in any industry would hire someone into a leadership position who declared, prior to beginning work, that he or she would under no circumstances employ a commonly used strategy or compromise with those with whom he or she disagreed?

Would a retailer hire a manager who asserted that he would never under any circumstances raise prices?

Would a manufacturer hire a vice president who insisted that under no conditions would layoffs be permissible?

No, no and no – but all of those analogies are wrong.

Nobody would hire a leader who promised to run the business according to a spending target.  And that’s exactly what the “progressives” have done to the state and federal government; make spending the measure of “good government”.

It’s why the DFL scolds us every year about “budget deficits” that are, in fact, based on nothing but bureaucratic spending targets; it’s the same at the national level, only moreso.

Even the most basic primers on leadership note that the ability to listen, the ability to learn and the willingness to compromise are among the essential characteristics of any successful leader.

True.  But Rosenberg missed the most important lesson in those “primers”; a leader leads people toward a goal.

Oh, liberals get it when it’s their goals – desired outcomes for their constituents, and above all that government itself remain fat and happy – and their leaders.

Norquist is asking that the main goal for would-be leaders that seek conservative votes,  at at a time when the greatest scourge facing our nation is an inability to continue long-term government entitlement spending, be to stop spending so much.

It’s a worthy goal.

Because conservatives don’t believe that keeping government fat and happy is the main goal of life – or, for that matter, of government.

Which brings us to the bizarre conclusion:

Many of these newcomers to public office appear also to believe that the mere fact of being elected constitutes a “mandate” for how they should subsequently act — as if the business of governing ended rather than began with being chosen for office.

That would make sense if we elected people to be bureaucrats – to follow pre-set, tested procedures to do a job whose parameters everyone already agrees on.

We don’t agree on those parameters, though.  Which is why we have elections – as an alternative to fighting a civil war over how that job is supposed to be done.

This is a new, peculiar, and destructive way to think about representative government. It ultimately would lead to the elimination of representative government altogether and, instead, to public ballot initiatives on every issue large and small. And we know how well that is working in California.

If Rosenberg were an undergrad writing an English or history paper, and he used such a broad, unsupported conclusion for his thesis, a teacher worthy of them name would knock him down a couple of letter grades and send it back for a rewrite.

Minnesota was once a place known for the exceptional ability of its leaders to place the common good above polarizing ideology.

No.  Minnesota was once a one-party state.  It had two “parties”, of course – but intellectually, there really was only one party.

Life changes.  Wear a helmet, Rosenberg.

Americans for Tax Reform asks every candidate for elected office on the state or federal level to make a written commitment to their constituents to “oppose and vote against all tax increases.”

Every member of Congress, upon taking office, is asked to swear an oath to “well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter.”

Here is my simple question: Which “pledge” takes precedence?

That Rosenberg thinks “making government live within its means” is not “part of the duties of the office” shows us where part of Minneosta’s problem is.

When Someone Asks For A “Realistic Conversation”…

…what they’re really saying is “let’s accept everything I believe as a given, and ignore anything you bring to the table”.

Laura Gilbert’s plea for a “realistic conversation” bout 21st century education (in the MinnPost) is a case study:

Problem #1: America needs post-secondary degrees. According to policymakers, America’s future depends on our ability to increase the percent of Americans with quality post-secondary credentials from the current 39% to 60% in the next decade.

Well, it’s an interesting theory.

Now, seventy years ago a high school diploma was a big deal; during World War II, the average GI had an eighth grade education, and something under a third of Americans went to school through 12th grade.  The percentage of college diplomas was in the single digits; a college sheepskin pretty well meant you were officer or management material.

“But Mitch, the challenge back then – at least the economic one – was different; it was met by brick-and-mortar-and-steel industries that built things.  Our current economy is about information”.

I know –  my day job is in IT.  I get that.

But it’s Economics 101; as the supply of something increases relative to the demand, the value will drop.  In the sixty years after World War II, as it became expected that everyone should get a high school diploma and that college was the preferred post-secondary track, the value of the diploma decreased.  Same with higher education; the BA in English or History or Business Administration  that used to guarantee a job as a teacher or a salesman or a management trainee or an administrator or something, because it was proof that you packed some sort of intellectual gear, now doesn’t guarantee a job selling shoes at Thom McAn, because the supply of English/History/Business degrees is so out of whack with the demand for jobs for generalists.   And the supply of specialists – marketing majors, registered nurses,  aerospace engineers, physical therapists and what have you – is dependant on the need for the specialty.

We’ll come back to that.

Unless we do so, our ability to compete in a global knowledge economy could be severely compromised as early as 2020.  Statistics support this claim.

Ms. Gilbert doesn’t favor us with those statistics, but “Education is good” doesn’t seem like an especially arguable premise.

But what does “Education” mean? Does it mean “learning how to learn, and developing the intellectual,l social, cultural and technical tools to be not only a valuable worker, but a capable member of society?  One who can not only do a job, but contribute to the growth of the society, the culture, the economy and the human race?”  Or does it mean “owner of a suitably punched ticket?”

Because the latter – that’s not education.  That’s schooling.

And confusing the two is the road to ruin.

Remember – seventy years ago a high school dipoloma meant that one had a degree of education, as well as schooling.  And as the supply of diplomas rose, its value dropped – and, in the past thirty years or so, so has its content.  College freshmen today are phenomenally likely to need remedial help in writing, math, and history, as the public school system becomes less an educational system and more of  a rote process.

What Ms. Gilbert seems to be calling for is a similar devaluation of the college degree.

Problem #2: Higher education needs funding. Ironically, historic cuts in state higher ed funding threaten quality and, in some cases, survival of public colleges and universities: 50% of funding cut in Pennsylvania, $500 million in California, $400 million in Minnesota, the list goes on.

Which is – I’ll be charitable – a lazy view. There is phenomenal amount of money in higher education.  Again with the economics 101; as the supply of money available to spend on a fixed amount of a good or service – say, a seat at a college – increases, the price rises.  The price of a college education has zoomed far ahead of inflation – but in perfect sync with the amount of  private and especially public money available to pay for the goods and services.  People are talking about a higher education bubble, as the costs involved in supporting the system far outstrip the system’s ability to pay for it at its current inflated level.

But Ms. Gilbert seems to be pushing the imperative to support the status quo – the devaluation of education by the subsidy of mass schooling, damn the cost both in terms of up-front “tuition” costs as well as the rot that comes from the inflation.

This month, students across America took to the streets to protest higher ed budget cuts. Without state funds, students fear access to education will be limited to the economically-advantaged. Without students, universities fear mass layoffs and an immeasurable loss of talent as professors abandon the classroom. And without graduates, corporations wonder where they will find skilled workers. History and statistics support these claims.

History and statistics support these claims – if they are viewed with blinders to filter out all but the stated issue.

The fact is, if corporations are willing to pay for a skill, someone will step up to supply it.  America has been turning out a dearth of engineers and scientists for decades – so a generation of Indian and Chinese technocrats have made “The Indian Engineer” a new stereotype.  We produce a surfeit of registered nurses – so we are importing RNs from the Philippines and Mexico.  We produce a shortage of science and math teachers – so states are adopting alternative teacher licensure to make use of surplus math and science talent from other fields.

The market finds a way to get what it needs.

And decades of subsidy of education have supplied, to be blunt, a huge surplus of things the market doesn’t need; people with schooling, but not enough education to either get hired as a specialist or to find a niche as a generalist.  Macalester College turns out waves of anthropology majors that will never track a lost tribe; the U of M turns out psychology majors that will spend years working in call centers; Jamestown College in Jamestown, ND gave a BA in English to a guy that had to figure out a way to squeedge that into a gig in IT – something that was no part of his schooling (but was, fortunately, part of his – my – formal and informal education, thank God).

If corporations need educated workers to order to remain competitive in the near future, and if policymakers want more educated workers in order for America to hold (or regain) our global rank as a highly-educated economic force, then cuts to education must be stopped, right? Well, maybe; particularly at proposed reduction levels.

Actually, I’ll propose – modestly, and again – that we not only disconnect the idea of “education” and “schooling”, but the idea that throwing money into the huge education pool does anything but bid up the cost of those goods and services.   After decades of performing brain surgery with hammers, Ms. Gilbert is proposing we use a bigger hammer.

But, maybe there is a third consideration…

Problem #3: There does not appear to be a central conversation about higher education across all parties; an objective, future-looking dialogue that starts with where we are, and moves toward where we need to be. How else can rational decisions be made about where to cut and where to reinvent so we can still achieve the long-term vision for America? Passionate, brilliant, forward-thinking pundits exist in each camp. Imagine if these renaissance thinkers came together to celebrate higher education’s remarkable past while designing and championing the future.

You want a conversation about higher education?  OK.  Here’s some ideas I want to see at the table:

  1. Stop confusing “improving education” with “counting the number of diplomas issued. Our colleges are cranking out BAs with wild abandon.  They’re just not the BAs that the market needs.   Let market forces decide what kind of “education” people get.  We have more Women’s Studies, psychology, majors than the market can possibly absorb, but it is incredibly difficult to find American tool and die makers, electrical engineers, and – oddly enough – competent English teachers.  And no – I’m not discounting the value of a humanities degree; I’m the English major, remember?  There is a value to pure education for its own sake – but there is little reason to subsidize it just to buff up the nation’s degree count.
  2. Stop confusing “education” with “schooling”.  Thirty years ago, America fretted over “Why Johnny Can’t Read”.  Johnny went to Normandale, is now 45, and he’s a manager at Target, and his kids are thinking about applying to get into Metro State, and they don’t know what the Bill of Rights or a dangling participle or molecular valences are, because their public high schools are so dumbed down that there was never any reason to know any of those things. Americans have diplomas and degrees coming out their ears; too many of them are still not educated, and given the state of our public education system, it’s only going to get worse.
  3. The Planned Economy didn’t work for the USSR; why would education be any different?  Coming up with an artificial output goal for, say, the number of degrees – call it a “Five Year Plan”, maybe – makes no more sense than setting arbitrary figures for the amount of cabbage did.
  4. Make the high school diploma worth something again: I advocate voucherizing the whole mess.
  5. Stop stigmatizing the non-college track: I have a BA.  I’m glad I do.  But too often when I talk education, especially with teachers and former professional students, talk of students going to technical or vocational school, or anything but the four-year Bachelor’s Degree track, is treated as a defeat.  It’s just not true; there are plenty of people in this world who are happier fixing things, programming things, buildling things than they’d be sitting at a desk, or in a classroom, or operating in the abstract.  It’s not a defeat; treating it like it is devalues something of great value.
  6. Stop leaving half the students on the table: It’s politically incorrect to say it, but it’s a fact; boys and girls – eventually, men and women – are different.   Girls develop verbal and social skills very early; boys, on the other hand, develop better three-dimensional visualization skills.  Those skills carry forward in life; girls – women – traditionally tend to gravitate toward careers and skills involving communications and socialization (education, social work, even management) while boys stereotypically gravitate toward more tangible things, from auto mechanics to aeronautical engineering.  But over the past thirty years, elementary and secondary education has become feminized, meaning that being a boy has become devalued.  And that devaluation is moving upward into the college years now; soon,l women will make up 60% of all degrees, and it’s not slowing down at all.  Does Ms. Gilbert think culling half the population from “Education” is a good idea?
  7. Let’s learn from the recent past. Government made it a goal to make sure Americans were jammed into houses; the government poured money, in the form of credit, into the housing market.  The market, predictably, responded by taking the money, in the form of higher prices and “values”.  The government kept inflating the bubble until it became unsustainable; it exploded, and we’re still picking shrapnel out of our asses.  Would it have been better to slowly withdraw some of the artificial subsidy and let it deflate slowly?  Check your latest appraisal and get back to me before you demand taxpayers keep pumping money into the education bubble just for the sake of a nebulous goal that, as we discussed above, may not solve the problem it’s supposedly aimed at.

So let’s talk.