Category Archives: Education

Business, Economics, Education, Political Commentary

A Bit Of Good News

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The law-school bubble is popping:

“I’m hearing from the students I work with that they are concerned about the value of a law degree,” said Tim Stiles, a career adviser at the University of North Carolina. Students, he said, often tell him they have read press accounts about the difficulty of finding law jobs.

Some students are starting to feel they don’t need an advanced degree to improve their career opportunities, college advisers said.

Business-school applications for the fall 2011 class have not been tallied yet by the Graduate Management Admission Council. But last year, the average number of applications to full-time graduate programs declined 1.8%, the Council said, the first decline since 2005.

“When the economy first went down, students saw law school as a way to dodge the work force,” said Ryan Heitkamp, a pre-law adviser at Ohio State University. “The news has gotten out that law school is not necessarily a safe backup plan.”

It’s not just good news because it’s generally good news when bubbles finally deflate, at least for productive activity. It’s also good news because the overproduction of lawyers in itself has high external costs on society. I wish that we could swap a million or so for Japanese engineers.

Education, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

He Can Dish It Out, But…

Thoughts from James Taranto on the hot-house whining from leftists in both academia and journalism, and defense of free speech:

The reason we find Leiter’s comments amusing rather than disgusting is that we, unlike Althouse, are not part of academia and thus have no personal investment in the ideal of disinterested and honest scholarship. Rather than offend our ideals, Leiter reinforces our stereotype of academia as being filled with fools and knaves. You can see why this would bother Althouse, a scholar who does not fit the disparaging stereotype.

Althouse’s emotional reaction to Leiter’s comments is similar to ours when the New York Times publishes blatantly slanted stories on its news pages or outright lies on its opinion pages. Those are our professional standards the Times is transgressing. Some of our readers thought our outrage at the Times naive; we would say that, like Althouse’s disgust with Leiter, it was merely idealistic. It is possible to be knowing without being cynical.

To return to John Benjamin’s letter, we certainly agree that it is better if “foolish, crazy or hostile ideas” do not survive, or at least do not thrive. A good deal of our work is devoted to combating them with the weapons of logic and mockery. As the disgusted Althouse demonstrates, shaming can also be an effective tactic.

Look at Leiter’s defensive updates to his initial blog post. He accuses Althouse of an “inflammatory hatchet job” and us of a “drive-by smear.” He answers by asserting that “I did not, and do not, call for political violence”–technically an accurate statement, as explained above, but a curious claim for him to deny since neither Althouse nor this column ever made it. Leiter wouldn’t be acting like such a crybaby if he weren’t losing this argument.

I think that Harry Truman said something about heat and kitchens.

Business, Economics, Education, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Public-Employee Union Thuggery

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Some thoughts:

In the letter to Wisconsin businessmen, however, we see why so-called collective bargaining is particularly corrupting to the police. Although the letter explicitly threatens only an economic boycott, when it is written on behalf of the police–of those on whom all citizens depend to protect their safety–it invariably raises the prospect of another kind of boycott. Can a businessman who declines this heavy-handed “request” be confident that the police will do their job if he is the victim of a crime–particularly if the crime itself is in retaliation for his refusal to support “the dedicated public employees who serve our communities”?

Sykes sums up the letter this way: “That’s a nice business you got there. Pity if anything were to happen to it if, say, you didn’t toe the line and denounce Governor Walker like we’re asking nice-like.” He’s right. “Organized” law enforcement bears a disturbing resemblance to organized crime.

Outlawing public-employee unions was one of the few good ideas that Franklin Roosevelt had. And most notably, for the right reasons.

[Update a while later]

Pedagogy:

Aren’t you forgetting a thing or 2? You’ve got them chanting “Hey hey, ho ho, Scott Walker has got to go” — but what do they know about Scott Walker? That he’s done something the teachers don’t like. So, maybe some day, when you do something they don’t like, some kid might start “Hey hey, ho ho, [TEACHER’S NAME] has got to go.” Today, you’re pleased to teach them “The children, united, will never be divided.” I’m picturing them repurposing that chant back in the classroom.

What will you do if they learn the lesson you’re teaching them, to denounce legitimate authority when it crosses your heartfelt interests?

I don’t know which is more of an abomination, a policeman’s union or a public-teacher’s union. If one of those kids were mine, I’d sue, but then, I probably would have pulled them out of the public schools long before.

Education, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

An Open Letter To Davis Guggenheim

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Don’t go back over to the Dark Side:

Guggenheim was right to make unions the villains of his film. But now that he’s starting to backpedal about collective bargaining, he’s getting heat from the reform community. There’s a bit of a mutiny on the “Waiting for ‘Superman’” Facebook page. The comments are decidedly opposed to Guggenheim’s view, with some supporters going so far as to say they’ll no longer promote the film.

Perhaps they’ll gravitate towards “Kids Aren’t Cars,” a film series that pulls no punches and shows the ugly impact collective bargaining has had on American public education.

It’s not too late to stop going wobbly.

Education, Political Commentary

Don’t Know Much About Geography

…or civics:

The Intercollegiate Studies Institute just released Enlightened Citizenship: How Civic Knowledge Trumps a College Degree in Promoting Active Civic Engagement, which shows that college has zero positive influence in encouraging graduates to become politically engaged — although many universities promote that in mission statements.

I’m not surprised, given how ignorant of it our elected representatives seem to be. Just another sign of the higher (and lower) education bubble and the worthlessness of many college (and high school) degrees. And of our educational system in general.

Business, Economics, Education, Political Commentary

On Firing Schoolteachers

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The benefits:

I doubt that the lowest possible turnover rate is compatible with the best possible education. Turnover has costs, but it also has benefits: fresh blood, lower burnout rates, and an incentive for teachers to keep performing. The whole idea of hiring someone in their early twenties and employing them forever seems like an unhealthy organizational structure to me–in the military and old-school law firms as well as teaching, though the military and law firms do more to weed out the number along the way. It breeds an organization that is insular–resistant to new ideas, suspicious of outsiders, resentful of its nominal clients. We should be looking for ways to make teaching more open to part-timers and people in second, third, or eighth career cycles, and to make it easier for teachers to move around between schools and districts, and between teaching and other industries.

It will never happen, though, as long as the NEA retains its power, because it’s never about the children with them. And it’s another good argument against public-employee unions.

Business, Education, General Science, Space

Alan Stern Speaks

Building a new community, something out of nothing. It is 1979 and the PC is about to appear in the next year.

When suborbital took off after X-Prize win, was all about tourism. Last year we saw at the first conference that research and education had come to the fore. A lot of surprise last year when over 250 people showed up at first conference, but now providers talking about this as primary market. Life science, earth science, space physics, astronomy and solar physics, lots of new ideas that we couldn’t have imagined a year ago, just heard an idea last night about how to detect extra-solar planets using suborbital flight. Will be able to get more useful microgravity time for many areas than on ISS. Last year over 80 presentations, with double that this year, three hundred pre-registered with a lot of walk-ins this morning. Last year SS2 had just rolled out, but this past year we’ve seen vehicles actually flying. Spaceport America dedicated in October (many here were there), SS2 is doing approach/landing tests, XCOR, Masten and Armadillo manifesting payloads, Blue Origin has announced their cabin payload system, NASTAR offereing regular REM training courses, CRuSR funded, Commercial Spaceflight Federation has new members, and new space policy that encourages commercialization. Flights will be beginning soon with SwRI and others, and next year we may start to see results at this conference.

George Nield of FAA up next.