A Business Major: What is It Good For?

Earlier this spring the University of Rochester where I teach announced that it is inaugurating an undergraduate major in business. (UofR is not alone. At the same time SUNY College at Brockport where Susan teaches is launching a business school.) Many of my colleagues in the Arts and Sciences take what might be called a dim view of this initiative. Proponents of the initiative tend to depict this as typical snottiness on the part of over-educated, left-leaning elites. In case you think that the skepticism is just that, you ought to read this article from The New York Times Magazine. Actual research finds that Business majors study less and less hard than their peers who major in other subjects and, unsurprisingly, they seem to get less from their education as a result.* And then we set them loose to make decisions that impact the lives of others in fundamental ways. And, of course, the article suggests that what the best undergraduate business programs provide is essentially - yes, you guessed it! - a typical liberal arts education in science, social science or humanities.
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* One curiosity in the article is the disjunction between the research results that find b-majors to be working less on average and the claims by faculty and administrators in the article that only a minority of their own students fit that profile. I can imagine a set of factors that might differentiate most business students at Radford or Ohio University from the patterns discovered in the research studies. Whether those factors actually are at play is an empirical question. And I am absolutely confident that the business majors at Rochester all will be above average!

Political Science, Incorporated

In the NYRB this week there is a useful article by Simon Head on the political-economy of higher education in the U.S. and U.K.; you can find it here. Corporatization run a muck? Well, since I work at a private University that has a tight budget, I understand the need to make hard financial decisions. But I can also see the sorts of pressures Head describes all around me. The idea of research on call or for profit is not simply ludicrous. It tends to generate tripe - in other words, bad research. The same goes for teaching.

Waiting for Kryptonite

A documentary film is supposed to try, at least, to deal with realities - at least that is the way the genre conventionally has promoted itself. Otherwise it slips over the line into propaganda. Seems like the film Waiting for Superman has crossed the boundary - that is why we need a border fence! In NYRB this week Diane Ravitch, not a movie critic but a former enthusiast for right wing schemes for 'reforming' public education of the sort the movie peddles, has a go at the film. Let's just say, that she doesn't think it is a reality based effort. I have, in the past, posted on right wing educational proposals: the entirely mediocre record that charter schools have amassed, the anti-democratic nature of centralized control proposals and the generally wrongheaded nature of the clamor for "standards"; no need to repeat myself here.

Are Student Evaluations of College Faculty the Beginning of the End for Higher Education?

I teach at a smallish liberal arts College embedded in a largely vocational University. I say 'vocational' in the sense that a good many of the students are in undergrad and graduate programs leading to some professional degree (Business, Medicine, Music (performance), Education, Engineering, and so on). There is nothing wrong with any of those enterprises. Indeed, the various professional schools serve as a model in which there are some things one simply has to know in order to be deemed well trained or educated. Faculty know those things, students are on campus to learn them. By contrast, the entire curriculum in the College, by design, is driven by student choice. There are really very few substantive requirements. Worse, in my own department, it seems that most students can get a degree without ever really writing a paper more than ten pages long or so. By that I mean they face few demands either. All I have to do is mention a longer writing assignment - or one that requires independent research and thinking - and students drop the course in droves.

In that sense I have been impressed by this series of essays that Stanley Fish has written for The New York Times. In general, I think he is on the right track. Two things, at least*, are important to note, however.

First, it mostly is the conservative types, those who insist on a 'classical' curriculum, who also think there are right answers to every question, or who think that education consists in providing answers instead of priming students to ask and explore smart questions. There are, of course, right and wrong answers even in my field. I expect my students to know what John Stuart Mill or Hannah Arendt said about, say, freedom and why they said it. Beyond that, there is no reason to think that there is a single, unambiguous answer to the question as to whether either Mill or Arendt gets 'freedom' right or that their reasons for being preoccupied with freedom are cogent. The conservatives are simply out to lunch on that score. The whole point is that freedom (and other political concepts) are deeply contestable. The same is true in other domains and disciplines too. That hardly is a conclusion likely to attract support among conservatives.

Please note that I am not saying 'anything goes' - one surely can advance better and worse arguments (reasons) or more or less sound evidence for a given position. That said, at the end of the day, neither your reasons nor your evidence is likely to be decisive. Others will still disagree with you and, despite what you think, be reasonable in doing so.

Second, a good part of the problem is due to the fact that faculty often simply are not willing to defend some body of knowledge or some modes of inquiry as crucial to proper training or education. There is what we might call 'canon' aversion. This is driven in part by fear that students will find the resulting requirements too taxing or irrelevant or whatever. But it also is driven by unwillingness to take a stand, to make a judgment. Those most willing to take a stand often those who have least grasp of substantive material - we get consensus on 'methods' but not on the point of learning those techniques in the first place. And that is easier than having serious, contentious conversations about what students need to know and what faculty, therefore, need to teach.

I am not painting a particularly pretty picture. But it doesn't make sense to say that the dire trends in post-secondary education are all due to taking student evaluations seriously.** After all, if you don't want to rely on the judgment of students whose judgment do you plan to rely on?
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* Another thing to wonder about is whether the education that Fish received in high school is an appropriate model for a college curriculum. I suspect that the answer to that question is complicated. Moreover, there is the problem that Fish neglects, namely that Colleges operate on a market. So even if something 'classical' and hence suitably demanding, is what Colleges ought to be selling, it might nonetheless fail on the market.
** As Fish seems to do: "And it all began with student evaluations, or, rather, with the mistake of taking them seriously. Since then, it’s been all downhill."

Bad News for Conservatives (1) ~ Charter Schools are a Bust

I've decided to initiate a "news digest" calling attention to news items that show the failures of conservative social engineering. I know conservatives claim not to believe in social engineering, but that is what they are up to much of the time. So this is the first in a series.

From The New York Times today we find a report about how wealthy folks with money to throw around seem not to be terribly 'reality based' ... too many foundations are eager to keep pushing Charter Schools in the face of more or less their complete failure to out-perform public schools:

"Charters have . . . become a pet cause of what one education historian calls a billionaires’ club of philanthropists, including Mr. Gates, Eli Broad of Los Angeles and the Walton family of Wal-Mart.

But for all their support and cultural cachet, the majority of the 5,000 or so charter schools nationwide appear to be no better, and in many cases worse, than local public schools when measured by achievement on standardized tests, according to experts citing years of research. Last year one of the most comprehensive studies, by researchers from Stanford University, found that fewer than one-fifth of charter schools nationally offered a better education than comparable local schools, almost half offered an equivalent education and more than a third, 37 percent, were “significantly worse.”

Although “charter schools have become a rallying cry for education reformers,” the report, by the Center for Research on Education Outcomes, warned, “this study reveals in unmistakable terms that, in the aggregate, charter students are not faring as well” as students in traditional schools."

When is an experiment a failure? Even if we accept the conservative criteria for evaluation - student performance on standardized tests - and even if we control for features that would advantage Charters - like longer school days and more engaged families - the "Charters" seem to be a shining example of a failed experiment.
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P.S.: Just an observation: Do the folks at The Times really think that being from the second largest city in the U.S. is equivalent to being from the largest retail chain?

Educational 'Reform' Haunts Rochester

On occasion I have posted here on educational reform in a general way. Well, reform is on the agenda in Rochester. The mayor and several other local politicos are pushing hard to institute a scheme (still fairly ill-defined) of "mayoral control" over the city school district. The district currently is governed by a superintendent and an elected school board. The new scheme - as I understand it - would dismantle the board and keep the super. It has some significant support and, a while back, the President's of three dozen local colleges and universities endorsed the Mayor's plan.* This is viewed as a get tough move, a dose of realism. In fact it is a mistake - dramatically anti-democratic and based (politely) on scant evidence that the new governance structure is relevant to addressing the pressing needs of students, parents, teachers and staff in the Rochester school district. In responses to critics of his plan the mayor typically adopts a burden shifting stance: the critics, he complains, don't offer a plan for addressing the ills of the school system. The premise of such complaints - and it is a false premise - is that mayoral control itself is a plan for addressing the failures of school system. That is where the mayor is wrong.

Here is an open letter, published yesterday in the Democrat & Chronicle opposing mayoral control. You will note that it includes several suggestions about how to proceed. I am among the impolitic 35.

Dear Rochester Community:

As many of you may already know, Rochester Mayor Robert Duffy has proposed to eliminate the city school board and bring the school system under mayoral control for a five-year trial period. On Feb. 23, the presidents of 19 Rochester-area colleges and universities submitted a letter (to the Democrat and Chronicle) endorsing Duffy's proposal and joined a small group of high-profile supporters including Monroe County Democratic Committee Chairman Joe Morelle and state Assemblyman David Gantt. We certainly respect their right to free speech and we appreciate working at institutions with leaders who are willing to engage in pressing public issues. As faculty and staff from Rochester-area colleges and universities, however, we oppose mayoral control.

We can all agree that the Rochester school system is in a dismal state. We agree with the presidents fully when they conclude that, "The stakes are high." We agree with the underlying motivation of the area colleges' letter. The future of investment and growth in the region is linked to the fate of Rochester city schools. The presidents of area colleges should certainly care about these issues. However, they should use their considerable influence to seriously examine and address all of the factors that militate against a vibrant, sound and effective education for all city students. Mayoral control is not the answer. The reasons for our opposition to mayoral control are threefold.

First and most fundamentally, it will tear away an important layer of democracy. Routine school board meetings provide transparency and opportunities for parents and community members to register their views on important policy decisions. Mayoral control would eliminate a valuable mechanism for citizen participation. We should find ways to make the board more democratic, responsive and accountable. Such reforms might include term limits for school board members, more representation of parents and students on the board, and the creation of a rotating leadership structure. If Duffy is so confident that the residents of Rochester are on board with this proposed change, he should call for an advisory referendum and a legitimate poll involving a representative sample of city residents.

Second, mayoral control has too often served as a prelude to the privatization of public schools through voucher programs, increased proliferation of (for-profit) charter schools (which funnel public funds to the private sector) and the elimination or dilution of collective bargaining agreements, measures which do not necessarily improve classroom instruction and authentic academic growth. In one city after another, whenever mayoral control has been instituted, it has been met with resistance from students, parents and educators for the resulting loss of transparency and fairness and the erosion of basic labor rights of teachers and support staff.

Third, we are not convinced that mayoral control will yield the kind of radical improvements in school performance touted by its advocates. The implementation documents released by the mayor on March 15 and 29 include a number of guaranteed services and promised outcomes, including the following: the promise to staff schools from 7 a.m. until 8 p.m. each day; the commitment to provide "the best after-school program in the country"; the guarantee of school bus service to all elementary students who request it; and the provision of "the best behavioral and psychological support for disruptive students..." We applaud the mayor for recognizing some of the core areas that must be addressed for city schools to be successful. Many of these initiatives are indeed long overdue and vital to the educational well-being of city students. However, the mayor has not indicated how these initiatives will be funded given the painful cuts in state and municipal education budgets.

The most recent results of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) contradict this claim made in the area colleges' letter that there is "considerable evidence that mayoral control improves outcomes." Of the urban districts that have been tracked by NAEP since 2002, the highest performing districts, Austin and Charlotte, are not mayor-controlled, while the lowest performing districts, Chicago, Cleveland and Washington, D.C., are under mayoral control. (In fact, Chicago and Cleveland have been mayor-controlled for almost a decade). Atlanta, the district that saw the most improvement since 2002, is not mayor-controlled.

Even though it mentions the problem of concentrated poverty in passing, the area colleges' letter stops short of providing a progressive solution to the enduring matter of segregation in the region's public school systems. How can we continue to profess equality of opportunity in a nation where geography and class largely determine the quality of education children will receive? The area college presidents might have embraced other remedies, such as more equitable funding schemes, better health services and jobs, regional consolidation of school districts or resource sharing between urban-suburban districts. Such progressive remedies have been touted in recent years by academics (many who work at the very institutions these presidents represent), parent associations, public school reformers and advocacy organizations like the Campaign for Fiscal Equity and the Alliance for Quality Education here in New York.

Those of us who want to improve the quality of public education and maintain democracy have a serious fight on our hands. The future of young Rochesterians and our right to self-governance are well worth fighting for. Thank you for your time and consideration of these issues.

— 35 Concerned staff and faculty of Rochester-area colleges and universities

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* The plan has significant, articulate opponents too.

Cheering Education Follies at The Times

"The countries that have left the United States behind in math and science education have one thing in common: They offer the same high education standards — often the same curriculum — from one end of the nation to the other. The United States relies on a generally mediocre patchwork of standards that vary, not just from state to state, but often from district to district. A child’s education depends primarily on ZIP code.

That could eventually change if the states adopt the new rigorous standards proposed last week by the National Governors Association and a group representing state school superintendents. The proposal lays out clear, ambitious goals for what children should learn year to year and could change curriculums, tests and teacher training."

Those are the opening paragraphs of this editorial at The New York Times today. The folks there are very enthusiastic about the newly proposed standards. Let's just say I am dubious. I don't know the details of the proposal the editorial endorses. One can only imagine. But I have some views about the general, persistent, wrong-headed clamor for standardization.

First, it may well be true that a "child's education depends primarily on ZIP code." But the most obvious way that dependence occurs is in terms of financing. In the U.S. we rely on local property taxes to fund schools. The resulting inequalities are shameful. Standards will remedy neither that underlying problem nor the educational s it generates. What might is an overhaul of educational funding. If you are searching for something to make uniform, to standardize, nationalize the formula for education expenditures per pupil.

Second, I've not checked, but will give odds that the "countries that have left the United States behind in math and science education have" more than "one thing in common" beyond national education standards. I will bet the vast majority also have considerably lower rates of childhood poverty. I'll bet too that they have considerably less dramatic inequalities in the distribution of wealth and income. Go look. You can read the results into my first point.

But let's not follow the money. Surely, that would be too crass and would lead conservatives to crow that I simply have low expectations for poor kids and the schools that serve them. Pointing out that educational attainment reflects economic inequalities is simply an excuse, right? Wrong.

The first thing to note is a bit of rhetoric. Proponents of national standards, and the institutional uniformity - in terms of curricula, testing, teacher training - they would impose, engage in a none-too-subtle bit of persuasive definition. Their proposal is for "standards," making them hard-nosed and realistic. By contrast those of us who think that program of reform is misguided must, of necessity, be opposed to standards, right? Hence we support what? Laxity, coddling students, soft-headedness? No, we support democracy and educational attainment. The language of conservative reformers seeks to hide that.

The second, related thing to note is that the standards movement is fundamentally authoritarian and anti-democratic. Here is educator Deborah Meier on educational standardization:

"Even in the hands of sincere allies of children, equity, and public education, the current push for far greater standardization than we’ve ever previously attempted is fundamentally misguided. It will not help to develop young minds, contribute to a robust democratic life, or aid the most vulnerable of our fellow citizens. By shifting the locus of authority to outside bodies, it undermines the capacity of schools to instruct by example in the qualities of mind that schools in a democracy should be fostering in kids–responsibility for one’s own ideas, tolerance for the ideas of others, and a capacity to negotiate differences. Standardization instead turns teachers and parents into the local instruments of externally imposed expert judgment. It thus decreases the chances that young people will grow up in the midst of adults who are making hard decisions and exercising mature judgment in the face of disagreements. And it squeezes out those schools and educators that seek to show alternate possibilities, to explore other paths.

The standardization movement is not based on a simple mistake. It rests on deep assumptions about the goals of education and the proper exercise of authority in the making of decisions– assumptions we ought to reject in favor of a different vision of a healthy democratic society."

On the view Meier advances - and that she and others have implemented, repeatedly, in innovative schools located in decided un-affluent neighborhoods** - standards and the alternatives that ground genuine school choice emerge from local debates about the aims and organization of education. What she argues for are the sorts of standards that experimentation generates and it is difficult to see how standardization will promote that.

The third thing to note is that the standards movement is parasitic on a narrow understanding of the aims of education. Hence, the editorialists at The Times assert blithely that there is some consensus that schools ought to deliver "the skills students will need," but they do so without forming the question - skills for what? Roberto Unger***, for instance, identifies the importance for economic development and democratization of implementing "a form of education addressed to the development of generic conceptual and practical capacities rather than mastery of job-specific skills." He goes on to insist that such education be "administered in youth and made available throughout a working life." And he summarizes his view in this way:

"The distinguishing traits of such a form of education are to be analytical and problematic rather than informational; to prefer exemplary selective deepening to encyclopedic coverage; to encourage cooperation rather than isolation or authoritarianism, in learning and teaching; and to proceed dialectically - that is to say, by the exploration of contrasting methods and views rather than by appeal to a closed canon and right doctrine."

I suspect that this broad set of features is not what the conservative reformers who peddle standards have in mind. But Unger surely would agree with Robert Moses about the need to teach kids - all kids - algebra, not because they need to know algebra per se, but because learning algebra affords them practice in the sort of abstract thinking that is required if they hope to be productive citizens and creative workers capable of navigating the increasingly treacherous labor market. As Meier proposes, it might be that learning statistics could perform a similar function. The point is that mathematical literacy is important not just for its own sake but because it has political and economic consequences.

Oh, and finally, the folks at The Times editorial page might try reading their own paper. In recent weeks the news on the "education" pages has highlighted: (i) The apostasy of Dianne Ravitch, one of the leading proponents of conservative educational reform, who's become persuaded that the reform agenda she preached is deeply misguided. The source of her change of heart? She apparently looked at the evidence. [1] [2]; (ii) The financial disaster in Kansas City Missouri and its effects on the public schools - especially on the matter of school size (conservative reformers typically discount the importance of small schools and small classes) and racial and political-economic inequities. [3] [4]; And (iii) the concerted efforts of conservative fundamentalists in Texas to hijack educational standards in pursuit of a reactionary ideological agenda [5]. Thus far all I've suggested is that "standards" proposals are deeply flawed even when properly implemented. Let's not forget that - in the real world - they are ripe for precisely this sort of abuse as well.
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* Deborah Meier, et. al., 2000. Will Standards Save Public Education? Boston: Beacon Press, and Deborah Meier. 2002. In schools we trust: Creating communities of learning in an era of testing and standardization. Boston: Beacon Press.
** For example, Deborah Meier. 1995. The Power of Their Ideas: Lessons for America from a Small School in Harlem. Boston: Beacon Press, and Robert Moses. Radical Equations: Civil Rights from Mississippi to the Algebra Project. Boston: Beacon Press.
*** Roberto Mangabeira Unger. 2009. The Left Alternative. Verso.