When Are We Ever Gonna Use This?

Raise your hand if you have ever heard this question, “When are we ever gonna use this?” When I was a young teacher, I tried hard to answer. I used to give my students (junior high and high school) examples of math problems from various occupational fields. I bought a large poster that listed many occupations along the top and many mathematics topics along the side with black dots showing exactly which occupations use which topics.

Years passed. Film projectors gave way to Youtube videos. Mimeograph machines gave way laser printers. Whole new field of occupations emerged. I metaphorically threw up my hands in exasperation. When the inevitable question arose, I answered that I had no idea how they were going to use this information. I had no idea how their interests would develop, or which occupations they would pursue, or what the jobs of the future would be. All I could do was teach them a little bit of what had taken thousands of years for people to discover about math. My students were not always satisfied.

Then Paul Lockhart came along and wrote “A Mathematician's Lament: How School Cheats Us Out of Our Most Fascinating and Imaginative Art Form.” https://www.maa.org/external_archive/devlin/LockhartsLament.pdf

Now I had an answer that captured their imaginations:

“In any case, do you really think kids even want something that is relevant to their daily lives? You think something practical like compound interest is going to get them excited? People enjoy fantasy, and that is just what mathematics can provide -- a relief from daily life, an anodyne to the practical workaday world….People don’t do mathematics because it’s useful. They do it because it’s interesting … The point of a measurement problem is not what the measurement is; it’s how to figure out what it is.”

The question of the usefulness of any particular subject stems from the mutual internalization of both the teacher and students of a questionable, yet unexamined assumption.

“To say that math is important because it is useful is like saying that children are important because we can train them to do spiritually meaningless labor in order to increase corporate profits. Or is that in fact what we are saying?”

Thus instead of teaching real mathematics, we teaching “pseudo-mathematics,” or what I have often called non-math, and worse, we use math class to accomplish this miseducation (See https://schoolcrossing.blogspot.com/2012/11/tricks-and-shortcuts-vs-mathematics.html and others). According to Lockhart, we teach math as if we think “Paint by Number” teaches art.

“Worse, the perpetuation of this “pseudo-mathematics,” this emphasis on the accurate yet mindless manipulation of symbols, creates its own culture and its own set of values….Why don't we want our children to learn to do mathematics? Is it that we don't trust them, that we think it's too hard? We seem to feel that they are capable of making arguments and coming to their own conclusions about Napoleon. Why not about triangles?

Math is like playing a game. As with any game, it has rules to be sure. However, it is more fun and more elegant than all other games because it is literally limitless.

Physical reality is a disaster. It’s way too complicated, and nothing is at all what it appears to be. Objects expand and contract with temperature, atoms fly on and off. In particular, nothing can truly be measured. A blade of grass has no actual length. Any measurement made in the universe is necessarily a rough approximation. It’s not bad; it’s just the nature of the place. The smallest speck is not a point, and the thinnest wire is not a line. Mathematical reality, on the other hand, is imaginary. It can be as simple and pretty as I want it to be. I get to have all those perfect things I can’t have in real life. I can never hold a circle in my hand, but I can hold one in my mind. […] The point is I get to have them both — physical reality and mathematical reality. Both are beautiful and interesting… The former is important to me because I am in it, the latter because it is in me.

Mathematics offers infinite possibilities for storytelling. I tell many stories as I teach math. My students are positively enchanted and remember them forever. One of my favorites is the kimono story.

I tell my students how in old Japan, servants helped geisha to put on the multiple layers of kimono. Each layer has to arranged and offset just so in order to reveal the colors of each layer. I tell them we are going to start with a geisha like 1/3. First we put on the 2/2 layer. 1/3 x 2/2 = 2/6. Notice that the geisha looks a little different, but underneath it is the same geisha. How about another layer, maybe 3/3. Okay 2/6 x 3/3 = 6/18. How about another 2/2 layer. 6/18 x 2/2 = 12/36. We can take off the layers one-by-one as well. This is called “simplifying a fraction.” Simplifying a fraction is simply a process of finding out which geisha is at the bottom of all those layers. If we are in a hurry, we can remove all the layers at once. How would we do that? In the case of our geisha, dividing by 12/12. The students love it.

The most elegant math story is the proof.

A proof is simply a story. The characters are the elements of the problem, and the plot is up to you. The goal, as in any literary fiction, is to write a story that is compelling as a narrative. In the case of mathematics, this means that the plot not only has to make logical sense but also be simple and elegant. No one likes a meandering, complicated quagmire of a proof. We want to follow along rationally to be sure, but we also want to be charmed and swept off our feet aesthetically. A proof should be lovely as well as logical.

Wrongness

The topic of being wrong pops up more and more frequently in public discourse these days. Author Chuck Klosterman, maintains we are probably wrong about everything we think we know, including and maybe especially gravity. Meanwhile, we are chided for being “ant-science” if we disagree with the consensus of scientists. In a famous Last Week Tonight spot, Bill Nye (the Science Guy) leads a climate change “debate” that was no more than Bill with 96 white-coated people representing the 97% of the scientific consensus against 3 other people representing the 3% of the science community refusing to join the bandwagon. Case closed, apparently.

We all “know” that Republicans are the anti-science party, right? Except, according to Neil Degrasse Tyson, there is plenty of anti-science on the Liberal side of the aisle as well. Steven Novella, MD, a contributor to Neuroligica Blog, supports Dr. Tyson’s assertions with some survey results, concluding, “My synthesis of all this information, which is admittedly incomplete, is that people tend to be anti-science whenever science confronts their ideology.”

Dr. Novella elaborates,

I think it is more meaningful to understand these issues by breaking them down to specific ideologies and how they influence acceptance or rejection of science. Conservatives tend to value freedom, the sanctity of life, and the free market and they distrust government. Liberals value nature and the environment and distrust corporations. Individual issues are complicated because they can cut across multiple ideologies. In terms of the question of who is more anti-science, my approach is this – you don’t get credit for being pro science for accepting an issue that is compatible with your ideology (bold added). Liberals acceptance of manmade global warming does not mean they are necessarily pro science, because this issue is right in line with their ideology (pro nature, anti corporate). Conservatives don’t get credit for being pro nuclear for the same reason. Evidence for being pro science is when you accept a scientific consensus that conflicts with your ideology. You have to demonstrate that science comes before your ideology, (bold added).

The thing is the 3% of scientists who disagree with the 97% are not wrong simply because they are outnumbered, as Bill Nye implied. Science is not a majority-rules proposition. Throughout history, there have been scientists who have disagreed with mainstream science. Some suffered, at worst, outright scorn and ridicule, or at best, indifference, only to be found to have been right all along. One big reason why accusations of being “anti-science” carry no weight with either camp is because everybody knows that settled science is settled only until a scientist unsettles it.

“Anti-science” is the new heresy. There is nothing wrong with disagreeing with settled science. The problem is when disagree-ers (of any stripe) have no basis for the disagreement except ideology. That’s a problem that seriously impedes useful discourse on any issue.

Exactly Those Contrary Ideas

Twenty years ago the late comedian Bill Hicks felt obliged to defend the blasphemous content of his stand-up routine. In so doing he said something remarkably insightful.

‘Freedom of speech’ means you support the right of people to say exactly those ideas which you do not agree with.

Hicks is right. However, it is too bad he did not actually mean what he said.

The Founding Fathers promoted Freedom of Speech because they did not want to lose their heads merely for disagreeing with the king. They wanted to be able to say exactly those ideas the king would not like. Therefore, the established the right of people to say exactly those ideas other people, especially people in power, do not agree with.

So far, so good.

The problem is that today, many people toss off the phrase “Freedom of Speech” as if it is a constitutional defense of any expression. Freedom of Speech protects ideas, especially ideas that might threaten the interests of the powerful in exploiting the weak. It was never intended to let people say (or draw, or film) anything they want.

If you cannot express your idea in a non-”blasphemous” way, perhaps your idea is not worth expressing at all.

Over time, people have gradually lost the ability and the social censure to restrain themselves. There are kids in school who seem unable to speak an obscenity-free sentence. Voltaire said, “The man of taste will read only what is good; but the statesman will permit both bad and good.” Our society seems less and less capable of producing children (and finally adults) of taste. As Paul of Tarsus wisely advised, “...fill your minds with those things that are good and that deserve praise: things that are true, noble, right, pure, lovely, and honorable.” A mind full of treasure has no room for trash.

College Return on Investment

The Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco (FRBSF) recently published their evaluation of the lifetime payoff of a college degree, concluding that college is a great investment.

We show that the value of a college degree remains high, and the average college graduate can recover the costs of attending in less than 20 years. Once the investment is paid for, it continues to pay dividends through the rest of the worker’s life, leaving college graduates with substantially higher lifetime earnings than their peers with a high school degree.

Meanwhile, Barry Ritholz, using similar data, concludes that a college education “shows a fairly poor return on investment. No wonder so many college graduates are unhappy with their student debt.”

What gives?

What is clear is that without a college education, the chance of earning the median wage is extremely low. There is really no choice in the matter. It's college or nothin' for most people. FRBSF recommends “redoubling the efforts to make college more accessible would be time and money well spent.”

We have seen this movie before. Not that long ago, people wondered if high school would payoff handsomely. It did and eventually high school for all became the publicly funded standard of the land. Everyone who graduated high school could count on a good job, decent salary and a secure future, so they said. And it was mostly true---then.

We are presently taking another turn around the same merry-go-round. Given current economic conditions and opportunities, governments might well conclude it is in the public interest to require and fund college for all. Once college for all is implemented, the Lake Wobegon fallacy comes into play. Just as with mandatory high school, reversion to the mean will occur.

Like medicinal tolerance, it takes more and more education to get the same effect. Soon, (and some people believe it is already happening), college will not be enough. It's inevitable. The pervasive assumption that if only everyone graduated from college, they could all land great jobs ignores the reality that there simply are not enough great jobs to go around for the people who think they made the investment in themselves to qualify for those jobs. And so reversion to the mean happens. The nature of average is that new data only establishes a new average for some of us to be above and some of us to be below.

Nevertheless, college for all is probably a necessary eventuality.

American Education is NOT Failing....

...In fact, it accomplishes its hidden curriculum perfectly, according to Danjo1987, who hits several out of the park his first day up to bat on EdWeek forums. hllnwlz wound up the pitch and effectively makes many of the same points.

If you have been following this blog, you know that last year I am the "parent" (from the school's point of view) for a particular child who is now an eighth grader. My kids are grown; still it has been instructive to observe her schoolwork and communicate with a school as a savvy teacher/parent. I have been reminded once again that schools really do not like interacting with savvy parents. When schools say they want parent involvement, what they usually mean is they want parents to bake cupcakes once in a while and make sure the student does the homework everyday. More than that, and you are stigmatized as a "helicopter parent."

Overall, the girl's teachers seem to be competent;a couple strike me as excellent. There is one teacher I simply cannot fathom. On the midterm progress report, this teacher gave this straight-A student a citizenship grade of "N" for "excessive absences" during a medical leave. Upon her return to class, she took a "diagnostic" test and got a "D." This is the student's only grade for the class, and the grade teacher put on the progress report. (The other teachers gave her "I" for incomplete).

For the past five weeks, apparently this teacher has done nothing gradable in class. At the close of the term last Friday, there was only one grade in the online system the school uses: that "D." The student's grade on the report card? C-. I am about to intervene.

Meanwhile, in her other classes, she often brings home homework that astound me with the easiness and triviality of it. I see the kind of homework I used to get as a second or third grader. For example, she has to write a little essay about a short story they read in English class. The first assignment is to analyze the writing prompt, write down the verbs that tell what the student is to do, etc. In eighth grade? And the requirements for the regular notebook checks are beyond ridiculous, but the school feels if they do not force the students to organize, none of them will. Apparently, they did not learn how to collect and organize their work in elementary school. The only reason she writes both her first and last name on papers is because I insisted she write a complete heading on each paper whether the teacher required it or not. "But I am the only one with my name," she complained. Does not matter.

What I see is a disjointed and inconsistent system characterized by low expectations, even as the adults give inordinate emphasis to test scores.

Illegal Immigrants Pay Taxes--Who Knew

At least the EdWeek article alludes to a fact many Americans consider unthinkable. Many, many illegal immigrants pay taxes. Furthermore, they pay at higher rates than citizens or legal immigrants. Because of Social Security and Medicare withholding, they pay a flat tax of 7.5%, taken right off the top. Even if they end up at the lowest 10% bracket, they are paying a full 17%. In addition, because they do not have valid Social Security numbers, they do not qualify for tax credits citizens take for granted.

They will never be able to claim Social Security or Medicare benefits because they do not have Social Security cards. “Estimates for 2010 are that ITIN tax filers paid $9 billion in payroll taxes to support Social Security and Medicare, according to NCLR.” Say 'thank you” to illegal immigrants who contribute so much to the rest of us.

Illegal immigrants have never been eligible for the refundable Child Tax Credit on the same basis as the rest us. Their credit is limited by the amount Social Security and Medicare withholding. Presuming they have three qualifying children, someone making $30,000 as cited in the article would not be eligible for the full $3000, but only for $2250 (7.5% of $30,000). Problem is, although they may have children, their non-citizen children do not qualify them for the Child Tax Credit. The payroll tax cut reduces their Child Tax Credit because it reduces Social Security and Medicare withholding. Instead of $2250, this past year the maximum Child Tax Credit for a family making $30,000 with three qualifying children was $1650. Extending the payroll tax cut means this is the second year the potential Child Tax Credit for those filing with ITINS will be reduced.

Illegal immigrants also completely lose the Earned Income Credit, again effectively raising the amount of tax they pay relative to citizens and legal immigrants. At the 10% tax bracket illegal many immigrants pay what is effectively a 17.5% flat tax, higher than Warren Buffet and his secretary.

The article conflates legal and illegal immigrants. It also conflates Child Tax Credit with Child Care Credit, a completely different credit unlinked to Social Security and Medicare Withholding. Again, many ITIN filers, even though they have children, may not qualify for the Child Care Credit.

Furthermore, while it is true that every illegal immigrant will use an ITIN to file a tax return, it is definitely not true that every taxpayer using an ITIN is illegal.

Lake Wobegone of the Future

What would happen if some popular policies of today were taken to their logical conclusion? If all the children are above average, would they not be “re-centered” like SAT tests? I do not know if the author, Richard Salsbury, pondered the question when he wrote his story Law of Averages. Maybe he did. But whether he did or not, the story reads like a parody of all that is wrong with education today.

It is the meritocracy turned on its head in the name of preserving the self esteem of all. (Snark alert)

“...how are other kids supposed to cope if they think you're above Average?"

Although the story takes place fifty years in the future, but even today there are many students who hide their academic achievement in self defense. Even if they go ahead and achieve, it may mean they are in the job market before society is ready for them, like the boy I know who graduated with a degree in chemistry when he was eighteen. No one wants an eighteen year old chemist, Doogie Howser not withstanding.

Girls have been playing dumb forever.

"Honey, think about this: what are you going to do if you score too highly in a knowledge test*?"
     "Well I haven't so far, have I? It's easy to fool them. I know how much the others know and I just answer the questions as if I were one of them."
     "That's not going to work forever. These tests are designed to catch you out...”


"The point is, Hannah, that people feel bad if someone else knows more than they do."

Because we all know how important self esteem** is. That is why everyone gets a certificate of participation at science fairs these days. Maybe the student's science fair project is nothing but an Internet cut-and-paste job, but as long as they feel good about themselves...

In the education system of the future, teachers can be called on the carpet for even so much as threatening to punish a student for misbehavior. But Hannah's teacher, a rebel in the mold of 1984's Winston Smith, recognizes Hannah's potential and takes the chance.

In the first private lesson (Hannah's teacher) ever gave me, she said, "If you are ever less than convincing (about publicly being only average) I will have you punished."
     That made me realise how serious she was, and how trusting - I could have reported her for threatening me.

...snip...

They called a trauma counsellor for me. She said it must have been a terrible shock to be punished for misbehaving...

There was one student who the teacher knew was below average.

Lois surreptitiously tore the sheet (upon which she had been skillfully sketching a portrait of the teacher) off her pad and screwed it up into a ball. "You think I'm stupid, don't you?" she said.
     There was an intake of breath from the class. They weren't used to hearing language like that.
     "No, Lois," Mrs. Jeffries said, "you're Average, like everyone else here...

You're all more clever than I am," (Lois) muttered.
     Mrs. Jeffries saw her chance, and replied thunderously. "I will not have language like that in my class, do you understand?""

In Mrs. Jeffries view, Lois is not merely below average, but a danger to everyone else. So she does something about it.

"Lois, listen to me. Your last score in the knowledge test was Average. No matter what else happens, that's what matters. You're no different from anyone else."

Ask any middleschooler. Being different from everyone else is the kiss of death.

"Listen, Hannah. If she fails a knowledge test then she'll be made to sit two more, and if her score is low on all three they'll take ... some very drastic measures."
     "How drastic?"
     "They can't make Lois any more intelligent, so they'll lower the standard across the country; they'll make Lois' level of ability the new Average. They think it's fair to do that. A computer will automatically rewrite the curriculum and ... young people will be even more stupid." She started chewing her lip. "You can see now why I changed her marks."
     "But ... there must be other children below Average."
     She nodded. "I think most of them skip school altogether - they can't face the shame. But Lois' parents think she's Average. They insist she attends."

Lois' parents remind me of parents we have all seen, except they insist that their children must participate in the gifted program. I don't know why. Society attributes no more genuine prestige to the gifted than it does to teachers.

But the teacher's efforts were in vain. She loses her job, and there is no one to change Lois' marks on the next test go-around. Hannah hears an announcement at an assembly and draws her own conclusions.

The presenter cheerfully called it "a set of improvements to the education system, designed to make it more fair."
     Improvements.
     What he meant to say was: "They tested Lois Durrell and found out she was stupid, so to make sure she doesn't feel bad about it, everyone else from now on will be stupid too."

Nevertheless, Hannah recognizes, if dimly that maybe Lois was above average after all.

When I saw that sketch you were doing of Mrs. Jeffries I felt jealous. That's why I said it was rubbish - to cover up for the fact that the exact opposite was true. I always wanted to be able to draw like that. I rescued that piece of paper from the bin and it's become my most treasured possession.

*I am not a Wikipedia fan, but this article is a comprehensive and well-cited overview of SAT history and issues. There has been so much tinkering, some justified, some questionable, that no knows for sure how to interpret them.

**A typical statement of the popular view of self esteem.

When a President Speaks: 6 Reasons to Object to Objectors

I remember President Kennedy urging us kids to be physically fit, and the national president's fitness program that went with it. Anybody else out there earn a Presidential Fitness Award while they were in school? In fact, the program has followed us into adulthood.

Another president is planning to give a speech to school children urging fitness of another kind, educational fitness.

During this special address, the president will speak directly to the nation’s children and youth about persisting and succeeding in school. The president will challenge students to work hard, set educational goals, and take responsibility for their learning.

Why the furor?


Because of the breathtaking opposition.

Unbelievable. Maybe there is no grand tradition, but presidents have addressed remarks to schoolchildren from time to time. Ronald Reagan in 1986, George H.W. Bush in 1991, George W. Bush in 2001.

My problems with all this hullabaloo:

First, the objections are premature. It is silly to object to figments of the imagination. Wait till the president actually says something objectionable in the speech before objecting to it.

Second, the objections break the Golden Rule. In the nutshell, the right is worried that the president may voice a tenet or two of liberalism. I have trouble believing they would object to a Republican president voicing a tenet or two of conservatism. I am not letting the left off easy; they will violate the Good-for-Goose-Good-for-Gander principle when it suits them as often as the right does. As Shakespeare might say, “A pox on both their houses.”

Third, the objections are largely ad hominem. The objections are not criticizing the speech on its merits (probably because the speech has yet to be broadcast). Ad hominem is one of the defining marks of lack of critical thinking. What a lousy role model to set before our kids.

Fourth, the objections are misplaced. Edweek reports that White House efforts to quell the furor have been ineffective.

But the planned 15- to 20-minute noontime speech—and, especially, a menu of classroom activities (for younger and older students) suggested by the White House in connection with it—continued to draw denunciations...

Especially?! I looked at the “menu of classroom activities.” The White House's companion lesson ideas for elementary students and secondary students have no leading questions and emphasize strategies for comprehension. The secondary lesson plans ask students to create a specific action plan for meeting their goals. Maybe it is about time we adults directly ask students what they want, and then find specific ways to help them, instead of creating burdens for students in the name of reform.

Fifth, the objections are politically-motivated disturbance in the guise of concern for our children.

Finally, sixth, and perhaps most importantly, whatever happened to free speech?

Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech (bold added) , or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

What have we come to when a subset of the public maintain foul language is protected speech, and a subset of the public agitate to pre-censure the freedom of the President of the United States to encourage students to study hard and stay in school? Even stranger is that both subsets very likely contain many of the same members.

The White House has a video of the President's speech here.

Western Education has the Wrong Mindset

Science educators know full well that school textbooks lag at least a generation behind the times. Teachers who do not take the initiative to independently keep up and supplement the textbook with current information are teaching possibly out-of-date stuff. Sad to say, the vast majority of teachers teach the book, especially at the lower grades where the lifetime foundations for critical thinking are laid.

Hans Rosling, a professor of public health, in a presentation to the US State Department, marvels that the Western world is a generation behind in its understanding of the global situation, especially regarding the developing world.

My problem is that the worldview of my students corresponds to the reality in the world the year their teachers were born.

In Dr. Rosling's words, “Their mindset does not match the data set.”

We have a world that cannot be looked upon as divided.
...snip...
The world is converging.

We have completely misunderstood the HIV “epidemic.”

There is no such thing as an HIV epidemic in Africa...It's not war...It's not economy...Don't make it Africa. Don't make it a race issue. Make it a local issue and do (appropriate) preventative approaches.

Dr. Rosling has made his data presentation software available for free at Gapminder.

The Ugly Flip Side of Meritocracy

(paraphrased) If you believe in meritocracy, then those with the potential and work hard will reach the top, and those who deserve to be at the bottom will be at the bottom. Failure within a goal of meritocracy is much more crushing...When we think about failure, what we fear is not so much loss of money. It is fear of the judgment and ridicule of others

Alain de Botton of the School of Life was talking about success and failure, but take his premise further, and he seems to be suggesting that an education system based on what he calls the beautiful, but crazy idea of meritocracy fundamentally damages society.

It used to be that a poor person was seen as unfortunate, today a poor person is called a loser... Meritocracy is a crazy idea. The idea does not take into account the effect of all sorts of random uncontrollable events. St. Augustine said, “It is a sin to judge any man by his post,” or into today's language, it is a sin to judge someone by their business card... It would be insane to call Hamlet a loser, though he has lost.

What kind of burden are we putting on our children if we indoctrinate them to the idea that each and every one them can “reach the top?” The motivation may be pure, but what of unintended consequences? For one thing, there simply are not enough slots at the top, and for another, it is a myth that we have total control of our own outcomes.

These days there are two kinds of self-help books. The first kind tells you you can do anything, the second kind tells you how to deal with low self-esteem. That tells you something.

Our schools have the exact same dichotomy. Teachers are always on the one hand promising success to every student, as expressed in the title of a literacy program, Success for All. On the other hand, and running on a parallel track are admonitions to prevent failure because of self-esteem. Many people have observed a lack of congruence between self-esteem and genuine achievement. The students might not be very good at whatever, but they sure feel great about themselves.

It is bad enough not getting what you want. It is worse to call what other people want you to want what you want and not get that.

Okay, let's try that sentence again. If you do not decide your own goals, but let other people, that is, society determine your goals, and then adopt those outwardly imposed goals as your own and fail, that failure is worse than failing at goals you independently assign yourself. How many of us have actually examined our so-called goals and dreams under the magnifying glass of self-knowledge? Do we even know what we want, or have we so internalized externally imposed dreams that we can no longer tell the difference?

No one wants to pigeon-hole children early on. Every parent wants their child to have access to every opportunity. Labeling is dangerous precisely because once the label has been affixed, it may very well become indelible. Do we work to create a system of true equal opportunity and let the chips fall as they may? The American ideal is to educate each child to their potential, but honestly, are we actually striving for the ideal? Or do we consider the Japanese view of meritocracy, to deliver the same education to each child, and let the child make of it what they will?

Classical Liberal Education and Economic Meltdown

On January 30, 2009, Bill Moyers summarized the financial state of education in America:

BILL MOYERS: All across the country it's the same. State governments are staring down the barrel at $300 billion worth of deficits for the next two years. Twenty-six states already have either cut their budgets for higher education, raised tuition fees, or done both. When it comes to college affordability, this report from The National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education gives a failing grade of "F" to 49 of the 50 states. Tuition at public four-year colleges is up an average of more than $6,500, at two-year schools, almost $2,500. Yet even with the increases, THE CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION reports that many college buildings are outdated, inefficient, even crumbling. So what's to be done? Some took hope when President Obama spoke up for higher education in his inaugural address.

But his guest, Vartan Gregorian, president of the Carnegie Corporation of New York, a philanthropic foundation for education and citizenship, believes the problems go much deeper than money.

BILL MOYERS: And your thesis is the pipeline of education from pre-K right on up through graduate school is broken?
VARTAN GREGORIAN: Absolutely. The point I'm saying, that America should not take anything for granted anymore. We cannot afford any more mistakes. We cannot afford duplication. We have to bring collaboration and twenty-year vision, twenty-year plan, how to bring higher education of United States, both public and private, to help re-engineer, re-ignite, and keep the momentum of the United States and its progress by educating its workforce, by educating its leadership.

America has lost sight of the ball. It did not happen overnight, but gradually education as preparation for life gave way to education as job training.

VARTAN GREGORIAN: we see education as an expenditure rather than as investment. And let me just give you a couple of reasons why. My fundamental problem has been with public institutions that somehow they have come to accept the fact that democracy and excellence, public sector and excellence are not mutually compatible, that public excellence belongs to the private domain.

And what has been the result?

BILL MOYERS: You convened in August these leaders of higher education. And they came to the conclusion that, quote, "We've fallen from first place among nations to tenth in the percentage of our population with degrees in higher education." What does that mean practically?
VARTAN GREGORIAN: Practically it means research universities in other countries are catching up. We're not falling behind as much as others are catching up, whether it's Singapore, whether it's China, whether it's India. And second thing is many of our students, thanks to Pell Grants and others who go to university do not finish, because of either ill preparedness or lack of resources for them. We're not talking about just educate. We're talking about how to build next generation of our youth to be able to compete globally and to re-engineer our nation's reemergence in the next phase of the global competition.
We need all the infrastructure. We need all the engineers, all the doctors, all the computer specialists, all kinds of work. So we can no longer allow 50 percent of our students not to graduate from high school or 30, 40 percent drop out from our universities, especially minorities and others. Because in the past 19th century we have industrial backbone that you could send all of this to manufacturing. We don't have it. So result, it's gone.
BILL MOYERS: Shipped abroad.
VARTAN GREGORIAN: It's a knowledge society now in which you need all the talent that you can.

How did we get into such a fix?

VARTAN GREGORIAN: Well, for several reasons. I guess, first, lack of knowledge about rest of the world. Another one, media that was asleep when all kinds of decisions were made. Along with independent judiciary, executive, we need also independent media...

How about the Internet as a source of independent media? First, many internet journalists are not independent. Many openly have an agenda, which to their credit, they make abundantly clear to readers. But there is another problem.

BILL MOYERS: Well, some people would say they're on the internet, that the internet has become the great conversation of democracy.
VARTAN GREGORIAN: Well, let's hope so. Let's hope so. But internet has to provide common vocabulary. I don't want to be picking a piece here, a piece there, and so forth, construct my own hut. I want to have a national significance.
BILL MOYERS: You want an editor?
VARTAN GREGORIAN: Editor, national editor
BILL MOYERS: I'd like to be your editor.
VARTAN GREGORIAN: Because-
BILL MOYERS: You're saying you want a professional class of disinterested people who help you assemble how the world looks like every day?
VARTAN GREGORIAN: Well, the synthesis you mentioned is missing. What I want is the institution of journalism, institution of news, institution of education, institutional values, the ones that promote to be a durable, predictable tying tradition, past, present, and the future...

One approach would be to reject the current market philosophy of education and return to the discipleship philosophy. Maybe America needs to decide just exactly what it is we want from our education system.

VARTAN GREGORIAN: I want us to accept, consciously, things, not to be manipulated in acceptance. I still believe in intelligence, in knowledge, independence, should not be just reserved or elite but for the public, too. We should educate the public what's in the public interests. They may like it or not. They may accept it or not. But my conscience I want to be clear that I did my duty as an educator while you did your duty as a journalist to educate the public. That's our obligation.

...snip...

BILL MOYERS: There is an argument today that colleges and universities should continue to turn out generally educated, liberally educated, critical thinkers. But that we should take the people who want to be mechanics and electricians and plumbers and let them go to vocational school and not pretend to want to study "Beowulf" or "Macbeth."
VARTAN GREGORIAN: I think you'll have two sets of problems. You'll have a well-educated private university, some select, and they're the cultured ones. And the others are specialists who can only do. And that will be terrible in my opinion because even the plumbers should know about American history. Not "Beowulf" necessarily. They should know about Constitution. They should know about American history. They should know about Civil War. They should know about Depression.
I mean, we live in a country we cannot just say we're citizens but we don't know anything about our country. Yet we're the greatest country in the world. Well, on what basis? Just economy does not make that right. We need also values. We need also to participate as citizens in the fate and future of our country. So we cannot have a democracy without its foundation being knowledge, in order to provide progress. And knowledge does not mean only technical knowledge. But also you need to have knowledge of our society, knowledge of the world. If we're a superpower, world's greatest power, we should know about the rest of the world.

The stakes are high.

VARTAN GREGORIAN:Education is different because you're investing human resources that are necessary to change a society, a system. Even retraining some of these people who are let go, is through education. Education is very central to our democracy. You can neglect it, you can get it on the cheap, and you get what you pay for. And if you think education is costly, try ignorance, because that will be far more costly.

But the economic meltdown and the war on terror and all that is an national emergency. Education will just have to wait its turn, right?

VARTAN GREGORIAN:Since President Obama is fond of Abraham Lincoln, so I'll start with Abraham Lincoln. In the middle of the Civil War, worst tragedy that happened to America, Abraham Lincoln signed Morrill Act, established land grant universities. Imagine now any president doing that in the middle of all the calamities we have, Afghanistan, Iraq, economy, and Iran and the Middle East, somebody spending that much effort on - because he wanted to see the future of America.
In the middle of Civil War, Lincoln established a National Academy of Sciences, 1863, because he wanted to see the future of America. In the middle of Civil War he established a commission to study the merits of metric system for America. Because he wanted to see not one year, one to four year; he wanted to see 20, 30, 40 years...

Education and economy are Siamese twins joined at the heart. Severing them kills both.

In Loco Parentis Or Who's the Boss?

I used to have a benign view of the implications of in loco parentis (Latin: in place of the parents) acquired in my education coursework oh so long ago it seems. I recently did some research on the history and application of the doctrine of in loco parentis, and found it to be more all-encompassing than I had thought. At school open houses, I used to joke that in loco parentis did not mean “the parents are crazy.” I explained that according to the law parents are responsible for the education of the children, but parents subcontract that job to the schools, so schools are accountable to the parents. Similarly, although I am responsible for the maintenance of my home, I might subcontract, for instance, a plumbing job, and the plumber would be accountable to me.

I decided to investigate claims such as this one that in loco parentis is not so benign. These sources believe the doctrine is no more than a ploy of the state to usurp parental authority to raise their children as they see fit. At least that is the raison d'etre for The Alliance for the Separation of School and State , a right-wing site. Historically, courts had long held that a father's authority over his children was inviolate, stemming form the Roman legal doctrine, patria potestas.

Blackstone explained the delegation of authority aspect:

The rights of schools over their pupils were codified before the U.S. Constitution was written. In 1765 the legal scholar Sir William Blackstone wrote that, when sending kids to school, Dad "may also delegate part of his parental authority, during his life to the tutor or schoolmaster of the child; who is then in loco parentis, and has such a portion of the power of the parents committed to his charge." (my bold)

But I could not find an authoritative explicit statement anywhere that reflects the doctrine of in loco parentis the way I had always understood it. In fact, I found that as far as the schools were considered, the main value of the doctrine was in allowing schools to harshly punish students in ways traditionally reserved to the father.

By far the most common usage of in loco parentis relates to teachers and students. For hundreds of years, the English common-law concept shaped the rights and responsibilities of public school teachers: until the late nineteenth century, their legal authority over students was as broad as that of parents...

...snip...

For example, in 1977, the Supreme Court held that the disciplinary paddling of public school students was not a Cruel and Unusual Punishment prohibited by the Eighth Amendment (Ingraham v. Wright, 430 U.S. 651, 97 S. Ct. 1401, 51 L. Ed. 2d 711), and that students who were disciplined in a school setting were not denied due process under the Fourteenth Amendment.

Or here:

Students got whatever rights their school administrators saw fit to give. At Harvard in 1951, the Administrative Board could tell reporters that it would increase the punishment for a window smashing -- by however much it wanted -- "if a student's name is on the police blotter or in the Boston press." That was the power of in loco parentis.

The doctrine can cut both ways, Universities are in trouble for recommending student loan lenders who have a financial relationship with the school.

Bribes, or to put it euphemistically, incentives, require two actors: the giver and the receiver. Lenders are at fault for offering such inappropriate gifts and incentives to university officials, but unscrupulous university officials bear just as much blame for accepting these gifts. As administrators of educational institutions that not only teach, but also care for their students, financial aid officials are acting in loco parentis. They should be giving the same unbiased financial advice that a parent would give to her child, particularly because many students have little experience with financial planning when they take out their first student loan.

In loco parentis has taken on new meaning as epitomized by the title of this article, “In loco parentis: helping children when families fail them.” Schools have taken on more and more of the responsibilities traditionally reserved for parents. Parents welcome breakfast, lunch, daycare, counseling, health care services and more provided by the school, especially if the services are free. A principal in a Northern California elementary school told me the school spends so much time, money and effort on the delivery of these auxiliary services that the main mission of the school, education, is neglected.

School people complain about parental abdication while at the same time sending clear signals that parents are inadequate. Parents talking to teachers are talking to people who usually consider themselves experts, not co-collaborators. After all, the teachers are the ones with the teaching credential. My children's teachers would talk down to me until they learned I was a teacher. The change in their attitude and approach was instantaneous. Teachers entertain themselves in the teachers' lounge with stories of ridiculous parents, while parents tell their friends equally incredible stories of ridiculous teachers.

It is perfectly obvious that teacher credentialing has nothing to do with teacher quality. It only certifies that the teachers have been exposed to whatever information the state wants then exposed to. States have differing and often arbitrary requirements for teacher certification. Teachers who come from a different training environment (e.g. Montessori, Waldorf, etc) or who received their training in a different country may have different political views of education and be wonderful teachers anyway. We have to wonder why some states require homeschooling parents to be state certified to teach their own children. Even though I came back from Japan with a truly awesome teaching resume, it was illegal for me to teach my own children in California.

In order to homeschool in California, the parent must establish a private school using the same paperwork as any other private school. Or the parent can enroll their children in the independent study program of a public school where the coordinator of the program oversees the child's education. The schools often use the independent study program as an alternative to expulsion. In a strange reversal of in loco parentis, the state to whom the parents are delegating the education of the child re-delegates that responsibility back to the parents and controls the parents' efforts to teach their child. The in loco parentis gate swings wildly on its hinges.

Parents can be forgiven for suspecting that the state wants to control the transmission of culture and values to the next generation. Homeschoolers, even nonreligious ones, understandably want to take back their children. Some have even gone to jail because of hostile superintendents of education. The Home School Legal Defense Fund (HSLDF) has extensively documented the level of control states may seek to exert and the legal actions states have initiated, ostensibly because the education of future citizens is in the state's interest. Parents suspect that state funding for enrollment is the true reason. Many homeschoolers operate underground to avoid state meddling.

States worry that if homeschoolers were not highly regulated, the children would receive an inadequate education. On the contrary, parents who voluntarily choose to homeschool are clearly and highly committed to the education of their children. Homeschooled children typically attain exceptionally high levels of academic achievement. In the view of these parents, schools have betrayed their trust and have overstepped the responsibilities of in loco parentis. That is why they have boycotted public and private schools.

For an overview of homeschooling and a list of links, see this website.