Leftism at UC leaves many with unbalanced education, study says

Discussion in 'Politics' started by Banjo, Apr 2, 2012.

  1. Banjo

    Banjo

  2. Banjo

    Banjo

    Bump, this is big for Ca.
     
  3. pspr

    pspr

  4. Yeah yeah, college is for liberals. Your leaders have already stated this.( Although most of them have post-graduate degrees):D
     
  5. pspr

    pspr

    Why don't you grow up?
     
  6. Brass

    Brass

    Nah. Throw in a bible, Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, and some climate change denial, and you've got "balance."
     
  7. jem

    jem

    this is the point... you choicer realty or ...

    4.1 The Political Orientation of the Faculty 18
    4.2 What Is Happening in the Classroom? 30
    4.3 Impoverished Education Through Politicized Curricular Choices and Omissions 45
    4.4 Required Programs, Core Courses, and General Reading Lists 49
    4.5 Campus Events 52
    4.6 Disrupted Lectures: Campus Hostility to the Free Expression of Ideas 55
    4.7 Administrative Passivity and Complicity 56
    5. Educational and Social Consequences of a Corrupted Academy 60
    5.1 Evidence of a Sharply Inferior Higher Education 60
    5.2 Damage to High School Education 65
    5.3 Cancelling the Leveling Effect of Higher Education 67
    5.4 The Decline of Respect for Academic Research 69
    5.5 Decreasing Respect for Academia in American Society 71
    5.6 Damage to the Nation’s Cohesion and Sense of Itself
     
  8. jem

    jem

    Intro to paper...

    http://www.nas.org/images/documents/A_Crisis_of_Competence.pdf

    In recent years, study after study has found that a college education no longer does what it should do
    and once did.1
    Whether these studies look directly at the capabilities of graduates, or instead at what
    employers find their capabilities to be, the result is the same: far too many college graduates have not
    learned to write effectively, they can not read and comprehend any reasonably complex book, they
    have not learned to reason, and their basic knowledge of the history and institutions of the society
    in which they live is lamentably poor. “An astounding proportion of students are progressing through
    higher education today without measurable gains in general skills” is the anguished conclusion of a
    respected national study, entitled appropriately Academically Adrift.2
    Further, students now spend on
    average little time studying outside the classroom, and the demands made of them by their faculty
    teachers have been correspondingly reduced.
    Is it possible that the University of California is an exception to these national trends? Unfortunately, we
    can be certain that it is not. First, these national studies all include California, and none of them note
    any fundamental differences across states. Second, local studies of these issues always confirm the
    findings of the national studies. For example, the national finding that students now spend relatively
    little time studying outside the classroom has been confirmed by a study specific to UC that reached
    identical conclusions. A recent study of higher education in California concludes: “The California that
    many like to think of as a leader in higher education is average at best and trending in the wrong
    direction.”3
    Public confidence in academia is dropping as the general public begins to understand that a college
    education is now much less likely to improve reading, writing, and reasoning skills, as well as general
    knowledge, than it used to. And this is happening just as the cost of a college education has been rising
    much faster than inflation. Students are being asked to pay considerably more and get considerably
    less. We are now seeing much increased concern with student debt and rising tuition costs. As this
    concern about cost joins with the growing concern about quality, the University must soon face a major
    crisis of public confidence.
    The findings of these studies match all too well the specific complaints that are now commonly
    heard about the manifestations of a politicized higher education: that requirements for coursework
    in American history and institutions have been dropped, that writing courses often stress writing far
    less than tendentious political topics; that prescribed books are frequently no more than journalistic
    presentations of a simple political message instead of the more complex writings appropriate to an