Almost every day you’ll find new evidence that the United States has vastly oversold higher education. The evidence du jour is in the Wall Street Journal of January 3, a piece by a young lawyer named Chris Fletcher. In it, Fletcher points out that, according to an estimate by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the […]
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The Modern Language Association reports a depressing statistic: the estimated number of jobs offered this year for professors of English will drop 3.6 percent from last year. The main issue here is that for the first time in 20 years foreign language openings will exceed those in English, but the actual decline of English jobs is […]
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In July, relying on the findings of the university’s own report penned by former FBI director Louis Freeh, the NCAA imposed sanctions against Penn State, citing senior administrators’ mishandling of the allegations against former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky and the football culture that caused these administrators to look the other way. At the time, […]
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The Common Core has many flaws, but its writing standards stand out as an intellectual impossibility for average middle grade students. Their architects didn’t link them to appropriate reading benchmarks. Last November I saw the results of NYC teachers’ attempts to address these writing standards. Their students had clearly tried to figure out how to […]
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As American higher education begins its 378th year, we can rejoice that our universities have several strengths, but lament their growing number of weaknesses. The beginning of a new year is a good time to reassess the system. Let us begin with the strengths: A large portion of adult Americans have had higher education experiences, giving the […]
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