Kids: Then and Now

[InsuranceGuy]

No the government did not, the universities did. I really get tired of this argument, just because the government sweetens the pot for something and ties strings to it, that does not equate to the government mandating it. There is a huge difference.

Can you clarify this a bit? It seems to me like many public and private universities would be put out of business tomorrow were pell grants and other title IV programs ended today. That feels very publicly reliant to me.

[Maddy]

No the government did not, the universities did. I really get tired of this argument, just because the government sweetens the pot for something and ties strings to it, that does not equate to the government mandating it. There is a huge difference.

Kind of like conditioning more generous Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement on the meaningful use of electronic medical records. When you look at the practicalities of the situation, it might has well have been mandated.

[Xan]

Or the way they got the drinking age raised to 21 everywhere: get states hooked on federal money for highways, then threaten to take it away.

[ochotona]

I used to get served in bars when I was 16 in 1977. Those were the days! It was great!

[Kbg]

My point is, unless mandated by law or regulation, you/they make the bargain they chose. A fairly good current example is many smaller universities are opting out of sports all together because of Title IX as really the only two sports that make money are men’s football and basketball...and if that isn’t the case for your college/university then the whole athletics program is funding drag.

I am not saying they aren’t reliant, but just like individuals they made the choice to not be self-reliant.

Good heavens, governments have been handing out goodies for support and to those who support them since recorded history and certainly before that. Nothing new here folks. If your political system is decent, at the end of the day it is so because it hands out goodies in such a way that people don’t start killing each other to take away goodies because the system is tolerably fair to the non-criminal elements of society. We have the legal system and state sanctioned violence for the criminal element.

[Kriegsspiel]

John Cochrane describes how universities are using essays on wokeness (or political tests, as one professor calls them) to determine hiring and promotions.

[pugchief]

John Cochrane describes how universities are using essays on wokeness (or political tests, as one professor calls them) to determine hiring and promotions.

So it's against the law to discriminate against potential employees (or existing looking for raises and promotions) on the basis of gender, race, religion or sexual preference, but not political views? WTF?

[Xan]

John Cochrane describes how universities are using essays on wokeness (or political tests, as one professor calls them) to determine hiring and promotions.

So it's against the law to discriminate against potential employees (or existing looking for raises and promotions) on the basis of gender, race, religion or sexual preference, but not political views? WTF?

In fact it is true that selecting employees based on political views is legal. In a competitive market, if an employer did prejudicially discriminate against some group, then the competition would eat its lunch by not doing that. I would posit that the market for university education is badly broken in a number of ways.

Clearly, what the article means is that we shouldn't trust any research done by the University of California. (If anyone did anyway...) For one, their #1 hiring filter is this ideological filter on "diversity", and not being qualified to do research. For another, they're really clobbering any possibility of their research into "diversity issues" being taken seriously, because they've already assumed their conclusions in their hiring process!

The less said about the wisdom of actually attending UC the better...

[Kriegsspiel]

Since its publication in August, the 1619 Project has been adopted in more than 3,500 classrooms in all 50 states, according to the 2019 annual report of the Pulitzer Center, which has partnered with the Times on the project. Five school systems, including Chicago and Washington, D.C., have adopted it district-wide. It is mostly being used as supplemental, optional classroom teaching material. By and large, school systems are adopting the project by administrative fiat, not through a public textbook review process.
. . .
Even as it is being embraced by schools, the project is facing strong pushback from some leading scholars who say it presents a false version of American history. They dispute The New York Times’ claim that America’s true founding date is not 1776, the year the colonies declared independence from Great Britain, but 1619, when 20 to 30 enslaved Africans were brought to Jamestown, Va., leading to the creation of a “slavocracy” whose legacy of racism and oppression has been encoded in the nation’s DNA and hidden in plain sight.

Gordon Wood [of Good Will Hunting fame. -K], a leading historian of the American Revolution and emeritus professor at Brown University, told RealClearInvestigations the Times material “is full of falsehoods and distortions.” In its current form, without corrections, which the Times has declined to run, the only way to use it in the classroom, he said, would be “as a way of showing how history can be distorted and perverted."link

“When my editor asks me, like, what’s your ultimate goal for the project, my ultimate goal is that there’ll be a reparations bill passed.”

"If you read the whole project, I don’t think you can come away from it without understanding the project is an argument for reparations"link

[Kriegsspiel]

link

I mock college students pretty often, but here's another perspective. How shitty must it be to be a professor in the current year? To have to deal with students like these dickheads?

[Kriegsspiel]

. . . millions of high school graduates actually do better than comparable college graduates. Statistics that suggest otherwise are averages that gloss over the “enormous variability in outcomes at each education level,” Harris argues. As usual, the devil is in the details.

In fact, the earnings of the top half of workers with only a high school diploma overlap with those of the bottom half of college graduates. Moreover, every individual in the top 25% of high school graduates outperforms every individual in the bottom 25% of college graduates with Bachelor of Arts degrees with their earnings.
link

[Kriegsspiel]

Great video of high school students in 1958 discussing college. The usual cast of characters shows up. The guidance counselor seems like a jerk.