| The U.S. Education Crisis: Accountability
is the Answer
Editor,
I agree 100%. Our education/school system
is a failure. I was watching an ABC television news show several
weeks ago about this subject. They interviewed the top administrator
from South Carolina, one of the lowest ranked states in United
States. Her response was to the effect that it isn't as bad
as you try to portray it; just look at the progress we've
made. The interviewer's response was yes, you've made some
progress. But you are so far behind that you'll take years
to even begin to approach a passing grade.
All the educators interviewed, with one exception, said the
answer was "more money." That is pure baloney in
my mind. What is really needed is accountability--of teachers,
students, parents, and administrators. The lone educator who
didn't say money was the answer said time spent in rigorous
academic programs, not band, not athletics, not drill teams,
is what we need.
Allen Rhodes
The U.S. Education
Crisis: Leadership is the Answer
Editor,
I read with some interest the editorial you
wrote for the latest edition of The Citizen Scientist
("So
You Think You Have an Eighth Grade Education?" 27
January 2006).
I did glance over the tests you cited and
found that I could answer most of the questions. The ones
that gave me the most trouble were the ones that required
knowledge of arcane units of measurement.
As it happens, I have been giving the whole
education question a great deal of consideration lately. The
school I co-founded in 1997 has just begun the process of
seeking national accreditation, which has forced me to become
intimately familiar with what accreditors look for in colleges.
In addition, I have been reading a quite interesting book
with the deceptively pedantic title "The Pursuit of Knowledge
Under Difficulties. From Self-Improvement to Adult Education
in America," 1750-1990 by Joseph F. Kett and published
by Stanford University Press. This has given me some interesting
insights into what moves people--and Americans in particular--to
embrace educational and intellectual excellence. I have also
been reviewing Jacque Barzun's "The House of Intellect"
and related items. Finally, three days ago I joined the 21st
Century and started my own weblog using Blogger. The blog
is called "Cogito!" and can be found (for the present)
at http://guerrillascholar.blogspot.com/.
I've done two posts and registered the blog in a few indexes,
but I've not had any commenting visitors so far.
That is a very round-about way of saying
that the subject of education in America and as it pertains
to our national psyche, our values, the intellectual landscape
and our society have been on my mind a lot, and I might have
some things to say in an article or essay that might be of
interest to TCS.
My thinking at this point is that the sagging
results of American education is not necessarily the result
of declining standards. If the standards were declining, it
would be easier for students to meet them, but that does not
seem to be happening. I think that the declining standards
are due in part to an incorrect belief that the subject matter
is "too hard," which is a polite way of saying that
the students are "too dumb" to apprehend it. I feel
there are other factors that have fed a decline in interest
in things intellectual and academic. For instance, it is no
longer true that a college education is the sure path to prosperity
that it once was. More than a few freshmen students have graduated
four years later to find their once-lucrative field is now
a desert because of changes in technology, market shifts or
the export of job overseas. Add to that the startling rise
in college costs, which have consistently outstripped inflation
for so long it now generates almost no comment.
By the same token, following World War II
access to a college education via the GI Bill created the
pool of brainpower that combined with the surplus industrial
capacity to fuel the largest and most sustained economic boom
in modern history. A little known fact is that when the GI
Bill was proposed, most in Congress didn't think many would
use it. They expected at most a total of 100,000
veterans to sign up for it. Imagine their surprise when over
one million signed up the first year, with a million more
the next year, and even more the year after that. Most of
these men would never have had the chance to go to college
and had never even considered it until it became possible
thanks to the GI Bill.
Another problem--perhaps the most salient
one--is a problem of leadership. You and I received relatively
good educations because Sputnik prompted the government to
pour money into education. They
believed rightly that a large pool of educated people was
(and still is) a matter of national security. I was born in
October of 1958 when Sputnik was launched. By the time I hit
first grade all those wonderful funds earmarked for education
had landed in my local elementary school. The result was that
my public school education was outstanding by any standard.
We were also in the midst of this amazing event called the
"space-race" that we believed was a prelude to a
new world rich with the benefits of science and technology.
Read between the lines of science fiction from the late 60's
and early 70's for a glimpse of where we thought we would
be by now. The leadership of President Kennedy's vision took
root in the minds of an entire generation, and, even when
the space race succumbed to politics, the expertise that made
it possible went on to create innumerable advances that kept
America in the forefront of science and technology.
Today, however, there isn't the same sense
that our national leaders care deeply about science and education
in general. Our current President jokes about getting by with
"gentlemen C's" in college, but
what is more alarming is the fact that scientists who work
for the government now routinely see their work scrapped or
changed by non-experts for purposes of politics. Think Tanks
try to dominate public
discourse with "studies" that are little more than
exercises in rhetorical support for a pre-determined conclusion.
Intelligent people sense this even if they don't explicitly
understand it, but it sends the message that the intellect
is just another marketing tool and should be revered accordingly.
The current budget proposed in Congress will take billions
more out of student aid funds. This by itself sends a message
to people trying to decide what to make of their lives. It
tells people both young and old that scientific expertise
(or higher education of any kind) won't buy you as much credibility
with people who matter, and might even make you a pariah.
Most politicians now hesitate to appear "too smart"
lest they be tagged as "elitist" and unable to connect
with "ordinary" people.
We also lack what might be called "scientific
celebrities" or what they used to call "public intellectuals."
Carl Sagan was one, as were Isaac Asimov and others. Bobby
Fisher in the early 70's also comes to mind. But for the life
of me I have a hard time thinking of a single intellectual
luminary who would could draw respectable ratings in prime
time. Compare that with ancient Greece during the Hellenistic
period (circa 4th Century BCE), when philosophers were accorded
status we would normally associate with rock stars. The whole
city of Athens might turn out, close shops, and suspend the
matters of state while the citizenry lined the streets just
to catch a glimpse of this or that famous philosopher who
had come to participate in a debate or to teach.
Somehow, we are no longer reminded that these
things MATTER. The failure of leadership is, in my view, the
single greatest cause of decline in education. But the solution
is also to be found there if our national leadership (political,
commercial, cultural, etc.) is willing to go out on a limb
and articulate a vision of intellectual excellence because
we need it and because they themselves believe it. Anyway,
here endeth the rant. I appreciate your editorial as it takes
TCS into an area where it has been loathe to go in
the past for understandable reasons. But perhaps things are
such that we should begin participating in the discussion.
Best wishes,
Sheldon Greaves
The U.S. Education
Crisis: Is There a Crisis?
Editor,
Your editorial on educational decline intrigued
me (The Citizen Scientist ("So
You Think You Have an Eighth Grade Education?" 27
January 2006).
We have hosted a number of exchange students
in the past few years and my impression from them is that
American high-school is at least as difficult and challenging
as the schools in their home countries. I can’t help
but be suspicions of the claims of educational decline. I
have been hearing the same cry since the era of the Sputnik.
The studies and reports may be accurate about
the decline, but it is hard to pick up from other things.
Because I am one of the so called greybeards at work, I get
asked to mentor some of the new engineers. I find these fresh
out of school engineers to be well qualified for the engineering
job and also surprisingly good at project management. If it
were to have a complaint it would be that the new engineers
seem to lack a broad knowledge base, being too tightly focused
on their exact discipline. Our education system standards
maybe declining but the system still seems to be able to turn
out well qualified engineers and scientists.
The 1895 Kansas exam is given as an example
of the decline in standards so I thought it would be interesting
to try and compare it with current expectations. It seems
like it would be best compared with the "Iowa test of
educational development". This test is used by many states
to evaluate and compare their schools in the grade school
levels. Getting a copy of this test appears to be difficult
or impossible so I looked at some of the expectations for
students. Most of the test categories are cultural and would
be difficult to compare with current expectations so I chose
to look at the arithmetic section. Besides knowing some conversion
factors (bushel, rod, m (1000 board feet)) all the student
has to do is be able to reason out the word problem and do
addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and percent.
Compare that with these expectations: http://www.shodor.org/interactivate/standards/nctm/
I have no idea how today’s students
live up to these expectations, but these items are surely
on the tests. Is it the word problem that is difficult? It
might be heresy, but in this day the ability to figure out
the word problem part is maybe more important that being able
to add and subtract. How is solving word problems taught?
From what I have seen helping my kids with their homework
the only way it is taught is by assigning homework with word
problems and letting the students figure it out on their own.
One more comment: The 1895 Kansas exam would
be time consuming to grade being mostly essay type answers.
Modern tests are mostly multiple guess to make grading easier.
This can make the tests more difficult to compare.This subject
really needs more study and discussion.
Jim Hannon
Thanks to those who commented on the
education editorial. According to the 2005 National Assessment
for Educational Progress, less than one-third of fourth and
eight grade students in the United States are proficient in
math and reading, the only subjects tested. U.S. students
continue to perform near the bottom of industrialized nations
in international achievement tests. Readers, is this a problem?
If so, what are some solutions? Send your comments here.
Editor.
Do Frequent Flyers
Catch More Colds?
Thanks so much for a very interesting article!
(Forrest M. Mims II, "Do
frequent flyers catch more colds?" The Citizen Scientist,
27 January 2006.) I travel often for work and will now invest
in a nasal spray.
Sincerely,
Michael B. Krypel
This column was cited on www.boingboing.net,
where it resulted in tens of thousands of hits for The
Citizen Scientist and many hits on my personal web
site and Editor.
Interfacing Computers
to the Real World
Editor,
National Instruments (NI) produces computer
interface hardware and software that is ideal for the amateur
scientist. The problem, as always, is cost.
NI offers schools an interface hardware package
consisting of a plug-in A/D-D/A board and an electronics breadboarding
unit. The package is called NI ELVIS and is available only
to schools. The pricing offered is much less than the cost
of the component parts that are available from NI. The company
sells a software package called LabView that is also ideal
for the amateur scientist who wants to easily control NI's
interface hardware. The appearance of LabView on the computer
screen emulates a physical instrument complete with dials,
gauges, meters, graphic outputs, etc. You design it the way
you want. You can configure digital voltmeters, storage scopes,
vibration analysis instrumentation, filter design and testing
"hardware" and so on. The limits are the capabilities
of the interface board and the specific software add-on packages
within the LabView configuration.
Now here's the rub. LabView sells for $2000
and up. There is a student version for about $100 that does
everything the expensive full version does (limited only by
the specific add-on packages that are available to students).
There is also a reduced function student version that accompanies
NI's book LabVIEW 7 Express by Robert H. Bishop. The book
is available from places like Amazon.com and others and can
be bought by all. However, it is not the complete student
suite that is available through NI. To purchase that software,
you must be a bona fide student with ID number, etc. The other
problem is that the student software (complete or partial)
is not intended for commercial use or research.
So, my questions are as follows
(1) Can SAS, or a member with connections
to the company, arrange a deal with NI to offer SAS members
substantially reduced rates on NI hardware, including NI ELVIS?
(2) Can a deal be made so that SAS members
can legitimately purchase the complete student suite with
its packages? We citizen scientists do perform actual research.
Will NI allow us to use their student software freely and
permit us to publish our results on personal or
not-for-profit Web sites (including the
SAS Web site) along with frame grabs of the LabView screens?
Ely Silk
The National Instruments software is
excellent and widely used. Do any readers have contacts at
NI? If so, please send a note here.
Thanks. Editor.
A Request for
Advice Sent to [Dr.] Shawn Carlson
Dr. Carlson,
Although we have never met, I believe we have talked on the
phone once (circa 1999 I think).
At that time I donated my collection of "The Amateur
Scientist" columns from Scientific American to assist
in preparing the material for the CD.
My current need for advice involves my son, who is currently
a physics graduate student at a major University and is considering
a transfer to UCSD. Previously his interest and work has focused
on string theory and its related areas. He has decided that
he may want to work on something a little less esoteric, such
as condensed matter physics. He has completed all of his course
work and has been preparing for the qualifying examination.
His new envisioned path forward is to write a thesis and obtain
a master's degree, then transfer to UCSD, which apparently
has more going on in condensed matter physics than his university.
I can see both benefits and disadvantages to his plans, and
he has asked for my advice. My graduate work was at the master's
level in nuclear engineering, so my perspective on Ph.D. programs
in physics is less than comprehensive. I have obtained some
advice from a former co-worker who has a Ph.D. in physics
but would like to get further feedback, especially from someone
who has been at UCSD.
Thank you,
[Name deleted]
Shawn Carlson
Replies
I strongly suggest that your son NOT get a degree in theoretical
physics. There is nothing to do in that subject. It’s
exciting when you are a student, but a millstone when you
graduate. Very few jobs, and precious little to contribute
in the real world other than skill with mathematics. It's
great for the intellectually curious, but odds are he's going
to wind up unable to find a position and then be forced to
look into the real world where he will not be well prepared.
Employers and real-world problems require skills as an experimenter
much more than skill in esoteric mathematical constructions.
The standard mathematical prep for a physics degree is adequate
for just about anything the real world will every throw at
you.
I say this as a reformed theorist who got his degree in experimental
nuclear physics.
UCSD is a great school. And while condensed matter is a solid
subject, again it's not what I would recommend. It was a mistake
for me to get a degree in nuclear physics for the same reason.
Both fields are too narrow with far too little going on. They
are both past their peaks and largely fished out. Where will
the field be when your son ends his career? Does he absolutely
have his heart set on condensed matter?
Now, if your son has an interest in life and the living world,
then he should seriously consider moving into biophysics.
This is the new wild, wild west of science! More great discoveries
and Nobel Prizes will be won here than in any other modern
field of science, in my opinion. Also, if your son gets a
Ph.D. in this subject, he could work in all sorts of places
on all sorts of fascinating problems that could ultimately
help millions of people. Biophysics is great for employers,
and maybe your son will form his own company based around
something he will invent! In biophysics the sky is the limit.
In the other fields, not so much any longer.
I wish I had gotten my degree in biophysics!
And UCSD is one of the best biophysics schools in the country.
This is the best advice I can give you. I hope it helps.
Take care and good luck,
Shawn Carlson
A Turtle Question
Editor,
Recently I completed a small marine biology
survey. I'm developing ideas for my flatfish study. I was
able to sample for turtles in our lakes here on Long Island.
This was during the winter. I found that they like to hibernate
(much to my disbelief) near deeper channels, but close to
the mouth or lake source, the source usually being a river.
Is it possible that turtles prefer, deeper water in the winter,
rather than a marsh area? Does anybody have documentation
on that? I could send the research to a local herpetologist
here.
Thanks,
James Farr
Letters to "Backscatter"
are welcome. Letters are subject to light editing to correct
punctuation, spelling and grammar. By placing "Backscatter"
in the subject line, you give us permission to consider publishing
your letter. Send your letter to Backscatter.
|
