A few words on education.

Probably be best to follow the article and conversation on this blog first, as it inspires my thoughts here.

I can tell you that a great deal of students that enroll at Texas Tech are not quite ready for collegiate work, as we were in the late 80's and early 90's. Maybe we weren't either, as many of our blue blooded "tier one" brethren would have you believe.

I give credit to Tech because they are trying to supplement in the first few semesters some of those critical thinking core skills needed. Tech calls it "leveling" work, a term usually reserved for graduate students entering a higher degreed program. I should note here that not all of the entering students do this, just some with lower scores in ACT/SAT tests. With the keen observation that State of Texas high school graduates were not ready for college work, they instituted this to help new students that might otherwise fail. To my knowledge this was done in the mid to late 1990's. I could not find any study or report online to validate its success or failure, but it does make sense to me at prima facie.

What upsets me is this "leveling" should have already been accomplished, at the very least preparation wise in high school. Tech isn't trying to weed them out because that isn't in Tech's best interest as a business or University. However, Tech also wants to raise its academic standing and is investing in doing so, so they aren't going to lighten the depth of instruction to pad the graduation numbers. Something has to give and it will be interesting to see how it plays out. (Our new Chancellor wants to peak enrollment at 35 to 40k students from its present 26k.)
The downside to "leveling" is, a student here may have to spend another year and a half in college to complete a degree. That costs a great deal of money and tuition has skyrocketed since I last paid the bursar.

I think a young person in this generation that accomplishes what many did before, basically borrowing to pay for an education, has it even tougher. Imagine owing over 100k for a STATE University bachelors degree. Very steep bill. But I still believe that critical and higher level thinking are worth it, and not just for a future career.

We need more educated people that can think; and less people that are specialized, narrow, and easily led. I say easily led, because what else could possibly be the goal of the "memorize and regurgitate" doctrine? I know the world needs ditch diggers too, but the world also might need some more people that know how the ditch should be dug, why it should be dug, and where it leads to.

Somehow, the citizens of our State and many others, bought into the abandoning of Dartmouth method inspired education, in favor of standardized testing. What have we gotten for it? But before we answer that question, someone please explain intelligently and without political malice, why we discarded the tried and true methods for high school education?

It takes a village to raise a child, no child left behind, and up with hope down with rewarding excellence. The children aren't getting left behind, they just have to answer A,B,C,D or none of the above.

They just don't get it. Life isn't multiple choice.