ACTA's Must-Reads

Neal writes, "Access and completion rates are simply irrelevant if the education received is incoherent and fails to guarantee the common ground of training and outlook on which our society depends."

Now, this is patently false. Bottom line: the career options open to someone with a college education far outnumber (and out emunerate) the career options open to those without. Secondly, let's remember that what Neal calls an "incoherent" education is simply one without a core curriculum. But I've known plenty of surgeons who never took Western Civ -- and I was never once concerned for their patients.

I support basic core curricula. But let's not pretend that twelve weeks of European history really transforms a student into a better citizen or -- duck for flying melodrama -- someone "[able] to think deeply, or collectively, about permanent values or the future of civilization itself," as Neal would have it. Far more fruitful would be a rigorous education in a student's most formative years -- K through 12. This is the time for multiple language instruction, for art and music education, for civics and world history, for math, science, and logic, for geography and comparative religion. After a solid education, an eighteen-year-old student should be allowed some degree of specialization -- even some degree of personal taste (i.e., knowing one hates maths or never wanting to read Shakespeare again).

Let's work together to better America's public elementary, middle, and high schools. Let's increase funding to bring back arts and music education. Let's have mandatory ancient and modern language requirements. Let's have state of the art technology available to every teacher and student, and let's make technology education part of the curriculum. But of course, all this would require more funding -- not more standardized tests.

The draft was a hodge-podge of contradictory suggestions. Think it was about returning to a traditional core? Well, it also said

"[W]e urge post-secondary institutions to make a commitment to embrace new pedagogies, curricula, and technologies to improve student learning,"

In other words, more of the ed-school psychobabble that has ruined the K-12 schools.

The examples could be multiplied ad infinitum.

Suggestion to acta: forget about getting Bush's hack ed sec'y to use the federal government bludgeon the colleges into adopting your pet ideas, even if I might like a lot of them. It won't happen, and even if it does, the next commission will come along and impose a lot of ideas you don't like. Universal "cultural competence" in place of "permanent values", anyone? "World multicultures" in place of Western civ?

Instead of trying to use the federal government, go back to the name of your organization, work with the trustees and legislatures and governors, if you can, they are the ones with responsibility for running the colleges and universities.

"But let's not pretend that twelve weeks of European history really transforms a student into a better citizen or -- duck for flying melodrama -- someone "[able] to think deeply, or collectively, about permanent values or the future of civilization itself," as Neal would have it."

I disagree. The foundations of contemporary social order directly derive from this history, including natural law and natural rights theory on which the United States was founded. Much of the political disarray and hysteria that we see directly results from students not understanding foundational ideas and values that underpin such notions as freedom, rights, and duty. Even surgeons must learn these foundations to understand current events and function as responsible citizens.

Federal Dog: Of course students can learn about the philosophical and legal foundations of American democracy. My point is that a core curriculum cannot provide but the merest smattering of background for such knowledge without getting in the way of the specialized knowledge many students need for their majors. At most, we could have students fulfill one year of core curriculum classes, and this amounts to what? Intro to Philosophy, intro to political science, intro to this, intro to that. As I wrote before, twelve weeks of Western Civ isn't going to teach students the complexity of natural law or natural rights theory.

The core curriculum gang is trying to correct at age 18 what students needed corrected back at age 6. A return to Horace Mann's ideals for public, democractic education would do more than a pack of E.D. Hirsch mimics complaining that undergraduates know more about Kanye West than about the Wild West. (Then again, I bet a lot of the ACTA crowd are voucher vultures, willing to disembowel public education for the benefit of the private school elite.)

"As I wrote before, twelve weeks of Western Civ isn't going to teach students the complexity of natural law or natural rights theory."

Correct, but properly done, it will give them some idea of foundations necessary to interpret events around them. That is better than no knowledge whatosever.

"The core curriculum gang is trying to correct at age 18 what students needed corrected back at age 6."

Again, correct, but irrelevant. Complaining that kids should have been taught essential materials does not change the fact that they were never taught those materials. Whatever wholesale negligence (recklessness?) marked their elementary and secondary school training, that does not change the duty of college educators to finally teach those kids what they need to know.

Federal Dog, I really doubt that Western Civ class is going to make or break someone as a citizen. The very fact that a student needs to *go* to college to be a full citizen -- or, as Neal wrote, to have a say in the future of our civilization (whatever the hell that means) -- is scary.

The point isn't simply that colleges should make up for what students aren't getting at the K-12 level. Instead, we must remember that college is not a given for any American. At this point, Americans haven't gone past Horace Mann's 19th century vision: free, public education through high school. If that's all an American can fully expect, then that's where our attention needs to be. A student should leave his or her free public education with the full experience necessary to be this citizen as Neal imagines it. To pressure colleges instead of refashioning K-12 is to assume that true citizens and "leaders" are those who have the privilege to attend a university.

"Federal Dog, I really doubt that Western Civ class is going to make or break someone as a citizen."

The same exact thing can be said about the overwhelmingly illiterate university students whom I have attempted to teach for many years. They are not being taught even basic grammar in elementary and secondary schools, and come to me incoherent and incapable of even writing complete sentences. That in no way means that I am not obliged to train them to think and write. Quite the contrary. Given the absolute disarray that I regularly see in these kids, refusal to teach them is unethical, unprofessional, and unintelligent.

There is no legitimate argument that you can make to justify jettisoning basic education simply because students come to us so completely untrained and lacking in thinking skills that they rip our hearts out. Once people write education off, they must leave the schools and get another job. Period. Anything less is openly predatory.

Federal Dog, I've never mentioned basic writing. My objection is to some Allan Bloom-ish nostalgic vision of The Humanities Core Curriculum, not to freshman comp. Western Civ won't teach students to write decent sentences or coherent essays (at least, any more than any other course).

Karen, it was an analogy. Basic training in the foundations of our culture is every bit as essential as literacy training: Without both, people cannot function effectively in society.

FD and I are often on the same page. As a professional and an academic, I am APPALLED the lack of BASIC reading, writing, and math skills. What's worse, how defensive and self-entitled these students get when their errors are diplomatically pointed out.

To be clear: we are talking about a class of workers whose career progress will be delayed several years. Blather all you want about Derrida, et al.; it is awful, truly awful. If the Public Education Monopoly were a business, it would be bankrupt operationally and financially.

And neither major political party really wants to attack the problem; they just want to be re-elected. Richard Vedder and J.P. Greene, we hear you!