ACTA's Must-Reads
« Another kind of military intelligence | Main | Regents making a difference in Tennessee »
California dreams -- and nightmares
WhatWillTheyLearn.com shows that it's often the most prestigious colleges that do the poorest job of providing a broad-based general education core. For an example, consider the contrast between the famous University of California system and blue-collar Cal State.
While most Cal State schools earn a "B," none of the ten UC schools earn higher than a "C" -- and five earn an "F." Every CSU school requires a college-level science class, and 75% require college-level work in math. In contrast, only four of the ten UC schools require science and only two require math.
Most stunning of all: in spite of California state law requiring that all public universities teach a class in United States History or Government, not a single University of California campus received credit for that subject in ACTA's study (17 of 20 CSU schools did). Instead, UC schools allow students to get out of the requirement by taking classes in high school or by posting mediocre SAT scores. Failing that, students can take niche classes like "The Golden Age of Piracy," "History of Sexuality in the United States," "Recent U.S. Foreign Policy," or even "Radicalism in Contemporary Life" in place of standard history surveys.
All told, the 20 CSU schools (Cal Poly and Cal Maritime were not studied as they are primarily technical schools) required an average of 3.7 of the seven core subjects, compared to only 1.9 at the UC schools.
The economy of the last few years has encouraged a lot of consumers to bypass expensive brand names in favor of cheaper, but just as good, generics. The customers of California's higher education might want to join that trend.
Posted by Eric Markley on August 18, 2010 at August 18, 2010 09:49 AM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.goactablog.org/blog/mt-tb.cgi/790