This Week in Tech on Education

I agree with your random thoughts. In particular, about getting rid of grades. I read a neat article on just that subject. Not only does it explain the adverse effects grading has on students, but it also gives suggestions to convert universities to a "no grade" system. You might want to check it out:

http://www.alfiekohn.org/teaching/fdtd-g.htm

The live version of this TWiT episode also included a short discussion of the problems with science after the recording had finished, which was also interesting.

As for the education discussion, I think the main problem is that the financial incentives for universities are stacked against providing a good quality eduction to students. Until this changes, I cannot see the situation changing. For example:

• Universities have an incentive to pack classes with too many students because they get a higher ratio of fees to number of faculty members. Therefore most classes are too large for effective interactive teaching.
• Students, despite being the consumers of education, seem to want to go to the most prestigious universities, which often have the worst teaching conditions. They have to pay higher fees for this "privilege". The majority of the research conducted at these institutions, to which their prestige is due, is not accessible to them until they are in grad school in any case, so "prestige" is a very bad reason for choosing a university.
• A large number of students don't really go to university to learn, but rather they are interested in getting a piece of paper that will further their chosen career. So long as they come out of it with a high grade they are happy. This is largely the fault of employers who demand such qualifications. Therefore, universities do not have an incentive to improve teaching because these students are not demanding it.
• Career incentives for faculty are highly weighted towards performing "original research", which in practice just means maximizing the number of papers in high impact journals. This is partly due to historical reasons, but primarily due to the fact that such research brings in extra funding for the university, which is not obtainable via other scholarly activities such as teaching. Therefore, faculty have an incentive to take short-cuts in their teaching, which is what the current grading regime is all about. They also have incentives to take short-cuts in their research, by orienting their program towards publishability rather than genuine interest.

All these reasons may seem like old hat, but financial pressures exert overwhelming influence in modern western society, so you cannot really fix the problem unless you find a way of making them push in the opposite direction.

the university should be an environment for a community of learners The university was a place for the wealthy to send their otherwise worthless offspring to make social contacts and thereafter continue to impress a feudal contract upon society at large: fraternities; Yale. University as technical institute began after WWII and massively accelerated after Sputnik. Quoting Lord Byron at length won't get you real world orbital bombing capability - as NASA political appointees have repeatedly demonstrated.

Technical people are infinitely fungible. They identify themselves as their jobs not as their storied surnames. Academic grant funding and industrial research are both administered by centralized professional management granting themselves performance bonuses for process not product. A business plan is submitted with PERT charts and spreadsheets. Zero risk is tolerated. Discovery is insubordination. The future is thus absolutely assured in a tightly administered managerial environment. Deeetroit comes to mind, as do Bell Labs/Lucent and Wall Street. Robert McNamara departed Deeetroit (Ford's "Whiz Kids") to run Vietnam (into the ground) by the book.

First, social engineering exits public education as does psychobabble, psychopharma, and smothering administrative layers. Reinstate US education from 1836 (McGuffey's Eclectic Primer) through the 1960s - sit down, shut up, learn - in English. Even 19th century immigrant Irish learned English. Teachers who do not produce are fired. Second, install intensive standardized testing for intelligence (IQ) and achievement (e.g., New York Regents exams, Iowa exams). Third, reinstate the four tracks - Gifted (no more than top 2%), academic, commercial (including trades!), and retarded. Education is manufacture. It has specifications, unit operations, quality assurance, and optimization. It has dumpsters, too.

Fourth: If you don't have a market for your goods, why are you manufacturing them? Even the retarded can be trained to sweep floors. We are not passengers on Spaceship Earth, we are crew. Save the drama for yer mama; get down and PUSH. (The Marines are dripping BAMs. Kill a maggot in Basic and it's a scandal. How the mighty have fallen.)