Ohio Governor John Kasich once again demonstrates his cluelessness about and hostility towards educators by apoointing four businesspeople to the state board of education. Apparently, there is not a single person in the education field in the state of Ohio whom he trusts to make decisions about the state’s education programs from preK-university.
Kasich appointed a realtor and three manufacturers to the state board. No educators wanted.
Gov. John Kasich named a realtor and three managers of manufacturing companies to the state school board this week, continuing his efforts to make workforce preparation a greater part of Ohio’s education system.
Kasich has made better preparation of students for careers a major goal of his administration, winning on some issues. But he was thwarted on two much-publicized ones – seeking to have teachers spend time in businesses and a bid to merge the state departments of education, higher education and workforce development into one.
Kasich staff had no comment on the appointees, but new appointee David Brinegar noted that he and other new members can bring business perspective to the table.
In the mind of John Kasich, only people who buy and sell things know anything worth knowing.
I am reminded that Governor Kasich once proposed that all teachers should spend time working in a business so that they could learn something about the “real world.” Fortunately that didn’t get passed by the legislature. Some educators proposed that business people whom Kasich admires should spend a month working in a public school to learn about how hard educators work and what kind of problems they encounter every day. They might learn that standardization works for products but not for people.
When he was first elected governor, Kasich proposed to abolish collective bargaining, which passed the legislature. But the unions fought back, called a referendum, and voters overturned the law.
If Kasich runs in 2020, don’t let him get away with calling himself a “moderate.” He may be a moderate compared to Trump (who isn’t), but he is toxic to education, teachers, children, and our future.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
We must get politicians the hell out of education. The only solution is to sabotage it for children by those in the trenches. No more talk, we need action. No more “teach to the test”. Own the classroom. The testing police can’t be everywhere. Educators must take back their professions and teach children again.
How can any teacher, in good conscience, walk into a classroom and teach to the test when we know it takes kids away from critical thinking in everyday life.
REVOLT!
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With a few notable exceptions (countable on one hand,) we need to get them the hell out of Washington too!
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You are absolutely correct….I don’t know why the teachers don’t just shut their doors and do what is right for these children. If the children are taught well, they will do OK on the stupid test anyway. Teachers better wake up and smell the coffee, because they are ready to give up the profession to the computer gods. And as for getting politicians out of education….one would think that bringing it down to the State level would make things better, but the Governor’s are selling out the students, too. There needs to be a nationwide teacher strike (supported by parents and students) before the politicians will finally do what is right with tax dollars. I like the word…..REVOLT! I would happily send pizza or walk a picket line with public school teachers.
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Teachers will need to become more assertive and demand more from politicians. They work through unions and some unions see their concerns as dealing with finances and fairness issues.
Teachers Unions need to agitate more for improvement such as reduction in teacher load and more control over curriculum. Some teachers see agitation as something which other people do. That needs to change and they have to, in their unions, join the fray to improve teacher working conditions. They have the numerical power but as yet, not the fighting spirit. Life calls for some struggle.
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Kasich is your typical politician who has this myopic view of things. Kasich was voted into office yet this guy truly is a dude of mixed thoughts.
I really feel sorry for this guy kasich because he comes off as a non intellectual. Kasich tries hard but then he comes up with his bizarre ideas and his brains are revealed as what they really are.
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It’s not cluelessness.
It’s quite intentional.
With Deformers, never attribute to cluelessness what is better explained by profiteering.
Which essentially means, never attribute anything to cluelessness with these people.
Ignorance gives them an out that they certainly do not deserve.
Clueless is
As clueless does
Money biz
Is NOT in fuzz
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“In the MIND of John Kasich, only people who buy and sell things know anything worth knowing.”
Then John Kasich doesn’t have a working brain. Instead, his thinking has been programmed for him by Fox and other Alt-Right lying fake media sites … and/or …. Kasich has been bought and paid for by Charles Koch and ALEC and/or the Wal-Mart Walton family and he is a well paid slave of the oligarchs.
The Alt-Right has successfully installed cookies, viruses, Trojan horses and ransomware in the mind of Kasich and he is now a drone.
But I could be wrong, since his net worth is pegged $15.6 million.
https://www.opensecrets.org/personal-finances/net-worth?cid=N00009778
Does that much money make you one of the oligarchs or do you have to have more than a billion to get into that exclusive club?
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Reminds me of the Sponge Bob episode in which Plankton takes over Sponge Bob’s brain.
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Plankton is not eating GOP brains. What they all have is a viral terminal cancer of the brain and every other organ and once that cancer takes over one of their bodies it thinks for them and keeps their bodies alive so that cancer can spread and destroy the planet and all life on it.
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Maybe Kasich has Mad Cow disease?
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That explains it – Swiss cheese for a brain.
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Or worse, Mad Pol Disease
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The technical term for MCD is Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), so there is still the Spongebob connection.
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Kasich married money. Then, he received almost $1/2 million from Lehman Bros. right before the company went belly up. (He was a company “director”. ) The reason for Kasich’s employment with Lehman was Kasich had the clout/influence to get the fund managers of the state’s employee retirement systems to invest with Lehman. The retirees lost all of their investment in the company.
Kasich doesn’t ascribe any special knowledge to people who buy and sell things nor Wall Street-types. He’s rewarding people in advance for their funding of his next campaign.
Kasich oversaw Ohio’s school decisions while the citizens have been fleeced out of $1 bil. by charters, whose operators fund the state’s GOP.
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Google “Cleveland Plain Dealer Kasich 5.0” to see a good series of articles of what Linda writes about. Sadly the criminally incompetent Ohio Democratic Party recruited another pathetic candidate to run against Kasich for his second term and completely ignored this in their messaging. Kasich has been the beneficiary of useless opposition his entire career.
Related to this is his power to appoint board members of Ohio’s public universities. The University of Akron is floundering on the edge of irrelevance largely due to the board members he put into place.
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Republican governors’ appointments to head public universities is an untold story of greed and malfeasance. Their plot is a prelude to the total sell-off of higher ed.
The Democratic Governor of Virginia has appointed 4 trustees to public George Mason University during his recent tenure. We will watch to see if it makes a difference. The recently-elected Democratic governor of Michigan can force the charter school marketing center in the ed. department at Michigan State University to identify who funded the start-up and, she can shut it down. We’ll watch to see if her administration makes a difference.
The mis-management of Wright State University and a Board that refuses to be held accountable is an insult to the citizens who created the school.
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Politicians surround themselves with lobbyists, and most of them represent the business community. Many in the business community would be very pleased to turn education in a profit making business. Kasich, often considered a “moderate,” used to work for Fox News. He is also Catholic so he may not have any legitimate experiences with public education, and he may not understand its value. He ignored a multitude of scandals in charter schools under his administration. His parting shot is to try to further undermine public education by appointing business people to “look after” public education.
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Lobbyists are the bugs that swarm a dead carcass and pick it clean until only the bones remain.
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And that is why politicians are so brain dead. They are only talking to those who are brain dead, too. The lobbyists sure can weasel money for pet projects while denying and damning what is really needed.
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I’ve often read that Washington DC and probably most it not all state capitals are bubbles that become echo chambers and since the bubble is opaque and not transparent, there is no way to know what is going on outside of that bubble.
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I think it’s more of a pimple than a bubble.
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But they are pimples that leave scars, lots of scars.
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Lloyd, you are correct about proximity. I live near DC, Ft Meade and lots of gov’t contractors and stink tanks. It is a big bubble here and it’s really hard to sort through the lies to find the reality and truth. I am acutely aware that I live in an area where most people have partaken of the wrong colored Kool Ade and EVERYTHING seems out of control here. What I wouldn’t give to move farther away from this madness and live amid logical thinking people who aren’t motivated solely by money and social standing.
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Bet Kasich has NO CLUE that the moon has sunshine and believes inaccurate NEWS that the Chinese have landed a spacecraft of the DARK side of the moon.
There is NO DARK side of the moon, ONLY a FAR side. The moon gets sun.
This kind of misinformation is making America dumb.
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Hmmm, never thought of the dark side of the moon like that before. Maybe we should call it the blind side of the moon but that probably won’t work either. The other side of the moon we never see — maybe.
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The Dark Side of the Moon 🌒
The dark side of the moon
Is real — and very bare.
With Kasich in the room
His head is buried there
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Is he on the Chinese side of the moon?
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I wonder if the cheese on the Chinese side tastes different than the cheese on the other side that faced Earth.
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Kasich is a despicable phony who pretends to be a moderate. He is not moderate, he is a radical anti-public school ideologue (he’s paid to be an anti-public school teacher/union cheerleader/propagandist). They mock Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as being some type of radical. Kasich and the other pro privatization libertarian thugs are the real radicals, radicals of regression and destruction. He has total disdain and contempt for the teachers and other education professionals who are in the trenches every day. This is the exact opposite of what is going on in Finland where teachers are respected, trusted and supported. In the USA, people like Kasich, the Koch brothers, the Waltons and Betsy DeVos are working overtime to destroy the public school system and eliminate teacher unions. We are a sick country.
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Well-said and the absolute truth.
I don’t know how to counter the propaganda but it needs to be countered. Republicans like Kasich are anti-American because they are anti- everything America has stood for and embrace the politics of the rich that decimated democracy elsewhere.
Kasich is not much different than the far right anti-American businessmen who sent thugs to kill union organizers back in the early 1900s. Why he has any credibility is beyond my understanding.
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YES. So very scary to hear some who should know better speak of Kasich as “an electable moderate…”
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Another gimmicky, trendy stunt that is intended to send some kind of “message” rather than offer any substantive or practical support to public schools.
This will probably be news to John Kasich since he utterly ignored and neglected the existing public education system his whole term in office, but MOST local school board members come from “business”.
Where does he think they come from? Exclusively non-profits? Why didn’t he just ask someone “are there business people on local school boards?” – the answer is “yes”.
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It’s so weird how ed reformers worship CEO’s.
Workers are “in business”. They’re the vast majority of the private sector. Why don’t ed reformers ever hire one of them to consult on schools?
It’s as if the entire country consists of CEO’s.
It’s like how they send out Ivanka Trump and Betsy DeVos to deliver droning lectures to students about “training”.
Neither one of them ever worked for a wage a day in their lives. They’re the best we can do as far as “experts”? If ed reformers want the lower classes taking welding courses couldn’t they at least bring in an actual welder to speak to students?
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Even our Presidents worship CEOs.
Republican Presidents do it of course.
But so do Democrats.
Obama is a good example.
After the financial crash of 2008, he was still fawning all over the bankers who played a lead role in the crash.
People like Jamie Dimon
“JPMorgan is one of the best-managed banks there is. “Jamie Dimon, the head of it, is one of the smartest bankers we got, and they still lost $2 billion and counting.” — President Barak Obama
Of course, that was before Dimon’s bank was charged with a long list of fraudulent transactions totally tens of billions of dollars.
It’s not clear whether Obama knew about the fraud when he was singing Dimon’s praises like some pathetic JP Morgan intern.
But one thing is clear. Dimon ended up settling with Obama’s Justice department with nothing more than fines because, you know, Obama was palsy walsy with Dimon.
And that’s the way they do it in DC.
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“War is too important to be left to the generals” – Clemenceau
Georges Clemenceau was a great statesman, and he was prescient. I think it is not only prescient but a necessity to have industrialists, and non-educators involved in education policy. Education impacts every aspect of our society, our economy, our national defense,etc.
Our industry depends on a trained, and educated workforce. Our military depends on intelligent and educated soldiers/sailors/airmen, to operate the high-tech weapons and systems of the 21st century. We need to have some generals involved in promulgating education policy.
I applaud the decision of Gov. Kasich, to bring in experienced industrialists, and executives to his education council. Bravo!
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CHARLES, you demonstrate once again that you are clueless about teaching and learning.
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The problem with your thinking Charles, is that you don’t know the definition of “education”. Education is different than an educated work force. Yes, we need skilled workers, but we desperately NEED citizens that are well educated and well rounded. The idea of an education is to produce (I hate to refer to children as a product, but it’s the best that I can come up with) good and well rounded CITIZENS that are able to further become “good workers” in adulthood. Yes, in adulthood when they are able to make the best decisions for themselves. No use training a 5 yr old to be an engineer if he really wants to be a firemen. But as always Charles, you have a messed up view of the world….. Continue watching your Faux News and leave us alone to fight the battles for children.
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“he idea of an education is to produce”
NO, no, no, no!!!
The purpose of public education is not to “produce”. It is there so that the individual can grow and develop in the way that is best suited for the individual as determined by the individual. It is not the state’s nor the business sector’s realm to determine those things for the individual.
Teaching is not producing. It is supposed to be a process wherein the individual determines their own being.
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How about this?
Education is too important to be left to politicians and CEOs (people who know nothing about education)
Of course, that is precisely what has been done in recent decades.
Educators have been largely left out of the decisionmaking .
Or how about this one?
Physics is too important to be left to people who think that Newton’s laws have to do with our legal system.
Or how about this one?
Welding is too important to be left to people who don’t know the difference between sun glasses and welding glasses.
Thanks for the laugh.
Ha ha ha!
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Charles says that medicine is too important to be left to doctors. In fact, no doctors should ever be involved in overseeing medical care according to the excellent reasoning that Chalres promotes. Doctors must be completely left out of medical decision making and he knows that the people who should be deciding how much medical care his loved ones get should be businessmen and only businessmen. Because hey, medical care is just that important to Charles that he would never leave it up to doctors. Businessmen must decide.
Charles also believes that only people who have no knowledge of nuclear energy should be in charge of nuclear energy plants. No engineers should be allowed in decision making because Charles and people with his beliefs always know that the people who need to make all decisions should know absolutely nothing about nuclear energy or engineering. But they should know a lot about how to maximize short term profits.
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You have defined Charles in a nut shell.
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Unfortunately, in medicine, Doctors really don’t make the decisions anymore. Decisions are made by insurance companies and CEO’s of large medical institutions and conglomerate offices. Medicine was fully privatized by the 90’s. It hasn’t gone so well except for the rich who can afford concierge medicine and really good insurance plans. If Charles ever gets really sick, he will get to see free market forces in action…..and it ain’t pretty!
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Not the entire medical industry is like this. There is the VA and no insurance company tells their doctors what to do — yet —but Trump and the GOP want to turn the VA into a private sector business where insurance companies make decisions based on profit and not what is best for the patient.
And I’ve heard Kaiser that’s in the private sector is similar to the VA in some ways.
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Oh Lloyd, you are wrong about insurance companies and the VA. Maybe the VA isn’t privatized, but the misuse of funds is appalling and the wait time for services is dreadful. Insurance companies and hospitals DO dictate what treatments patients are allowed to be administered (medications, diagnostics, types of surgery “allowed”, durable medical equipment etc). My job for many years was getting “approval” for patients from insurance companies and it was heartbreaking to explain to people that they couldn’t get the help that they required because of their insurance OR that they had to jump through 2 hoops and wait 6 months to get the treatment that they so desperately needed. Health care is most definitely a fully privatized industry.
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“Maybe the VA isn’t privatized, but the misuse of funds is appalling and the wait time for services is dreadful”
LisaM, I am a former US Marine and combat vet with an 80% combat related disability. However, I didn’t know I was eligible for medical care through the VA until after I retired from teaching at age 60. That means my medical care was through the private sector for most of my life.
Now I have been with the VA since 2005 and I am in a position to compare. The VA wins hands down vs the private sector. I have never had to wait long for an appointment. The service has been top notch. I have never been denied care from the VA.
But when I was with the private sector, care was denied and I had to fight the insurance company for three years to get that care re-approved after they had approved then changed their mind.
I also know many other combat vets that have their medical care through the VA but only one of the many has complained about the VA and that one voted for Trump and hates Hillary, liberals, et. al.
In fact, the Military Times reports: Vets still face long waits with VA Choice program.
“Patients using the Veterans Affairs Choice program to avoid long wait times at department medical centers may still face months-long delays before seeing a doctor, according to a new report from the Government Accountability Office released Monday.”
https://www.militarytimes.com/veterans/2018/06/04/report-vets-still-face-long-waits-with-va-choice-program/
REPEAT: Since I have been with the VA I have never had to wait a long time for an appointment. Even the two times I went in without an appointment for emergency care. No complaints from this vet. I do NOT want to turn the VA over to the private sector.
The first emergency room visit turned out to be a minor problem with a quick fix. The second time was on a Sunday and I ended up with splinters embedded in my left eye under the eye lid scratching the surface of my eye ball. The pain was horrifying.
A friend drove me to the VA Medical Center in Palo Alto near Stanford. When I arrived, the Emergency room was empty when and I ended up with two doctors and more nurses helping me. When they decided I needed a specialist, they called Stanford University’s hospital and a specialist, an eye surgeon, drove to the VA and took care me with a follow up visit the next week. She saved my eye.
“Misuse of funds” even if this allegation is true, I do NOT care, because the private sector’s misuse of funds will always be worse.
Denying patients medical care to boost profits is MUCH worse than allegations that the VA misuses funds.
I think that most if not all allegations aimed at the VA are no different than the lying propaganda designed to destroy the public education system.
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Q Charles says that medicine is too important to be left to doctors END Q
When did I ever say that?
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Charles,
So now you are changing your tune when it comes to medicine? Because you know it will affect you and your loved ones to have doctors completely left out of all power with businessmen calling the shots?
I guess you don’t think education is nearly as important as medicine and therefore while you object to having people who only care about “business” making medical decisions, you have no problem with them making decisions about other people’s children’s education.
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Clemenseau was one of the authors of the failed treaty at the end of The Great War. His understandable but short-sighted fixing of blame for the war on Germany alone sealed the fate of a future that had to fight totalitarianism in Germany, Italy, and the Soviet Union for the rest of the 20th century. Perhaps he was right, diplomacy is too important to be left to the diplomats.
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The professional diplomats that work for the government seldom have the final say. They are often constrained in what they are allowed to negotiate and offer because the buck stops with the president and Congress also has a say.
The top ranking diplomats are only allowed to offer advice to the president and even then all treaties must be approved by the Senate.
“The Constitution provides that the president “shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two-thirds of the Senators present concur” (Article II, section 2).”
No matter what advise the diplomats offer the president, once the treaty reaches the Senate, politics and special interests will always get in the way.
And Trump doesn’t listen to anyone and has proven unable to work with Congress. To him compromise means he ends up a loser. To him, there is no such thing as a win-win. To Trump only he can win and everyone else must lose. That is how he ran his often failed business ventures for the last few decades.
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Saying that people outside a particular field should have some input into what happens in that field when it affects society as a whole is certainly reasonable, but quite different from saying that such people should have all or most of the say and that the experts in the field should have little or no say.
But the latter is precisely what has happened with education in the US in recent decades. Educators have taken a back seat to politicians, billionaires , CEOs and general idiots (Eg, David Coleman) and have essentially been handed policies and told to carry them out with no questions asked.
Common Core was a perfect example of this. Despite the false claims that it was developed by educators, it was effectively imposed ON educators by ignoramuses like David Coleman and Bill Gates with almost no input or chance at modification at any stage (development Or implementation)
It’s really an absurd situation and not at all what Clemenceau was suggesting. Not even close.
He was NOT suggesting that military leaders be excluded from the decisionmaking process and that tactical decisions in a war, for example, be made primarily by those who know nothing about war. To suggest as much would be idiotic.
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Many (most) of these comments are all off the mark. I am advocating that education policy is serious business. This nation spends a very large amount on education.
I maintain that it is very important, that public education policy receive input from outside of the (K-12) education establishment. Colleges have to deal with the individuals who graduate K-12 public schools. Why not have some direct input from university-level academicians, and have them assist in designing curriculum? Maybe then, less effort and expense would have to be exerted in remedial courses at the college level.
I am not advocating turning over physics to non-physicists. I am not advocating turning over nuclear plant operation to persons who are not properly trained. Be fair, everybody.
Q Saying that people outside a particular field should have some input into what happens in that field when it affects society as a whole is certainly reasonable, END Q
Thanks for this remark, it is exactly what I am saying. Education is serious business, and it impacts virtually every sector of our society. Education impacts industry, the military, agriculture, medicine, etc all down the line.
I am not advocating having Army generals teaching in second grade classrooms.
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Kasich did not appoint anyone from the postsecondary sector, no university professors or administrators.
He thinks that a real estate developer and a manufacturer know enough to make education policy for the state.
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You read only part of my comment above and ignored my main point.
Namely, that the situation with education is exactly the opposite of the one that Clemenceau was addressing.
He was addressing the situation in which military men (the experts on war) were making all the decisions regarding war with no outside input.
But with education in the US, all the important policy decisions are being (and have been) made by outsiders (politicians, CEOs and others with no expertise in education), with the educators (the experts on education) having little to no input at all.
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well said, SDP.
Imagine if the military brass were completely excluded from policy making. Nonsensical.
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Diane, yes- if Kasich had any ed sense he would have appointed more than one from tertiary-ed sector. Ohio board members have an appalling lack of ed background. One from college sector, 3 w/ career-long K12 teaching experience, 1 private-sector guy w/decades on various local school boards– that’s it. Perhaps the weakness is in having 19 who are locally-elected? Among those, there’s a large # whose interest is backed by trivialities (incl “I homeschooled my kids”!); many never ‘ran’ anything.
I compared to bios of NJ state board, which is govt-appted subject to advise/ consent of legislature. It’s dominated by university sector (profs, ed researchers, people w/exp in fin & legal aspects of running those large institutions). They are buttressed by a few businessfolk, & a few w/community- service backgrounds like criminal justice, social welfare, healthcare.
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Q Imagine if the military brass were completely excluded from policy making. Nonsensical. END Q
I have worked at the Pentagon ,and for the Defense Department as a civilian (GS) employee, and I have served on active duty.
Military policy at the highest levels in this nation is determined by civilians. The president is the commander-in-chief, and the secretary of defense is always a civilian (many have served on active duty, some have been retired military). The congress (civilian) has the sole power to declare war.
Of course, general officers and the joint chiefs of staff, are consulted on military policy making.
But the “buck stops” with the civilians. That is how it is.
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Not with Trump. He has never accepted the “buck stops here” for failures. Someone else is always blamed. He’s already blamed his followers for something that hasn’t happened yet. If he is impeached, he’s written or said it will be their fault.
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Charles, I think you are not altogether wrong, but goals must be better thought out so as to select people who fit. Today most pubschs have a disconnect between academia & industry due to the longtime mantra “all must get BA/BS for employment.” If the state wants to right the ship they need to re-establish school-career pathways. So state board will need people who can help w/that. Someone from a regional vo-tech for starters. And someone from local industry w/experience training employees – who can speak to stronger K12 skills needed in prospective employees. Someone with corporate training background would be helpful. And someone w/experience in industry/ comm. college [or hisch] partnerships. If you just hire businessmen w/o related experience, they can be too easily sold on ed-industry digital systems that ‘look good on paper.’
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I find myself in agreement. I have often advocated a stronger vo-tech program for the USA, and importing the apprenticeship programs, that have proven so successful in Germany (and other nations).
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Germany is successful with its apprentice programs because German workers have strong unions.
We, on the other hand, throw our workers into the “gig” economy where their job may disappear in a year or two or be outsourced.
Amazing how many industries the Germans have maintained.
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A dash of cold water, Diane, but hard truth. Schools cannot single-handedly transform society. Charles’/ my thoughts on this are just wishes: even a state bd of ed seriously (unlike Ohio) trying to change the paradigm is doomed to shots in the dark– anecdotal successes & flops– w/o supporting social structures, or the govtl/ political/ cultural will to [re-] create them. Since ’70’s, we have been racing away from an integrated public ed system supporting full-spectrum career paths (such as those in several Euro/ E Euro countries). We have neither the strong worker voice nor the well-distributed labor force necessary as foundation.
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Don’t get me started.
Kasich thinks education in Ohio is useless unless it contributes to the economy of Ohio. I witnessed a YouTube a concert given at the Ohio statehouse at a time when there was also an art show of award winners. Kasich asked more than one of the teachers how the kids would make a living with their art…with follow-on questions about careers and whether the students were learning about how to make money. The teachers were polite and affirmed that careers in art were a matter of interest. Kasich was more interested in this interrigation than the artistry of the students.
Well, the best paying jobs related to the arts are in architecture, followed by some managerial positions in design.
In Ohio, the public higher education faculty who teach in the arts have been called upon to track the employment of their graduates.
A mentee who has a master’s in fine arts is viewed as an expert consultant on the utility of a fine arts major. Why? He has ascended to the position of director of innovation for a major big-box retailer (one of the survivors, not Walmart). That took about twenty years and at least five other jobs before that, including mopping floors in a bar.
Kasich is not far removed from Bill Gates who thinks a college degree should be worth something (meaning money) or Elizabeth Warren who is pressing for data on the economic value of a college degree. Then there are the plans afoot and on the books to garnish the wages of college graduates who have acquired debt to complete a degree or certificate, with some broken promises about clearing debt by way of public service (e.g., TEACH grants).
Of course there are some studies that show graduates with a liberal arts degree manage to do quite well financially, but not immediately after college. EVERYONE (who is anyone) seems to want members of this generation to become entrepreneurs, get used to living in a gig economy, and engage in savvy social networking in order to “succeed” in life. Meanwhile, the economic worth of human effort and devotion to any task is degraded by claims that artificial intelligence can do “it” better, faster, and at a lower cost…what ever “it” is.
I am reminded of Alice in Wonderland” I know perfectly well what “it is.” It is usually a frog or a worm.
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Elizabeth Warren who is pressing for data on the economic value of a college degree.”
Depends greatly on where you went to college.
If you went to Hawvid, it’s worth a lot more than if you went to Podunk Community college, even though from what I have seen of prominent Hawvid grads (George Dumbya Bush, Arne Duncan, Michelle Rhee and someone I was unfortunate enough to work at a tech company) I would sooner hire a graduate from Podunk.
The primary difference between a Hawvid grad and a grad from Podunk CC is that a Hawvid grad has the annoying BELIEF that they know more than everyone else, which they express on a daily basis. I know, I have worked with them (including a Harvard MBA who was a complete moron)
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Of course, there is a huge difference between departments at Harvard.
Business and econ are a complete joke, while departments like physics, biology history and languages are not.
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I think there is a problem that compares data on college degrees. The problem is that particular professions inflate numbers. So many college degrees are not good for anyone except everyone. Having several people who have traditional college educations before they return to the community helps the community, but does not necessarily fatten the college grad’s wallet.
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There appears to be little evidence that men are impacted in terms of earnings, educational outcome, or family formation by attending highly selective colleges like Harvard. This appears not to be the case for women, however. Attending a college with a 100 point higher average SAT score is associated with a 5% increase in probability of getting an advanced degree, a 14% increase in earnings, and reduces the chance of marriage by 4%.
The NBER working paper is, unfortunately, behind a paywall. I have found a working paper version that is not: http://gatton.uky.edu/sites/default/files/EconomicsWorkshop/miller_elite.pdf
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NBER papers aren’t peer reviewed. Extreme libertarians gave NBER, its investments, from which it derives its income. (Sourcewatch) NBER is also funded by corporations. When its papers serve men like the Koch’s, the findings are used to enact policy. When the papers serve the people, the articles’ content withers unnoticed.
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Linda
TE has obviously confused pee-er review with peer review.
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Linda,
You are correct that NBER working papers are not peer reviewed, yet they are often taken very seriously. Dr. Ravitch, for example, posted about NBER 2536 less than two weeks ago on December 28 of last year (https://dianeravitch.net/2018/12/28/when-school-choice-means-schools-choose/#comments). Neither Dr. Ravitch nor any of the commentators mentioned any concern about a lack of peer review in that case.
I think it is best to review the work on the merits rather than depending on perceptions of funding sources. That the National Education Policy Center is funded by the Chicago Teachers Union through the The Great Lakes Center for Educational Research does not mean the research is bad, for example.
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It’s charitable to call teaching economist “confused”.
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Pee-er Review
The Econ pee-er review
Is really nothing new
Replacing science journal
With NBER urinal
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Linda
TE suffers from Crimestop.
“CRIMESTOP means the faculty of stopping short, as though by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought. It includes the power of not grasping analogies, of failing to perceive logical errors, of misunderstanding the simplest arguments if they are inimical to Ingsoc, and of being bored or repelled by any train of thought which is capable of leading in a heretical direction. CRIMESTOP, in short, means protective stupidity… orthodoxy in the full sense demands a control over one’s own mental processes as complete as that of a contortionist over his body.” — from 1984, by George Orwell
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Crimestop
To stop at precipice
Of truth
An ever peaceful bliss
Forsooth
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Poet,
Thanks for the Orwellian quotes. te’s false equivalencies -also predictable- Petrilli and te whine that Pastors for Texas Children and NPE are Goliath and Bill Gates, Bloomberg, Walton heirs, DFER,… are David.
The Aspen Institute said they owned education policy since Coleman. te disputing their claim, now that would be fun.
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Linda
Yes, indeed. You gotta love his equating NEPC with NBER.
What I find pathetic about this fellow (and I am fairly certain that he is a fellow) is his pretense that he knows more about education than Diane and other educators who post here.
And most pathetic of all is that he does not even seem to know basic economics, as witnessed by his false claim just recently that there is no economy of scale operating in education. He tried to weasel out and say he actually meant something other than what he said, but what he claimed was quite unequivocal.
Typical TE.
Dunning-Krugeritis is a malady that is seriously over represented among economists.
I wonder. Is it there before they begin their University studies? Of is it something that is taught at University econ departments?
Along with the mystery of dark matter, curious minds want to know the solution to this mystery.
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Frequently at this blog, te’s version of economic theory and practice relies on its own counsel.
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It’s actually a benefit to see his “thinking” about education on display here because it is a window into a worldview among some economists (Raj Chetty, John “Teachers should be fired sooner rather than later” Friedman, Erik Hanushek et Al) that indicates a contempt not only for real evidence but also for teachers.
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Kaisch did what Florida has done. Incoming governor Desantis appointed 41 people to his education transition team. 41 people who have no education background but who are heavily invested in charter schools, vouchers and tax credits such as Corcoran being appointed to Commissioner of Education. Corcoran whose wife owns a charter school that has recently been given the approval to expand. Desantis did not appoint mental health counselors, educators, experts in the field of education and how children learn or people who give a damn about the crumbling schools and corrupt charter schools who deceive the taxpayers. Elections have consequences. Oh FloriDUH.
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No surprise here. Education is a money maker and business wants a piece of the action. This governor cares about nothing but the fake public face as the adult in the room. No need for planned parenthood either. Old GOP man knows best.
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And like all politicians he thinks that the dollar sign is the only thing to look at. I would like to see him sit down with my 3 year old granddaughter & “teach” her about buying & selling and see what it gets him. Does he know how manners & kindness along with reading, writing, arithmetic make a better person not just the “give me money” approach he seems to think is the way? Apparently not
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“The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.”- Plato.
Bill Gates excluded the study of civics purposefully.
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One of the problems with putting businessmen in charge is they not only don’t understand that standardization doesn’t work in education, they don’t understand that it doesn’t really work in business either. If you don’t believe me, just try purchasing medium sized jersey work gloves at a large chain hardware store or attractive wide width shoes at a department store.
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The pro-business advocates like Charles would advise that if you have an employee who needs employer-funded work shoes or a jersey that can’t be purchased cheaply, you just fire that employee and find another one who fits into the size that can be purchased cheaply. There is always another employee to replace the one pro-business advocates throw onto the streets.
And of course, they treat students the same way. if the student who enrolls in your charter can’t be taught using cheap methods, simply “fire” them and replace with one who can.
And of course, they treat sick children the same way. If the child doesn’t get well quickly, toss them off their health insurance and replace with a customer who is healthy.
As long as your guiding ethics is money and you have absolutely no moral problem with what happens to the children who are tossed into the street, you are good! And those are the people that Kasich would appoint to oversee schools.
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Well stated, NYC.
Commenter “C” encountered an inventory problem. Children would be viewed in the context of inventory if business solutions were applied to education, which presumably is fine with Gates. He and Z-berg are investors in the largest seller of schools-in-a-box.
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I know I sound like a broken record but I think it’s a waste of time & energy to try to shame the business sector into less greed/ higher morals. Corporate behavior in support of the common good follows only from laws & regs we the people enact through our reps. Never/ ever happens/ happened from altruism & high morals. Way to right the ship is grass-roots organizing votes for candidates supporting campaign reform, re-writing 501(c)3&4 laws, legislative work-around for Cit United decision, abolishment of all forms of voter suppression>> appropriate corp/indiv tax levels/ closed loopholes. Only from there can we begin to rein in the pop-trash ideology posing as free-marketism (disguising pure greed), that results in constant breaches to voting rights, employment case law, ethics regs re: bribery & nepotism, & laws protecting consumers [& air-breathers & water-drinkers & people who get sick].
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Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education.
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