Blog Posts

Is the Path Out of Poverty the Path Right Back Into Poverty? Is Pushing For "Diversity in STEM Education" a Bad Idea?

4/4/2014

STEM education is in the news, and is often touted as the best college career path ANY student can take. STEM is also criticized for not having enough minority student interest. Historically, STEM is very white, and very Asian. Pushing low-income, first-generation minorities into STEM fields may not be the “great idea” that it appears to be, from the outside. The headline on The Inside Higher Education blog reads:

New Push to Boost Numbers of Minority STEM Ph.D.s

California Institute of Technology, Stanford University, and the University of California campuses at Berkeley and Los Angeles jointly announced a new effort Thursday to increase the number of minority Ph.D.s in science, mathematics and technology fields. The four universities will create "a unique, cross-institutional community of underrepresented minority Ph.D. students, postdoctoral scholars and faculty members in the targeted fields; developing faculty training to better recognize and help these students thrive and advance; and conducting research that includes annual surveys of Ph.D. students about what factors impact their attitudes, experiences and preparation for the future," the announcement said.

On the surface, this seems like a noble goal. Get more minority students into STEM. Exciting! But, on the same website, is this headline about how blacks and Latinos are taking on more debt than their white counterparts:

Debt, Race and Ph.D.s

Colleges and universities -- not to mention many businesses -- have been pushing for gains in the numbers of black and Latino students who earn doctorates, especially in STEM or social science fields.

A new study may point to one hindrance in making progress toward this goal. Black and Latino graduate students are more likely to borrow and more likely to borrow larger sums to earn a Ph.D. than are white or Asian graduate students. The figures are particularly striking for African Americans and for STEM fields.

And in light of the reoccurring theme on The Chronicle of Higher Education, Insider Higher Ed, The Huffington Post, and countless other websites, it is becoming almost impossible to find a tenure-track, high paying job. One article talks about rejection, frustration, giving up searching, and living in despair. Here, a report from Congress about adjuncts, and the lower compensation and unpredictable schedules they face:

The median respondent salary was $22,041, below the federal poverty line for a family of four ($23,550), although the typical course load was difficult to ascertain from the online forum (with adjuncts reporting as many as 10 courses per semester). Some 89 percent of respondents teach at two or more institutions, and most can’t depend on assignments from semester to semester. Many also said they relied on help from family members and government assistance to survive, despite having advanced degrees. More than 50 percent of respondents had Ph.D.s and 30 percent held master’s degrees.

Respondents also reported low prospects for advancement to tenure-line or full-time jobs, and 89 percent said they received no professional support for teaching or research from their institutions. The average length of time respondents said they’d worked as an adjunct was 10 years. The median length of time was four years.

“Growing up in a poor neighborhood … I believed earning several college degrees would be my path out of poverty, but that is no longer the case,” one adjunct said.

So, is the path out of poverty a path right back into poverty? The likelihood of achieving the tenure-track dream is so small and wrought with emotional turmoil and anxiety, is it worth it to push minority students down this path? They may end up in a worse place – saddled with student loan debt, stuck in an adjuncting position that pays below the poverty level, and without the necessary skills to advance in a non-academic position – than they were before they began “pursuing their dreams.” Is higher education the path out of poverty, or the dream-crusher that mounts added liabilities and wastes precious time? How do you know when higher education is the problem, or the solution?

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The Best Ideas? Or Race, Gender, and Sexuality First? Who Decides?

4/3/2014

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Universities play many roles in society – places of big ideas, places where people can gather to talk about those ideas, places where experts discuss their ideas, and places where experiments about big ideas can take place. Balancing those ideas and giving priority to an agenda makes leading a university community difficult. One of the most massive difficulties I see is the delicate balance between two competing courses of thought. Do universities value the best ideas first? Or do universities value diversity first? Who decides?

There was an article in The Daily Bruin (UCLA’s student newspaper) about the lack of diversity in commencement speakers:

Since the UCLA College of Letters and Science reinstated a college-wide commencement in 2002, the crop of commencement speakers has lacked the diversity that UCLA administration touts as one of the university’s top priorities.

Only four out of 13 were people of color. Seven of the past 13 speakers were white males. Only two were women and neither of those women were people of color.

While the College has picked successful and compelling speakers from a wide range of backgrounds and fields of expertise over the course of its history, the College’s recent choices point to a lack of critical thinking.

It is just as important to give students relatable and diverse role models as it is to give them speakers with impressive academic, professional and personal accomplishments.

Providing speakers with a myriad of different personal experiences – shaped by a number of factors, among them gender, race, personal history as well as field of expertise and academic accomplishment – will enable students from all walks of life to see themselves in their commencement speakers.

The committee within the College in charge of picking the commencement speaker would do well to remember this come next year.

In an email statement to The Bruin, the deans of the College said that they are “proud that half of (the) speakers come from underrepresented backgrounds and have broken barriers to reach the pinnacle of their careers.”

The deans are counting the two women who spoke at the 2012 and 2013 commencements, respectively, as a part of the “half.”

It should be noted that until two years ago, there was not a single woman featured on the list of commencement speakers at all. And even now, there is not one woman of color to be found on the list.

These numbers speak to a need for the College to more carefully examine its choices and to think more deeply about what it means to look back on a list of speakers that reflect the diversity of the student body.

Is diversity a token word, tossed around by administration, given lip service, and then disregarded? And what about diversity of ideas? Each of these speakers has very different, very big ideas. In looking at the diversity of race, aren’t we in fact promoting a sort of racism, where we say race matters? That you are not just your ideas, you are your race, or your gender, or your sexuality? And in trying to achieve “diversity,” are we saying that the 61-year-old white man’s ideas should now be placed on the back-burner, because race matters more than big ideas?

How about my ideas? If I have the best ideas, and I get credit for them, should I not be placed “at the front of the pack” because I’m white? BUT!!!... I’m a woman. Does that mean I should be placed ahead, but still behind minority races, or sexuality? What order do we place people with ideas in? Are white people automatically placed “at the back of the bus” now, because of promotion of diversity? How is that fair to ME? I didn't choose to be white, or a woman, and I worked really hard at my great ideas!

Is the subtle promotion of diversity instead promoting racism of a new kind? UCLA student columnist Eitan Arom features an intriguing letter from a UC-Berkeley alumnus on the subject of a recent Daily Bruin column,

I am a 61-year-old white man, the sort that is often considered irrelevant and accused of being angered by the loss of privilege following social incursions of one or another previously oppressed groups. To allay any such considerations, I state for the record I have enough privilege to suit me, and no lack of money. I say what I say out of concern for our educational and other institutions.

I am old enough to remember when the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. stated that one day he hoped we would be judged by the content of our character, not the color of our skin. Our obsession with diversity has created a society in which the reverse of the reverend’s hopes have been achieved. We care less about an individual’s achievements, the new criteria being whether they are African American, Hispanic, LGBT, female, American Indian or some other protected group.

I believe this obsession with diversity is actually subtly racist. It suggests that without special treatment by the great white father, no member of the protected classes could succeed. I don’t know about others, but I would feel greatly insulted. There’s two cents’ worth from an old white male.

Dr. Andrew Kindler
UC Berkeley alumnus

One of the student responses to the editorial asks some great questions:

When will people realize that diversity of opinions is far more important than skin pigmentation or sexual organs? Life is more than just a checkbox or making sure you have a perfect "diversity zoo", if you will, with the exact mix of races and genders in the right proportions?

Why does the Daily Bruin Editorial Board insult students' intelligence by assuming that people can only relate to others of their own pigmentation? Key exhibit from the piece below:

"Providing speakers with a myriad of different personal experiences – shaped by a number of factors, among them gender, race, personal history as well as field of expertise and academic accomplishment – will enable students from all walks of life to see themselves in their commencement speakers."

So caucasian students can't "see themselves" in African-American speakers and vice-versa? How unbelievably insulting to the intelligence of UCLA students. A logical conclusion is that the Daily Bruin editorial board would be in support of (voluntarily) segregated graduations, each with a speaker of their own race they can "see themselves in."

This PC multiculturalism has gone way too far and this editorial is a perfect example and wake-up call.

Another student notes:

Why are we so focused on skin color and sex. What the speakers have to say is much more important.

And so I ask you, which comes first? Best ideas or diversity? If your answer is "Both!" then what happens if, for 12 years in a row, the best ideas come from 61 year-old, white men?

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Why do I believe so strongly in Common Core standards and testing?

4/1/2014

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Why do I believe so strongly in Common Core standards and testing?

First, if you are not aware of the Common Core, here is a crash course from NPR.

Then, several articles featuring reasons for the Common Core, and what they do.

The Common Core and the Common Good: Our educational system is not keeping up with that of many other industrialized countries, even as the job market becomes more global and international competition for jobs becomes steeper. “American students rank 25th in math, 17th in science and 14th in reading compared to students in 27 industrialized countries.” That same report found that fewer than half of our students finished college. This ranked us 14th among O.E.C.D. countries, below the O.E.C.D. average. In 1995 we were among the Top 5.

Some rightly point to the high levels of poverty in our public schools to adjust for our lagging performance, but poverty — and affluence — can’t explain all the results away. One strategy of changing our direction as a nation is the adoption of Common Core State Standards, meant to teach children the skills they need to be successful in college and careers — skills like critical thinking and deep analysis.

The problem is that, in some states, Common Core testing has been implemented before teachers, or the public for that matter, have been instructed in how to teach students using the new standards.

Bill Gates: Commend Common Core: Right now,45 states are implementing new academic standards, known as the Common Core, which will improve education for millions of students. Unfortunately, conversation about the standards is shrouded in myths.

The standards are just that: standards, similar to those that have guided teachers in all states for years, except these standards are inspired by a simple and powerful idea: Every American student should leave high school with the knowledge and skills to succeed in college and in the job market.

Today, 80% of students say they expect to go to college while only 40% of adults have an associate's degree or higher. Clearly, the old standards didn't help them achieve their goals. Common Core was created to fix that. And at least 75% of teachers support them, according to several surveys.

Inconsistent standards like the ones we've had until now punish students who have to switch schools. Either they're expected to know material they've never been taught, or they're re-taught material they already know. But with standards that are not only high enough but also consistent, students will be able to move without falling behind.

Myth: Common Core was created without involving parents, teachers or state and local governments.

In fact, the standards were sponsored by organizations made up of governors and school officials. The major teacher unions and 48 states sent teams, including teachers, to participate.

Myth: Common Core State Standards means students will have to take even more high-stakes tests.

Common Core won't necessarily add to the number of annual state tests students take. States will introduce new math and language arts tests based on the standards to replace tests they give now.

Myth: Common Core standards will limit teachers' creativity and flexibility.

These are standards, just like the ones schools have always had; they are not a curriculum. They are a blueprint of what students need to know, but they have nothing to say about how teachers teach that information. It's still up to local educators to select the curriculum.

Six Ways the Common Core is Good For Students:

1. Common Core Puts Creativity Back in the Classroom

2. Common Core Gives Students a Deep Dive

3. Common Core Ratchets up Rigor

4. Common Core is Collaborative

5. Common Core Advances Equity

6. Common Core Gets Kids College Ready

Student success is the outcome every education professional works so tirelessly toward, and the Common Core will help them get there if it’s implemented well, according to the panel of educators.

“Yes, it’s an extra workload as a teacher, and it’s difficult…but it’s for the betterment of the students,” says Davis-Caldwell. “And if we keep that our focus, I don’t see why we can’t be successful.”

The Common Core's Unsung Benefit: It Teaches Kids to Be Good Citizens: The Common Core has started to take political flak from the right and the left. Conservatives worry about the overreach of federal incentives, while unions don’t want the standards connected to teacher evaluations. What is being lost? The standards’ significant emphasis on reinvigorating the democratic purpose of public education. Making good on this promise presents a once-in-a-generation opportunity to redefine and reprioritize the special role that schools play in preparing students for active civic participation.

The Common Core identifies three texts—and only three texts—that every American student must read: the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution (Preamble and Bill of Rights), and Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address.

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I will make an amazingly bold, perhaps unbelievable claim. If a school district would hire me as “The Common Core Director,” within four years – if allowed complete control over the system – I could take any low-performing district, and get them to over 80% passing the graduation tests. This would be without firing ANY teachers, with ANY population of students (poor, rich, white, black, brown, ESL), and without expending ANY additional funds. How much do I believe I could be successful? I’m willing to stake my paycheck on it. An average Ohio school superintendent makes $150,000 a year. As a teacher, I made $50,000 a year. Pay me $50,000 a year for a director’s position for those four years, putting the extra $100,000 in a savings account for me. At the end of four years, if I have been successful, everyone wins. The students see success, I get the paycheck. If I have been unsuccessful, take that money and provide free tutors for the students.

How do I know I would be successful? I have done it all before, as part of the science department in Eagle Pass. We went from a 39% passing rate on the state science tests, to an 89% passing rate in four years.

I believe in the Common Core. A bare minimum helps all kids get at least a rigorous education, and a shot at college. Schools are always free to extend education, and should – teachers can still teach fun and exciting lessons in their content area, while providing each child with a quality education. And every teacher in the public school system is being paid using taxpayer dollars. Those teachers can teach however they choose, as long as they provide AT LEAST the common core that every other teacher is responsible for. It just makes sense.

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Monkeys or Mankind? Who do you see in “The Experiment?”

4/1/2014

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There was a very popular post going around Facebook this week that generated a lot of comments. Check it out.

What was the thought process you had while reading this? Did you conjure up mental pictures of monkeys in a cage, or after a while, did you think about mankind? If you read the comments from the page where the picture is hosted, you can see some fascinating insights into what people think of when they see this picture.

First, there were people who took this at face value, and thought it was a real experiment. It's close enough to articles we've all read about animal research, or classes we took on psychology or science that we can picture the experiment actually happening. The experiment seems cruel, and unnecessary. People who dislike animal research are quick to condemn "the experiment" as cruel, instilling fear, and brutish. And really, it is a cruel experiment, in my opinion. But much of the animal research done in science and psychology has been cruel. What have we (man, scientists, or society) learned from these cruel experiments?

Here is one example of what seems to be a similar experiment, actually in the literature:

"Stephenson (1967) trained adult male and female rhesus monkeys to avoid manipulating an object and then placed individual naïve animals in a cage with a trained individual of the same age and sex and the object in question. In one case, a trained male actually pulled his naïve partner away from the previously punished manipulandum during their period of interaction, whereas the other two trained males exhibited what were described as "threat facial expressions while in a fear posture" when a naïve animal approached the manipulandum. When placed alone in the cage with the novel object, naïve males that had been paired with trained males showed greatly reduced manipulation of the training object in comparison with controls. Unfortunately, training and testing were not carried out using a discrimination procedure so the nature of the transmitted information cannot be determined, but the data are of considerable interest."

Sources:
Stephenson, G. R. (1967). Cultural acquisition of a specific learned response among rhesus monkeys. In: Starek, D., Schneider, R., and Kuhn, H. J. (eds.), Progress in Primatology, Stuttgart: Fischer, pp. 279-288.

And do scientists continue doing cruel experiments, or do they learn from these experiments, and move on to something even more involved? One of the tenets of good science is that we build upon the research of others. Another tenet is repetition of experiments. How many times do you have to repeat this experiment to retain valid results? One criticism I often receive in biology class is during animal dissections. Students who don't like dissections say, "I'm not learning anything from this! It's cruel! All these fetal pigs (or rats, or frogs) died for nothing! (in the case of Anatomy and Physiology, the cats we dissected are collected from the animal shelters after they are put to sleep, and then preserved, so is it better that we use those animals to learn? That they did not die in vain?) Why can't we just watch a video?" I think it's an important curriculum decision in Biology. Do we keep dissecting frogs, just because that's what has always been done? (Hmmmm, another "experiment")

Did you see an allusion to the way religion has woven it's way through societies? People have been punished for certain religious beliefs, or for the lack of religious beliefs. One commenter said "Oh man, this reminds me of my work place!" Do you ever feel like you are surrounded by monkeys? Maybe you see superstition being "taught" through the experiment. An irrational fear that has no apparent purpose. Aspects of culture, civilization, religion, and evolution are unearthed, by a deeper inspection of "The Experiment."

Maybe you see "Monkey see, monkey do?" Maybe this post is meant to spur one to action, to think "out of the box," to question tradition, or to be brave. Should we resist the the urge to conform? Always, or just sometimes? Is there every happiness in conformity, or should you always buck the norms, throw tradition to the wind, and do your own thing, regardless of "being hosed?"

This morning, my son asked if he could take two toys to school. I asked him, "Does your teacher let you bring toys to school?" He said, "Well, only on Fridays. (it was Tuesday) And we aren't allowed to bring balls. Mr. Flinn says that bouncing balls in class breaks things." If you are the parent, what do you tell your child? Follow the rules? Break the rules? Why are there rules? Why do we listen (or not listen) to the teacher, or parents, or society's rules? If my son took a ball to class today, what might have happened? Maybe nothing. Maybe nothing would break, and my son would think the rules are stupid. Maybe he would bounce that ball, and something in class WOULD break, and then what? What did my child learn about rules then? How do we decide what rules count, and what rules should be challenged? What's good for one man, is not necessarily what's good for mankind. And what's good for one monkey, may make for monkey business in the larger monkey culture. Who decides?

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My Beautiful South Texas Spring Break Vacation

3/30/2014

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I spent the last week in my favorite place on earth... South Texas! I know some people think it's sandy and hot and flat, but that is part of its charm. We also spent some time in Kerrville, which was new and a whole different type of pretty.

The first of the photos are from Kerrville. My son and I exploring, with his sister and dad.

We did some fishing at this beautiful lake. It was amazing.

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Wearable Technology Must Encourage the Social Good to be Worth Using

3/26/2014

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In this article today on Forbes, "The Future Of Wearable Tech Isn't Geeky Google Glass," the author argued that things like smart watches or Google Glass will not be popular because they are things that not all people wear. Smartphones have taken the place of watches. Not all people need glasses, so why would a person wear Google Glass?

I replied:

There are some "bling flashers," think of the Fitbit wearer, whose flashing wristband displays their progress on step goals for the day. What the wearable tech folks need to focus on is increasing the status of the user, for using the device well.

With Google Glass, there is the creep factor - what exactly is that Google Glass person recording? If I saw a person wearing one, I'd wonder if they were tracking, lurking, recording, or stalking. Too many negatives for the collective population around the singular Glass wearer.

If we find that the wearable tech elevates a person's status within a population, for doing something good, they will FLAUNT IT. Purchasers of eco-friendly clothing wear the brands because it shows social good. People who wear the pink ribbon do so because it shows cancer concern.

So, what is the social goodness of wearable technology? Maybe a watch that displays your recycling savvy? For every bottle you recycle, every time you hit the cardboard recycle container, it flashes? I could see that being a coveted position on a college campus - maybe a wristband that increases in rainbow colors as the college students recycle? It would show who cares about the environment, and who doesn't. And, it helps a good cause. I'd love to see a campus trial, and how it would reduce landfills, increase awareness, and do so through positive social pressure.

Maybe a gym passes out wristbands that track activity in the gym, and have bleeping lights for more reps, or higher weights. Just like muscles are a sign of good fitness, blinking would be a sign of "doing the right thing."

Back to the college example - what about a key fob or purse charm that changes colors or gives points towards good student behaviors - time spent in the library, time in class, active writing (as sensed by a special note-taking pen), time attending lectures by visiting scholars, time in office hours, points awarded from professors for right answers in class.... gamifying the student experience leads to points and achievement levels for doing the right thing, and remaining at a low level for not engaging.... it's a fascinating topic, especially within the human experience. Peer pressure can be used for good or evil - here, it's definitely for good.

Wearable tech must have a social aspect to it. Too many people stare down at their phones, and become anti-social. Get them back into the population, using technology to show "doing the right thing."

Once wearable technology makes you MORE social, and awards you for doing something good for yourself (like studying), good for the population (having smart citizens), and doing something good for the campus (have students engaged, prepared, and behaving in a productive manner) THEN it will catch on.

I'd even go a step further, and have the wearable technology on a college campus award students who try things that are hard - recycling gets you one "flash," going to class gets you two flashes, studying two hours gets you three flashes, getting an A in a gen ed course gets you four flashes, and taking a "hard class" (maybe a math class, statistics, engineering, science, or advanced course) gets you FIVE FLASHES!!! The more you try, the more you get. Reward the "best" student behavior.

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IT'S TOO LOUD IN HERE! How noise and confusion hurts my brain.

3/26/2014

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My son and I are in Texas (yeehaw!!!) this week to visit friends. We are staying at my kiddo's dad's house on a beautiful ranch.

It's magnificent and gorgeous - all the white rock and hills and formations. Truly beautiful.

When we come back to the house after long days of exploring, I want to just relax. That's where the "problem" lies. My ex and I have very different perceptions of what is relaxing. Let me set the stage:

My ex grew up in poverty. Very nice people, but very poor. Five kids and two parents in a two bedroom house. Can you imagine all the noise? Dogs barking, TVs, kids screaming and playing. My ex grew up around a ton of noise. Therefore, as we sit here now, there are three TVs on in the house, there is music coming from a video on the laptop, my son is playing Netflix on the iPad, and I am hiding in the back bathroom. I have the fan on, to drown out the sounds.

I feel like I'm having a nervous breakdown. I'm actually shaking and grinding my teeth.

I grew up in a quiet household. The TV had a padlock on it, because my mom thought TV rotted your brain. My brother and I were avid readers. We would sit in the bathtub and read for hours. We would lay in our beds, under the covers, and read until we fell asleep at night. I used to spend hours a day in the woods, after school, silently building forts or enjoying nature.

I need quiet. My ex needs noise.

I don't know how to get away from all this yapping and shrieking and screaming and chaos. I love to go to work, where I can hide in silence and read alone.

It's hard for me, because I get so anxious and tend to freak out and be mean after ALL THIS NOISE makes me crazy. I tell both my ex and my son to BE QUIET PLEASE!!! At my house, I can control it. As much as a single mom of a six year old can control it.

Why can't everyone just be silent?

I know I'm being a bitch, but respecting my need for silence is not too much to ask. At least for an hour, while I try to nap or relax, can everyone shut the frock up?

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Follow the Money: For-Profit Schools are Doing What High School Vocational Programs Used to Do – Keep Students Poor

3/21/2014

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In a long discussion about “Fluff Majors,” the conversation points back to “Why go to college?” or “Should everyone go to college?” Another question, “Whose job is it to push students to take difficult or challenging courses?” The Chronicle of Higher Education touched on a sector of higher education that keeps students poor – for-profit institutions. What would happen if we shut down all the for-profit institutions tomorrow? Vocational education has been taken out of the high school curriculum, and snatched up by for-profit institutions. And it’s a HUGE money maker.

“Mr. Longanecker’s takeaway from the study, which he reviewed in advance of its release: "Don’t wish for these to go away," he said of for-profit colleges, where a high proportion of the students are women, minorities, and low-income. "A lot fewer students would have access to higher education, and we know which students would be shut out."

I remember back to my days at Norton as a high schooler in the 1990's. There were four real “routes” you could take in high school. You could be in advanced placement, taking really challenging classes, which prepared you for college. You could take “college prep” classes that were not as hard, but still prepared you for college. You could take “the normal classes” which were core, basic classes that everyone took. Or you could take “vocational classes,” which prepared you for a trade – being a secretary, a beautician, a carpenter, a welder, a med tech, and others (that’s all the ones I remember). I took mainly advanced and college prep courses.

I don’t know at what point vocational classes were phased out, and everyone took either basic, college prep, or advanced courses. I’d imagine it has to do with No Child Left Behind. Every student was prepared to go to college, and when you graduated from high school, you either went to college, took that vocational training we used to be offered in high school, or you just quit your schooling there. Not pointing fingers at any political persuasions, but you can see how this added to the high school, college, and vocational teacher workforce. Kept students in school longer. Kept them out of the workforce. Kept more teachers employed, but in new institutions.

So, from what I’d imagine, vocational programs are never going to return to high schools. For-profit schools would close down, and high schools don’t have the money to re-create those programs. Letting poor students use federal money at for-profit institutions lets that group of students get the vocational education they used to get in high school (for “free”). Where the taxpayer used to pay for K-12 education for all children, they now pay for at least K-14, and many times K-16 (a four year education at any college or university). In thinking about the political aspects of this fight – how much education should Americans pay for? K-12, K-14, K-16, or K-16 for each and every person who wants it? There are a lot of ramifications that reach every part of America – the workforce, the educational system, taxes, and probably every sector I haven’t mentioned here.

Now, I admit to being a fiscal conservative. I’d like to see each student, once graduating from high school, be able to make their own choices about where to go to school, if they go to school, and what kind of investment they’d like to make in that education. Choose wisely, choose only what you can afford on your own, and take fiscal stake in that choice. But, there is a whole other segment out there of fiscal liberals, who’d like to see education completely free to all, at every level (up to grad school, including grad school, and any refresher courses). Let students try things, fail, try another course or major, and have the opportunity to take anything for “free.” (taxpayer subsidized) The answer is somewhere in the middle. Somewhere between “Pay for it all yourself,” and “We’ll invest in you, no matter what.” Such a complicated web of motivations, finances, politics, and choices.

What is a degree worth? What are degreed people worth? What degrees are worthy? Who chooses what degree a student should pursue? Who decides where a student gets their degree from? Who decides what degrees are offered, and where? Everyone has an opinion on these questions – who eventually gets to decide who is right? The voters? The teachers? The students? The – ***GASP*** – politicians??? Those weasely jerks who are influenced by money from for-profit institutions, unions, companies, foreign countries, and rich people… Scary, right?

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"Fluff Majors" Keep Low-Income, First-Generation Students Poor. How Do We Fix This?

3/18/2014

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Let me preface this article by saying I am not knocking anyone's choice of major. I know there are majors that are seriously fulfilling, but not well paying. There are a lot of choices that go into choosing a major. You may have chosen one of the majors listed in my article. Heck, I did. I'm a teacher. What I want to discuss are the implications of choosing a low paying job (or not knowing that the job was low-paying before you started college).

The phrase "Underwater basket weaving" is an idiom referring (in a negative way) to supposedly easy and/or worthless college or university courses, and used generally to refer to a perceived decline in educational standards. This term emerged in the 1950's in a letter to the LA Times about the lack of expectations for football players to take difficult courses. It is now used for not just individual courses, but entire "fluff majors." A "Fluff Major" is when a student picks a course of study that is easy, so that they do not have to take a job or be challenged by the "hardness" of the courses. I actually wrote about this phenomenon a few years ago in "Are they up for the challenge? Community College Students' Perceptions of Challenging Classes." What we found (essentially) is that students wanted easy classes if the class was not part of their major (gen ed), and "hard but not too hard" if the class was for their major. What kind of courses would be included in the "hard, but not too hard" category? For many students, this means (unfortunately) the humanities - subjects that study human culture using methods that are primarily critical, speculative, or historical.

The humanities include ancient and modern languages, literature, philosophy, religion, and visual and performing arts such as music and theater. The humanities, which are also sometimes regarded as social sciences, include history, anthropology, area studies, communication studies, cultural studies, law and linguistics. What common factors underlie the humanities? Subjectivity, and lack of math. Note how the social sciences are different than the natural sciences. The natural sciences are empirical - (the record of one's direct observations or experiences) can be analyzed quantitatively or qualitatively. They involve scientific experimentation, and testing.

The first people who took “fluff majors” may have been men in the 1950's looking to avoid the draft. Colleges and universities very quickly set up “easy majors” to accommodate the influx of men looking to avoid going to war. These men might not have entered college otherwise. Setting up a dance program, an acting program, or a writing program is inexpensive for the school. Think about what it takes to offer a writing program, versus what it takes to set up an engineering program (hint – it probably differs by $500,000 or more).

“Fluff majors” have persisted up to today, as there is federal money available (sometimes called “free money for college”) for low-income students to go to college after high school, rather than entering the workforce. “Free money” or easy students loans are attractive options for potential students – if your choice is to take a Walmart or fast food job to support your family, or take $30,000 a year to go to school, which would you choose? Believing that going to college is a way to get an advantage in life – and that is how college is sold to students, as an investment in their future – in that after graduation, they will be able to get a much better job than a low-skilled Walmart job. But if you know that you had trouble with math or science in high school, or believe that these are “the hard majors,” (or any of the other myths, like “women can’t be scientists,” or “women are bad at math” or “African Americans don’t do science”) what do you take? A major that does not involve math - hence, the fluff major, which is "hard, but not too hard."

These so called “laid back degrees” are often appealing. Many times, the jobs that accompany these “easy majors” are desirable – becoming a teacher or a social worker is a noble and a “help people” profession. (Note to all – I am a teacher) Also, these potential college students have experience with these professions – everyone knows a teacher. Students know counselors, social workers, nurses, psychologists, home health aides, EMTs, police officers, or computer support technicians. Students understand these jobs, know people who do these jobs, and want to help others. Unfortunately, these are often the lowest paid career options, and options that lead to a paycheck to paycheck lifestyle. Becoming a dancer, a writer, a musician, or an actor may entice the students’ dreams of becoming famous, or making it big. What they don’t realize is the likelihood of "making it big" is small, and that if they don’t make it big, they may end up working at Starbucks, with student loans to pay back, anyways.

Part of the problem is that the highest paid career options are not the ones that low-income, first generation students are familiar with. A petroleum engineer can make $160,000 a year – and how many of those people do you know? I do not personally know one petroleum engineer. The next highest paid is an actuarial mathematician. I’ve never even heard of that job (and I work at a university!!!)! Here are the top 15 highest-paid majors, from Business Insider –

1. Petroleum Engineering

Staring median salary: $103,000
Mid-career median salary: $160,000

2. Actuarial Mathematics:

Starting median salary: $58,700
Mid-career median salary: $120,0000

3. Nuclear Engineering

Starting median salary: $67,600
Mid-career median salary: $117,000

4. Chemical Engineering

Starting median salary: $68,200
Mid-career median salary: $115,000

5. Aerospace Engineering

Starting median salary: $62,800
Mid-career median salary: $109,000

6. Electrical Engineering

Starting median salary: $64,300
Mid-career median salary: $106,000

7. Computer Engineering

Starting median salary: $65,300
Mid-career median salary: $106,000

8. Computer Science

Starting median salary: $59,800
Mid-career median salary: $102,000

9. Physics

Starting median salary: $53,100
Mid-career median salary: $101,000

10. Mechanical Engineering

Starting median salary: $60,900
Mid-career median salary: $99,700

11. Materials Science and Engineering

Starting median salary: $62,700
Mid-career median salary: $99,500

12. Software Engineering

Starting median salary: $60,500
Mid-career median salary: $99,300

13. Statistics

Starting median salary: $52,500
Mid-career median salary: $98,900

14. Government

Starting median salary: $43,200
Mid-career median salary: $97,100

15. Economics

Starting median salary: $50,100
Mid-career median salary: $96,700

Note that 9 of the 15 positions are engineers. If you are living in a low-income neighborhood, how many of your friends or neighbors will be engineers? Also note that most of these involve math-heavy courses. Math is something that terrifies or befuddles many students. That one barrier – believing math is too hard, or that you can’t do math, or that math isn't fun or rewarding – will keep these students near the bottom of the payscale.

What is the answer to this problem? It seems like a self-perpetuating cycle – students who are low income hate math, and may not have the resources to spend on education, pick “fluff majors,” “easy majors,” or “laid back majors.” After they get the degree, they either cannot find a job, or are forced to take a low-paying job that keeps them living paycheck to paycheck. Students who have college educated parents, who are already wealthy, or already in good schools, and who have the resources to spend on education pick “hard majors,” know people who are employed in the hard majors, and go on to get a hard degree, and remain at the top of the payscale. Again, I don’t have the answer to this problem. How do you convince a person not to take a fluff major? Do we just let the students decide?

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When Creationist Teachers Bully Their Students, Everyone Loses

3/18/2014

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Growing up, as a Christian, I was often told, "Do unto others, as you'd have done unto you." I think this teacher forgot about The Golden Rule.... This story, released today, made me so angry at this school district.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Officials in a western Louisiana school system and the American Civil Liberties union have settled a lawsuit sparked by the treatment of a Buddhist sixth-grader whose parents say he was harassed at a school where officials routinely pushed Christian beliefs.

The January lawsuit alleged, among other things, that a teacher at Negreet High School in Sabine Parish declared that Buddhism was stupid. It also said the school regularly incorporated Christian prayer into classes and school events and scrolled Bible verses on an electronic marquee in front of the school.”

It doesn't matter where you teach, what city or state, teachers have a mandate to treat each child with respect. From further investigation on my part:

The student, known as C.C., was asked by sixth-grade teacher Rita Roark to answer the following question on a test: “ISN’T IT AMAZING WHAT THE _____________ HAS MADE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” When C.C. failed to respond “Lord,” Roark responded “you’re stupid if you don’t believe in God.” She also frequently denigrated his Buddhist faith, as well as the Hindu faith, referring to both as “stupid.”

When his parents complained to Sabine Parish Superintendent Sara Ebarb, they were told that “this is the Bible belt,” so they should expect to find the Christian God in the classroom. Ebarb advised them that if they wanted an ungodly classroom, they should transfer C.C. to a school where “there are more Asians.”

This is where the story becomes personal for me. Roark is a science teacher. I am a science teacher. Roark is a Christian. I am a Christian. Roark used her faith to bully this student, and that makes me horrified. I am further shocked at the school administration’s decision to defend her behavior. People who should know better, SHOULD KNOW BETTER!!! Every single educator, at every level of the school district, broke the law. How is this possible? In the comments sections of some of these articles, commenters say, "Well, this is Louisiana, after all," or "You see this type of things in isolated, bible-thumping areas." There is no excuse for breaking the law. Period.

Several things bother me.

First, that a teacher could make it through their teacher education program, and not have been educated about the separation of church and state is abhorrent. The school clearly violated “the Free Exercise and Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.” There is no excuse for forcing one’s religious beliefs upon another, especially from a position of power. Students may feel uncomfortable challenging their teachers – the teachers who are supposed to be there to give them, care for them, nurture them, and not harm them – that what they are saying is hurting them. For a student to repeatedly have his religion mocked by the entire school district is hateful and disgusting. That is detestable behavior by a “Christian.” (which I place in quotes, because Christians are not taught to treat others that way, in general)

Second, that this is a science teacher, demonstrates that this teacher doesn’t understand science. In this article, it states that “Among the defendants in the suit, aside from the school board, was science teacher Rita Roark, who taught students that "the earth was created by God 6,000 years ago, that evolution is 'impossible' and that the Bible is '100 percent true.'" I don’t understand how a teacher could have made it through undergraduate science classes with this fundamental misunderstanding of science! Are teacher education programs that produce science teachers so lacking in core science content that a science teacher can graduate, and not understand science? Because every science course I know – geology, biology, physics, chemistry, anatomy, microbiology – are approached scientifically, with “very gradual change over time” being the bedrock. There is no other way to understand the world. Things have slowly changed over millions and billions of years.

Finally, that Christians behave in this fashion? From the ACLU:

“Unfortunately, however, not everyone has reacted to the lawsuit with the same measured consideration as the school board. While C.C. and his family have received much support from the community (including from some local congregations) and from across the country, they also have been harassed via crank calls to their house and work. And last month, C.C.’s mother Sharon was accosted while doing yard work: Three people wearing KKK-type white hoods drove by her and shouted, “You fucking nigger Asian-loving bitch.

Had Sabine Parish proactively sought to comply with the Constitution in the first place, the Lanes would not have been forced to expose their family to such vitriol, harassment, and intimidation simply to assert their fundamental rights. We hope their experience and the consent decree will serve as important tools to educate Louisiana’s educators – public school officials – about real religious liberty.

Real religious liberty includes not only the right to express and practice your faith in school, which the consent decree protects, but also the right to be free from the religious coercion and alienation that occurs when a teacher or other school official tries to impose his or her beliefs during class or school events. Real religious liberty means that every child, regardless of faith, should feel welcome in our public schools.”

As a science teacher, and a Christian, I am fully capable of supporting and including every student, regardless of faith, in my classroom. It doesn’t matter what religion my students attest to, or that I attest to, because I can teach how scientists understand the world around them without injecting faith into the scientific literature. Science is a collection of evidence, from many sources, that help us to understand the world around us. Religion is faith in something we cannot see or touch. Science and religion are not incompatible (in my view – I am a Christian AND I am a scientist) but also must be understood as different ways of understanding life around us.

The most upsetting thing to me is that this school district used faith to lash out and bully this child, at every turn. The people who were supposed to protect him, harmed him. What if this child had been so upset that he killed himself? I believe that each and every school district in the country should be sitting down and talking to EVERY TEACHER about this story, and reminding teachers that Christian faith can either be used to make us better people, and how to express that, or it can be used as a weapon, to bully innocent children. The behavior of this teacher is shameful, and should open a dialogue about what we say, when we teach.

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When Creationist Teachers Bully Their Students, Everyone Loses

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