Ontario Fall election

[Evening Star]

Modern education producing top notch results! Our teachers deserve every penny we pay them!

In total, 42 per cent of Canadians are semi-illiterate. The proportion is even worse for those in middle age. And even when new immigrants are excluded, the numbers remains pretty much the same.

Illiteracy Canada's Shame

OK. Thanks for the link.

There seem to be a few different questions or issues in this discussion:

i) Is Ontario's education system as effective as it could or should be?

ii) Is Ontario's education system 'world-class'?

iii) If the answers to questions i and/or ii are "no", is McGuinty or even 'the left' more generally to blame?

iv) If the answers to questions i and/or ii are "no", is it the fault of teachers and/or their unions? Does this mean that they are overpaid?

And we are all starting, I assume, with the understanding that any public education system is faced with the difficult task of taking every single child in the population, regardless of his or her background or baggage, and trying to make them learn a certain skill set, regardless of the student's own willingness to learn. This is perhaps a more delicate and nuanced task than e.g. mass producing cars.

When considering question ii, it does seem reasonable to me to compare Ontario's performance with that of other jurisdictions in the world. As far as I know, that's what "world class" means.

The CBC link seems to suggest, looking at Canada generally, that perhaps we can in fact answer "no" to questions i and ii. But does this mean that teachers and teachers' unions are to blame? As far as I understand it, high school teachers do not have the autonomy that professors have. (Someone correct me if I'm wrong.) They are hired to deliver a centrally determined curriculum and grade according to centrally determined standards, if I'm not mistaken? So even if an English teacher wanted to fail someone for writing with flawed grammar, if provincial education policy is that students should not be failed on those grounds, the teacher has little choice, right? And if the problem seems to be nationwide, and even to be widespread in the US, where unions are much less powerful, then perhaps the problem is not so much with individual teachers in our system. We need to look at systemic factors, which is what the CBC article does.

Perhaps we could blame McGuinty for not proposing or implementing fundamental systemic changes but the problem does not seem to have originated with him or with his party. The CBC article reports that the problem is a longstanding one. If the biggest problem with illiteracy was with the middle-aged demographic in 2006, that demographic would have been in school in the 70s when the PCs still had a stranglehold on Ontario politics.

And the country to which we were being compared, that seems to be doing much better than we are, was Sweden, which is a far more social democratic country with e.g. free university education, a country that seems to offer more public services. (By the way, my impression is that Sweden is also a big place for the study of what Bob considers 'nonsense disciplines'.) So the problem does not seem to be with the 'left'.

Edited October 9, 2011 by Evening Star

[Evening Star]

By the way, I'm just generally curious what you guys would actually like to see from our education system. Many people would like to see changes but people always have different ideas. Even just in the area of literacy, what standard of literacy would you like to see? Just that people are able to read what's on an Aspirin bottle? That people can write emails and send texts? That they can independently analyse Shakespeare? Joyce? That they can write a sonnet? An academic paper? A business report? That they can explain what the subjunctive case is and conjugate verbs off the tops of their heads? Should we bring back 19th-century prescriptive grammar? etc

[Evening Star]

You wanna know how stupid we've become? Pick up any university catalogue and peruse through the available programs and classes. "Women's studies", "Black studies", "Social Justice", "International Development", and other nonsense programs. Years ago a friend of mine showed me coursework from some elective class he was taking being taught by some moronic African "professor" (probably coming from a third-rate "university" on par with my elementary school) that spent time examining the effect of mobile phone penetration on the romantic lives of Palestinian teenage girls. You can't make this kind of stuff up. And that was being taught at the University of Ottawa. We keep pumping out graduates with fake education, it's an epidemic.

I'll bite. What's wrong with the study of these disciplines? They mostly seem to be related to time-honoured fields of study like history, political science, sociology, philosophy, etc.

Edited October 9, 2011 by Evening Star

[capricorn]

Evening Star poses some interesting questions.

Literacy rates are commonly measured according to a scale comprised of 5 levels, as follows.

Literacy Levels

Level 1: Persons with very poor skills, where the individual may, for example, be unable to determine the correct amount of medicine to give a child from information printed on the package.

Level 2: People can only deal with material that is simple, clearly laid out, and in which the tasks involved are not too complex. It denotes a weak level of skill, but more hidden than Level 1. It identifies people who can read but test poorly. They may have developed coping skills to manage everyday literacy demands but their low level of proficiency makes it difficult for them to face novel demands, such as learning new job skills.

Level 3: The minimum skills level suitable for coping with the demands of everyday life and work in a complex, advanced society. It denotes roughly the skill level required for successful secondary school completion and college entry. Like higher levels, it requires the ability to integrate several sources of information and solve more complex problems.

Levels 4 & 5: People demonstrate a command of higher-order information-processing skills.

Here's a document that presents basic facts about Canada's literacy.

Adult literacy is often measured on a prose and document literacy scale of 1 to 5. Level 3, equivalent to high school completion, is the desired threshold for coping with the rapidly changing skill demands of a knowledge-based economy and society (International Survey of Reading Skills (ISRS), 2005).

Four out of 10 adult Canadians, age 16 to 65 - representing 9 million Canadians - struggle with low literacy. They fall below level 3 on the prose literacy scale (Adult Literacy and Life Skills (ALL) Survey, Statistics Canada and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2005).

Considering those adult Canadians with low literacy, 15 per cent have serious problems dealing with any printed materials; an additional 27 per cent can only deal with simple reading tasks (Adult Literacy and Life Skills Survey, 2005).

In 2003, about 62% of employed Canadians between the ages of 16 and 65 had average scores in the document domain at Level 3 or above (International Adult Literacy and Skills Survey (IALSS): Building on our competencies, 2003).

In 2003, nearly 3.1 million Canadians aged 16 to 65 were at proficiency Level 1 on the prose literacy scale (below middle school skills), while another 5.8 million were at Level 2 (below high school skills) (International Survey of Reading Skills (ISRS), 2005).

Less than half of those who contact a literacy organization actually enroll in a program and of those who enroll, 30 per cent drop out (Patterns of Participation in Canadian Literacy and Upgrading Programs*, ABC CANADA in partnership with Literacy BC, 2001).

Less than 10 per cent of Canadians who could benefit from literacy upgrading programs actually enroll. Research indicates that barriers like job or money problems, lack of childcare and transportation are some of the reasons that prevent people from enrolling (Who Wants to Learn? ABC CANADA Literacy Foundation, 2001).

http://abclifeliteracy.ca/adult-literacy-facts

What I think is key is the following: Level 3, equivalent to high school completion, is the desired threshold for coping with the rapidly changing skill demands of a knowledge-based economy and society (International Survey of Reading Skills (ISRS), 2005).

This implies that the minimum objective in public education is to ensure all citizens receive at minimum high school completion. According to the International Survey of Reading Skills (ISRS) that was found to be factual, how successful are we in that respect?

[Wild Bill]

I'll bite. What's wrong with the study of these disciplines? They mostly seem to be related to time-honoured fields of study like history, political science, sociology, philosophy, etc.

What's wrong? They are mostly opinion, Star! Sure, there is some history involved but for the most part they are long on opinions as to what factors were discriminatory in the past and what have been the effects of legislating them away today.

Since everybody and anybody can have an opinion this would seem to be a hard thing for a teacher to evaluate. And what about bias, or political correctness? So we see adherence to orthodoxy as a substitute. The answer may be simply agreeing with a politically correct teaching in the curriculum but it is very quick and easy to mark.

When you parse a sentence or work out an equation using the Binomial Theorem there is no opinion or political correctness involved. It's nice that someone can have an opinion but it is far more important that they can actually do something real!

Things seem to have been "dumbed down" a lot. One instance that happened back in the early Pleistocene Era when I was in school was the abandonment of essay answers on exams and tests, in favour of point form. It made it easier for a teacher to mark but it also meant that the student was missing the opportunity to develop clear thinking and expressing it in clear prose. Point form answers reduced learning to mere rote.

A truly educated adult needs a strong basis of learning to be able to think clearly and creatively adapt to new and changing situations. That function seems to have been supplemented by continual retraining over someone's working life. This is a rather new phenomenon in our history. It wasn't that long ago when we routinely learned new things constantly on our own. Nowadays this idea would seem to be unknown! Today, if you learn something on your own you get no credit for it and it is no asset to a job. Yet during the beginning of my career if you COULDN'T learn new things you wouldn't KEEP your job!

To illustrate the difference, I was there selling the first computer chips and rode the high tech wave. In the very early 80's we began to computerize our operation, first with just accounting functions and later with virtually the entire distribution/sales operation, putting a CRT terminal on every desk.

There were no computer courses in word processing or spreadsheets in those days. They hadn't been invented yet! Menus for job functions on a screen were just beginning to be seen. Programmers were just starting to learn how to write such programs!

When the time came to switch over to a completely computerized system we managers had meetings on how to handle training our employees on the new technology. This is how we did it: we came in on a weekend and put a terminal on everyone's desk, wiring them all up to the central mainframe.

Then we took away ALL the manual paperwork and locked it in a room, leaving no one access!

When the employees came to work Monday morning they were quite surprised to see the screens. Many noticed the lack of the manual paperwork and asked "How are we going to do our jobs?"

We told them "Everything is now being done through the computer. If you can't learn how to do that then there's no way you can do your job!"

For the rest of the week there was much loud cursing, howling and crying. We managers and supervisors were run ragged helping everyone adapt. However, by Friday things were running smoothly and NOBODY wanted to go back to the old "clunky" way of doing things!

The most popular observation about the change was that no longer was anyone stopped in their tracks by being unable to find paperwork or in having to wait for the paperwork to reach your point in the process. As soon as information was typed into the system at one workstation it was then available to anyone else anywhere who needed it!

Contrast this with what happened 10 years later with my wife, who was working for the city. They were beginning to computerize and the staff immediately rose up in fear and anger! They demanded that that they all receive courses of training, some of which lasted for a few MONTHS! And this all on the city's expense, of course!

Star, at a Westinghouse location where I once worked, a half dozen or so employees were put into a department of their own where they could continue to work under a manual system, as they found using a computer to be too difficult and "scary"! I kid you not! Things came from a computer system and were converted to printouts when it hit this department's door. They were SLOWLY processed manually by these "Luddites" and then passed out another door where a data entry clerk fed things back into the computer system! Westinghouse was not the only company with a union that had to take this route.

Star, my company brought the first ever personal computer into Canada. The boss gave me one on a Friday and told me he expected a report on a printout for Monday. I took it home and cursed at it all weekend. I had to learn how to both word process and develop a spreadsheet for the first time!

I said many very bad words but I came to work Monday with that report nicely printed out! Later I found out I wasn't the only one, merely the first. We ALL learned! On our own! And thought nothing special about it!

If a company tried to do something similar today there would be mass walkouts! The very idea of self-teaching seems to have been lost.

Even hobbies are almost gone! Back in the 80's variety stores were filled with racks of magazines for making your own sawdust, home hifi amplifier or hot rod engine. Have you looked at those racks in the stores lately? Virtually all of those magazines are long gone. What few remain contain mostly product reviews and extremely simple construction articles.

Dumb? Star, did you ever build a plastic model airplane when you were young? Painting and gluing all those tiny pieces? Have you gone to a shop and looked at those kits today? You take the upper and lower half of a plane, run some glue along one edge and slap them together! I swear, they're designed for the mentally deficient! Look for yourself if you don't believe me!

Our problems with education today are greater than first glance. They now are not just structural but cultural!

No wonder the Chinese are cleaning our clocks!

Edited October 9, 2011 by Wild Bill

[Bob]

I'll bite. What's wrong with the study of these disciplines? They mostly seem to be related to time-honoured fields of study like history, political science, sociology, philosophy, etc.

Ever listen to well-known professors from any of these disciplines? Read their "work", maybe? Indulge them with some of your time and it should be self-evident. All of these disciplines are politicized beyond belief. Whether it be Howard Zinn, Cornell West, or that moron professor from Harvard that got arrested for acting a fool who then subsequently partook in the infamous "beer summit" with Obama and the arresting officer. It's the same false historical and political narrative in all of those disciplines, one of a victimized group that is oppressed by "white rich men". Moreover, when people finish these programs, they have no meaningful skills and are unable to contribute meaningfully to the economy - they cannot create wealth.

As a side point, these fake educational programs wouldn't exist were it not for massive government subsidies to education. If I recall correctly, about 50% of the tuition costs for undergraduate students is covered by the taxpayer, never requiring reimbursement. Even drop-outs don't need to reimburse the taxpayer for money wasted. Although even graduates from these programs are certainly wasting taxpayer money, given that they are receiving a fake education. If your prospects for future income can't cover the costs of the education you're receiving, then it doesn't make much economic sense to be subsidizing these programs, does it? It's funny, hobbies have now become "academic".

Another observation - I saw courses in reputable universities that studied "South Park politics" and other such ridiculous "pop culture research".

History may be time-honoured, but since when was political science or sociology "time-honoured"? These are the modern antecedents of these ridiculous disciplines we're talking about. These programs are entirely composed of people who think they can sit around drinking organic chai lattes and outthink all of the world's "problems" without actually knowing, experiencing, or doing anything.

[Bob]

Evening Star poses some interesting questions.

Literacy rates are commonly measured according to a scale comprised of 5 levels, as follows.

Literacy Levels

Level 1: Persons with very poor skills, where the individual may, for example, be unable to determine the correct amount of medicine to give a child from information printed on the package.

Level 2: People can only deal with material that is simple, clearly laid out, and in which the tasks involved are not too complex. It denotes a weak level of skill, but more hidden than Level 1. It identifies people who can read but test poorly. They may have developed coping skills to manage everyday literacy demands but their low level of proficiency makes it difficult for them to face novel demands, such as learning new job skills.

Level 3: The minimum skills level suitable for coping with the demands of everyday life and work in a complex, advanced society. It denotes roughly the skill level required for successful secondary school completion and college entry. Like higher levels, it requires the ability to integrate several sources of information and solve more complex problems.

Levels 4 & 5: People demonstrate a command of higher-order information-processing skills.

Here's a document that presents basic facts about Canada's literacy.

http://abclifeliteracy.ca/adult-literacy-facts

What I think is key is the following: Level 3, equivalent to high school completion, is the desired threshold for coping with the rapidly changing skill demands of a knowledge-based economy and society (International Survey of Reading Skills (ISRS), 2005).

This implies that the minimum objective in public education is to ensure all citizens receive at minimum high school completion. According to the International Survey of Reading Skills (ISRS) that was found to be factual, how successful are we in that respect?

Those statistics don't reconcile with my experience with Canadians. Although I am often reminded with how common it is for seemingly educated people to have sub-standard communication levels at all levels (written, oral, and listening), I wouldn't go so far to say that a third of Canadians are at or below high-school level English. Then again, maybe I'm not so sure...

I went to private schools, so maybe my frame of reference isn't typical, although of course it was unavoidable that I'd mix with the rabble later in life.

[Michael Hardner]

Do you also live in a glass house ?

[MiddleClassCentrist]

In the Canadian context, you can't use the terms free market and education in the same sentence. There is very little free market action going on in the education scene in Canada. I find it funny that a leftist like you has chosen to define himself/herself as a "centrist". Of course, that's typical. It's still funny, though.

To right wing nutjobs, like yours, even a moderate right winger is a leftist.

I know where I stand politically. Test after test puts me in the centre. Sometimes centre left, sometimes centre right.

Keep on chugging the koolaid though!

[Bob]

To right wing nutjobs, like yours, even a moderate right winger is a leftist.

I know where I stand politically. Test after test puts me in the centre. Sometimes centre left, sometimes centre right.

Keep on chugging the koolaid though!

Yeah, gotta love those online tests to tell you where you stand. It's too hard to define yourself based on your experiences, eh? I guess when you've only had political conversations with your mom and dad your frame of reference is quite narrow.... Out of curiosity, did you take the CBC poll to tell you who to vote for last federal election?

[MiddleClassCentrist]

Yeah, gotta love those online tests to tell you where you stand. It's too hard to define yourself based on your experiences, eh? I guess when you've only had political conversations with your mom and dad your frame of reference is quite narrow.... Out of curiosity, did you take the CBC poll to tell you who to vote for last federal election?

Are you going to then call the "vote compass" biased even though it was created by a panel of political experts of all parties and used actual party opinions? And you could break down your view based on the importance of how parties would answer questions that were more important to you? And see the answers you were being compared to?

I did actually take that poll. It put me further right wing than I expect between Liberals and Conservatives. Based on the topics that drove the federal election of course.

For fun, I tried to get Conservative. I overshot Conservative with ideological answers. So it was entirely possible to get conservative if you were ideologically conservative... as soon as you compromised (like most rational people do), you get placed left of conservative.

Crazy conservative types need black and white. The reality is not black and white. The reality is compromise. You are calling me leftwing in a topic of public education because I backed it. So, anyone who backs public education must be left wing. Including people who are in fact right wing in an overall approach. This is a "complex" idea (not black and white) that ideologues can't understand.

[Jack Weber]

This statement is wrong and ignorant in so many ways. I'm disappointed in you Jack. The people who they are superior to others are the ones with the problem.

Well,I'm sorry to dissapoint you,but I live in Hudak's riding and I know the mentality of the voter here because I've seen them in action at all candidates meetings...

Many,but not all,are quite a simple lot who simply don't think things through...

Which is probably why the Randy Hillier types are beginning to have so much sway inside that party...

This is definately not to say that I think the province should be lead around by the nose by downtown Toronto,either...There are more than a few of that ilk that seem to think they are above it all and everyone else...

However,looking at the electoral map,it is undeniable that the Ontario PC party is almost solely represented by rural ridings in Central Ontario,and very little else.It's going to be vvvvveeeeerrrryyyy interesting if Hudak can keep more than a few of his more "strident" members (like the aforementioned,Mr.Hillier) on a tight leash.

[Bob]

Are you going to then call the "vote compass" biased even though it was created by a panel of political experts of all parties and used actual party opinions? And you could break down your view based on the importance of how parties would answer questions that were more important to you? And see the answers you were being compared to?

I did actually take that poll. It put me further right wing than I expect between Liberals and Conservatives. Based on the topics that drove the federal election of course.

For fun, I tried to get Conservative. I overshot Conservative with ideological answers. So it was entirely possible to get conservative if you were ideologically conservative... as soon as you compromised (like most rational people do), you get placed left of conservative.

Crazy conservative types need black and white. The reality is not black and white. The reality is compromise. You are calling me leftwing in a topic of public education because I backed it. So, anyone who backs public education must be left wing. Including people who are in fact right wing in an overall approach. This is a "complex" idea (not black and white) that ideologues can't understand.

Just another example of leftists loving their like-minded "experts" to tell them who they are. First of all the CBC poll that sought to advise its users which party was most aligned with their political views was not formed by "experts", but by a partisan consultant. Hilariously, if you went through the poll and answered without an opinion on either side of the question, the party stated to be in-line with your political views was the Liberal Party. Basically, the LPC was the default answer.

I just think it's revealing, and sad, that people like yourself need to ask other where you fit in on the political spectrum. It's another example of how many people just can't think for themselves, anymore.

[Evening Star]

Hilariously, if you went through the poll and answered without an opinion on either side of the question, the party stated to be in-line with your political views was the Liberal Party. Basically, the LPC was the default answer.

Sounds about right as the Canadian political spectrum goes!

[Evening Star]

Level 3: The minimum skills level suitable for coping with the demands of everyday life and work in a complex, advanced society. It denotes roughly the skill level required for successful secondary school completion and college entry. Like higher levels, it requires the ability to integrate several sources of information and solve more complex problems.

This is still pretty vague though. For example, is it necessary to study four Shakespeare plays in order to reach this level? That's still a big part of high school English, right? Is it necessary to have excellent grammar and spelling in order to be able to do this? And by what standard? etc.

[Evening Star]

I mostly just want to note that I still insist on essay answers!

I think we might actually agree on the importance of self-teaching skills, the value of measurable goals that go beyond opinion, and the possibility that there's a broader cultural issue.

What's wrong? They are mostly opinion, Star! Sure, there is some history involved but for the most part they are long on opinions as to what factors were discriminatory in the past and what have been the effects of legislating them away today.

Since everybody and anybody can have an opinion this would seem to be a hard thing for a teacher to evaluate. And what about bias, or political correctness? So we see adherence to orthodoxy as a substitute. The answer may be simply agreeing with a politically correct teaching in the curriculum but it is very quick and easy to mark.

When you parse a sentence or work out an equation using the Binomial Theorem there is no opinion or political correctness involved. It's nice that someone can have an opinion but it is far more important that they can actually do something real!

Things seem to have been "dumbed down" a lot. One instance that happened back in the early Pleistocene Era when I was in school was the abandonment of essay answers on exams and tests, in favour of point form. It made it easier for a teacher to mark but it also meant that the student was missing the opportunity to develop clear thinking and expressing it in clear prose. Point form answers reduced learning to mere rote.

A truly educated adult needs a strong basis of learning to be able to think clearly and creatively adapt to new and changing situations. That function seems to have been supplemented by continual retraining over someone's working life. This is a rather new phenomenon in our history. It wasn't that long ago when we routinely learned new things constantly on our own. Nowadays this idea would seem to be unknown! Today, if you learn something on your own you get no credit for it and it is no asset to a job. Yet during the beginning of my career if you COULDN'T learn new things you wouldn't KEEP your job!

To illustrate the difference, I was there selling the first computer chips and rode the high tech wave. In the very early 80's we began to computerize our operation, first with just accounting functions and later with virtually the entire distribution/sales operation, putting a CRT terminal on every desk.

There were no computer courses in word processing or spreadsheets in those days. They hadn't been invented yet! Menus for job functions on a screen were just beginning to be seen. Programmers were just starting to learn how to write such programs!

When the time came to switch over to a completely computerized system we managers had meetings on how to handle training our employees on the new technology. This is how we did it: we came in on a weekend and put a terminal on everyone's desk, wiring them all up to the central mainframe.

Then we took away ALL the manual paperwork and locked it in a room, leaving no one access!

When the employees came to work Monday morning they were quite surprised to see the screens. Many noticed the lack of the manual paperwork and asked "How are we going to do our jobs?"

We told them "Everything is now being done through the computer. If you can't learn how to do that then there's no way you can do your job!"

For the rest of the week there was much loud cursing, howling and crying. We managers and supervisors were run ragged helping everyone adapt. However, by Friday things were running smoothly and NOBODY wanted to go back to the old "clunky" way of doing things!

The most popular observation about the change was that no longer was anyone stopped in their tracks by being unable to find paperwork or in having to wait for the paperwork to reach your point in the process. As soon as information was typed into the system at one workstation it was then available to anyone else anywhere who needed it!

Contrast this with what happened 10 years later with my wife, who was working for the city. They were beginning to computerize and the staff immediately rose up in fear and anger! They demanded that that they all receive courses of training, some of which lasted for a few MONTHS! And this all on the city's expense, of course!

Star, at a Westinghouse location where I once worked, a half dozen or so employees were put into a department of their own where they could continue to work under a manual system, as they found using a computer to be too difficult and "scary"! I kid you not! Things came from a computer system and were converted to printouts when it hit this department's door. They were SLOWLY processed manually by these "Luddites" and then passed out another door where a data entry clerk fed things back into the computer system! Westinghouse was not the only company with a union that had to take this route.

Star, my company brought the first ever personal computer into Canada. The boss gave me one on a Friday and told me he expected a report on a printout for Monday. I took it home and cursed at it all weekend. I had to learn how to both word process and develop a spreadsheet for the first time!

I said many very bad words but I came to work Monday with that report nicely printed out! Later I found out I wasn't the only one, merely the first. We ALL learned! On our own! And thought nothing special about it!

If a company tried to do something similar today there would be mass walkouts! The very idea of self-teaching seems to have been lost.

Even hobbies are almost gone! Back in the 80's variety stores were filled with racks of magazines for making your own sawdust, home hifi amplifier or hot rod engine. Have you looked at those racks in the stores lately? Virtually all of those magazines are long gone. What few remain contain mostly product reviews and extremely simple construction articles.

Dumb? Star, did you ever build a plastic model airplane when you were young? Painting and gluing all those tiny pieces? Have you gone to a shop and looked at those kits today? You take the upper and lower half of a plane, run some glue along one edge and slap them together! I swear, they're designed for the mentally deficient! Look for yourself if you don't believe me!

Our problems with education today are greater than first glance. They now are not just structural but cultural!

No wonder the Chinese are cleaning our clocks!

[Evening Star]

It's the same false historical and political narrative in all of those disciplines, one of a victimized group that is oppressed by "white rich men".

This isn't necessarily an entirely false narrative when it comes to, say, African-American studies, though, is it?

(Actually agree about Zinn, at least as far as People's History... goes. Fwiw, he taught in a dept of political science, a field that goes back to at least the 19th century, if not to Machiavelli.)

[Bob]

Sounds about right as the Canadian political spectrum goes!

I considered that, but I still found it suspicious. I am well-aware that the political culture of Canada is left-wing, with some sort of perverted admiration for a culture we know nothing about - Europe. Even though there is, of course, nothing too meaningful about "European" culture, many Canadians have an artificial sense of what "Europeanism" must be like, and somehow think they can strive towards achieving that by supporting self-destructive leftist political policies.

[Bob]

This isn't necessarily an entirely false narrative when it comes to, say, African-American studies, though, is it?

(Actually agree about Zinn, at least as far as People's History... goes. Fwiw, he taught in a dept of political science, a field that goes back to at least the 19th century, if not to Machiavelli.)

There is no question that there is a unique experience for black people in the USA in the context of slavery and subsequently under segregation. Even contemporarily, there are some elements of cohesiveness to what might be described as "black culture". It's certainly not enough to fill a degree. The degree is certainly worthless, for the most part, economically (without government subsidies for these program, of course). Still, it should be studied as part of American history, and not as some sort of separate history.

Truth is, of course I think people should be able to study whatever they want, and universities should provide programs that students want. What I can't stand, however, are government supports for universities that don't offer, broadly, an economic benefit. If students didn't have their education subsidized by the government, at no risk to themselves, then how many students would actually enrol in programs like "women's studies" or "black studies" if they knew they'd half to pay the whole way on their own with no realistic prospects for a career? We've essentially elevated hobbies into academic disciplines.

[MiddleClassCentrist]

Just another example of leftists loving their like-minded "experts" to tell them who they are. First of all the CBC poll that sought to advise its users which party was most aligned with their political views was not formed by "experts", but by a partisan consultant. Hilariously, if you went through the poll and answered without an opinion on either side of the question, the party stated to be in-line with your political views was the Liberal Party. Basically, the LPC was the default answer.

I just think it's revealing, and sad, that people like yourself need to ask other where you fit in on the political spectrum. It's another example of how many people just can't think for themselves, anymore.

No, you are questioning where I fit in because of your insanely right wing view. I know where I stand. TYVM.

http://federal.votecompass.ca/faq/

You show how much of a right wing hack you are. Ignoring the facts. Or FAQ, even.

If you have no strong opinion on the questions, you get pulled to the center. If you can't understand how that works, you don't understand the political spectrum. Being neutral to corporations being deregulated/given more power and being neutral to the idea of nationalizing [insert industry] cancel each other out.

I think it is more that right-wingers actually find out that they aren't as right wing as they WANT to be hating these tests.

They desire to follow the self-fulfilling prophecy. I think I am, there for I must be. They then force the prophecy to be true by ignoring any data that shows to the contrary.

Edited October 14, 2011 by MiddleClassCentrist

[Evening Star]

When has university ever primarily been about practical workforce training/'economic benefit'? Disciplines such as philosophy, history, and literature have surely been a part of higher education for as long as there has been such a thing.

If we withdrew all public funding for higher education, women's studies and black studies are not the only disciplines that would begin to starve, btw.

There is no question that there is a unique experience for black people in the USA in the context of slavery and subsequently under segregation. Even contemporarily, there are some elements of cohesiveness to what might be described as "black culture". It's certainly not enough to fill a degree. The degree is certainly worthless, for the most part, economically (without government subsidies for these program, of course). Still, it should be studied as part of American history, and not as some sort of separate history.

Truth is, of course I think people should be able to study whatever they want, and universities should provide programs that students want. What I can't stand, however, are government supports for universities that don't offer, broadly, an economic benefit. If students didn't have their education subsidized by the government, at no risk to themselves, then how many students would actually enrol in programs like "women's studies" or "black studies" if they knew they'd half to pay the whole way on their own with no realistic prospects for a career? We've essentially elevated hobbies into academic disciplines.

[Evening Star]

When has university ever primarily been about practical workforce training/'economic benefit'? Disciplines such as philosophy, history, and literature have surely been a part of higher education for as long as there has been such a thing.

And as Alan Bloom would have been happy to tell you, historically, they were heavily promoted and peopled by those on the political right.

[Bob]

When has university ever primarily been about practical workforce training/'economic benefit'? Disciplines such as philosophy, history, and literature have surely been a part of higher education for as long as there has been such a thing.

If we withdrew all public funding for higher education, women's studies and black studies are not the only disciplines that would begin to starve, btw.

Public funding for universities has always been about "investing" in the future economy, by giving the future generation the skills necessary to be economically self-sufficient. Moreover, personal motivations for people to pursue academic studies are primarily rooted in perceptions of future career development and financial prospects. This is pretty basic stuff, you must realize this.

I oppose public funding, in general, for post-secondary education. A student should pay the full cost of his or her education out of his or her own pocket, with the assistance of his or her own family, and with any bursaries/scholarships he or she is eligible to secure from independent philanthropic/charitable organizations. Many people choose not to pursue post-secondary education, and they are being forced to subsidize the education of others through their tax payments.

I do support, however, government loan programs that guarantee money to students who qualify for education, although even such a scenario would lead to losses from the public purse via inflated demand for ridiculous disciplines of the type we've already discusses, with the subsequently unemployed graduate of the fake discipline being unable to find serious work.

You mentioning that other disciplines would starve in the context of government withdrawal of welfare payments to universities (grants) and students (subsidized tuition) is exactly my point. The only way all these fake disciplines and courses that keep popping up each year at universities is because of government manipulation of the market through subsidizing tuition costs and giving grants to universities. If students and universities were to pay the full and real cost for these disciplines and courses, they'd think twice. Of course, they get a free ride on the back of the taxpayer. In other words, only through government welfare are universities able to profitably offer fake educations such as "black studies", "women's studies", "international development", and other ridiculous fields. You think a Canadian student would pay about ten thousand dollars for tuition alone each year for four years in a program like "media studies" if the costs weren't cut in half by the taxpayer? Moreover, the costs would be inflated in other areas as well if government stopped giving away money to universities via grants and tax exemptions. It's really ridiculous.

And how is this stupidity sold to Canadians by politicians and supporters of these policies? As an "investment" that yields an economic benefit. They actually blatantly lie to us and tell us that the taxpayer money thrown away towards these endeavours is returned in a greater amount from the graduates through "high-paying jobs" that they subsequently secure after graduation and pay taxes from. Of course this isn't true, but most Canadians subscribe to this lie. If it was financially responsible to graduate from "black studies" programs, then there'd be no need to incentivize students further by lowering their tuition costs artificially through government subsidies to students and schools.

[MiddleClassCentrist]

I oppose public funding, in general, for post-secondary education. A student should pay the full cost of his or her education out of his or her own pocket, with the assistance of his or her own family, and with any bursaries/scholarships he or she is eligible to secure from independent philanthropic/charitable organizations. Many people choose not to pursue post-secondary education, and they are being forced to subsidize the education of others through their tax payments.

FALSE.

The average person with a degree makes more, thus pays more taxes and attracts higher level jobs to the province.

If anything you could say that the educated subsidize those who do not pursue post-secondary education to make up for the crappy life decisions of those who didn't take any post-secondary and went straight to work at Wal-mart for a living. People working at Wal-mart, Futureshop, and Home Depot pay very little in taxes after deductions... and those self-trained handymen doing drywall/home improvements evade taxes by taking cash frequently.

That being said, we have too many graduates of "hobby" degrees (History, Social Science, English Literature, Human Kinetics, Art) I believe if we are subsidizing university programs, it should ONLY be for degrees leading to careers in industries that are in demand. The taxpayer shouldn't support garbage like Womyn's Studies (subsidized hate speech against men) and Human Kinetics (Let's give a degree to people for showing up and playing volley ball).

Education is an investment, if we are investing in it, we need to be making better investment decisions.

Edited October 14, 2011 by MiddleClassCentrist

[Evening Star]

Public funding for universities has always been about "investing" in the future economy, by giving the future generation the skills necessary to be economically self-sufficient. Moreover, personal motivations for people to pursue academic studies are primarily rooted in perceptions of future career development and financial prospects. This is pretty basic stuff, you must realize this.

This sounds false to me. I know that this is one reason why we fund universities but this has never been the primary purpose of universities, as far as I know. Universities, at least in principle, are and have always been dedicated to scholarly inquiry and academic freedom more than to workforce training or financial or commercial considerations. (Colleges - community colleges for Americans - on the other hand, are explicitly geared towards workforce training.) Academic freedom - probably the most cherished principle of the university - is not a sound financial strategy. Just looking at the Wikipedia entry for "university", this principle dates back to the very first university that ever existed. Neither medieval scholasticism nor Renaissance humanism - which were the guiding principles behind universities through their earliest phases - were primarily concerned with making money. Non-'practical' disciplines such as philosophy and literature were a core part of the university from the beginning.

In the contemporary era, quoting Wiki:

In 1963, the Robbins Report on universities in the United Kingdom concluded that such institutions should have four main "objectives essential to any properly balanced system: instruction in skills; the promotion of the general powers of the mind so as to produce not mere specialists but rather cultivated men and women; to maintain research in balance with teaching, since teaching should not be separated from the advancement of learning and the search for truth; and to transmit a common culture and common standards of citizenship."

If anything, the very facts that so many of these non-workforce-oriented disciplines exist and that they attract students should themselves demonstrate that universities are not what you claim them to be.

Compare:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_college

Edited October 14, 2011 by Evening Star