Texas officials: Schools should teach that slavery was ‘side issue’ to Civil War – The Washington Post

July 10, 2015 / Debbie / 3 Comments

“Five million public school students in Texas will begin using new social studies textbooks this fall based on state academic standards that barely address racial segregation. The state’s guidelines for teaching American history also do not mention the Ku Klux Klan or Jim Crow laws. And when it comes to the Civil War, children are supposed to learn that the conflict was caused by ‘sectionalism, states’ rights and slavery’ — written deliberately in that order to telegraph slavery’s secondary role in driving the conflict, according to some members of the state board of education.” This is what happens when politically motivated Schools Boards determine what children will learn. You may recall the kerfuffle over the Texas state curriculum standards in 2010 and the textbooks in 2014 that led to this version of the Civil War appearing in Texas social studies textbooks. (see previous posts on this subject here and here)

The belief that the Civil War was about states’ rights not slavery might be comforting to some, but that feeling comes at the cost of truth, justice, progress, and everything we hold dear as a nation. How can students understand the present if they have been mislead about the past?

Texas officials: Schools should teach that slavery was ‘side issue’ to Civil War – The Washington Post.

The Current “Crises” in Higher Education

July 2, 2015July 2, 2015 / Debbie / Leave a comment

In this post Dr. Kich exposes the flaws in the assumptions about higher ed as presented by James Baar. It also serves as a critique of some of these same assumptions that are often passed off as fact in the media.

ACADEME BLOG

In an op-ed published by the Providence Journal in Rhode Island, James Baar identifies “Four Crises That Dog Higher Education”:

1. Inflation of product cost.

2. Deflation of product value.

3. Enablement of social and moral dissolution.

4. Lower-priced, knockoff and fraudulent competition.

Given the space constraints on most op-ed pieces, Baar addresses each of these topics fairly succinctly. So, I suspect that if he had more space, he might have been able to address somewhat articulately at least some of the concerns that I am about to express.

First, I don’t believe that anything can be dogged by a crisis. A crisis is the climax of an escalating situation; it is not a condition. And the word “dogged” suggests an extended condition. But perhaps some editorial assistant, rather than Baar himself, is responsible for the headline.

Second, I don’t think that it is either accurate or helpful to assert…

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“The Frenzy About High-Tech Talent by Andrew Hacker” | The New York Review of Books

June 29, 2015 / Debbie / Leave a comment

In reviewing several books on the STEM craze, Andrew Hacker questions the underlying assumptions driving this fad. Such an evaluation is long overdue. I’m a fan of STEM, but I’ve been concerned for a long time about the adverse effects of putting these fields on a pedestal to the detriment of other areas of study. There are many reasons to question the STEM fad, but one of the most immediate concerns is the assumption that there will be jobs for students that go into those fields. Based on several studies, Hacker argues that there is little evidence to support this assumption.

Hacker concludes that “[t]he fervor over STEM goes beyond promoting a quartet of academic subjects. Rather, it’s about the kind of nation and people we are to be. Already in play are efforts to instill the metrics—and morality—of technology within ourselves as individuals and into the texture of society. Artists and poets may have to score high on tests of trinomial distributions if they want bachelors’ degrees. In viewing science, technology, engineering, and mathematics as strategic weapons, we are constricting honored callings and narrowing national priorities, while the alleged needs for STEM workers are open to serious question, including whether the demand for them may be exaggerated and manipulated.”

Read the entire article here:

The Frenzy About High-Tech Talent by Andrew Hacker | The New York Review of Books.

“Essay on being accused of being an anti-Israel professor” | Inside Higher Ed

June 24, 2015 / Debbie / Leave a comment

Jonathan Judaken is just the latest victim in a concerted effort by a well-organized group united in defense of Israel. I have written on this topic several times (Pro-Israeli Groups Continue their Assault on Academic Freedom and Conservatives go after UCLA’s historian James Gelvin). It is a troubling trend that threatens academic freedom and the progress that flows from it.

Judaken opens with an explanation of his situation: “Let me tell you how I ended up on Jihad Watch. This is a tale of the new red scare wending its way across college campuses. More than an account of my own travails, this is an anatomy of how critical thought about Islam and Judaism, the Arab-Israeli conflict, anti-Semitism and anti-Muslim racism is today monitored in the academy with the goal of chilling reflection.”

I noticed a common theme in the comments section. (Of course, going to the comments section of any online forum is a bit like going to the Twilight Zone. You enter at your own risk.) Many of the commenters accused Judaken of being the McCarthyites, not the minions of Campus Watch. The strategy of flipping an argument on its head as a way of taking down your opponent is not new. It has proven to be an effective strategy on the right. Someone calls you a racist, you respond by claiming that they are the real racist. Someone calls you intolerant, you respond by calling them intolerant, and so on.

The problem with their argument is that they fail to make the appropriate distinction between McCarthyism and criticism. What McCarthy did was attempt to silence people that he disagreed with through intimidation and bullying tactics, not debate. Judaken was not trying to silence those associated with the Middle East Forum and Campus Watch, but expose what they were doing. And the analogy is appropriate because they use the tactics of intimidation to bully those in academia whose account of Middle East history does not agree with theirs (the Israeli government is always innocent and anyone who says otherwise is an anti-Semite).

What Caschetta did was not criticism for the purpose of advancing the debate, but an intentional distortion of Judaken’s lecture and intentions. The Middle East Forum was founded to promote a particular ideology. And the way they have chosen to further that ideology is through intimidation, not academic debate. The academic world is built on the principle of debate and criticism. This is what fuels progress in all academic fields of knowledge. If the real goal of Campus Watch was the advancement of knowledge, there are multiple avenues available to critique Judaken’s position in a constructive and professional manner. Every academic has to face criticism as they engage in their own field. This is not the kind of criticism that Caschetta engaged in. He intentionally distorted Judaken’s lecture as a way to intimidate him. This was the way of McCarthy, and therefore the label is apt in the case of Campus Watch, but not the other way around.

Essay on being accused of being an anti-Israel professor | InsideHigherEd.

The Textbook Wars: An Historical Perspective

June 5, 2015 / Debbie / Leave a comment

The Texas Textbook controversy has recently received a lot of attention, but it is only the most recent chapter in a long struggle over what our children should be learning. It is this history that Christopher Babits examines in order to add perspective to the current polemics. Babits found that debates over the content of textbooks goes back at least 130 years, but one episode in particular stood out as the most instructive in the current textbook wars. This episode began in the late 1920s.

The Great Depression brought great social change and a willingness to critically examine the causes of the crisis, even if it wasn’t pretty. Therefore, according to Babits, “many Americans embraced what came to be called the social reconstructionist curriculum. Observing the consequences of capitalism run amok, Americans became more comfortable with curricula that not only critiqued economic inequality but also encouraged students to ask critical questions about the American past.” In the schools the “[s]ocial reconstructionist curricula focused on the economic challenges facing the United States and the ways that schools could improve society.” This curricula came under attack from conservatives in the 1930s, but it wasn’t until the 1940s that this approach was replaced with a patriotic focused curriculum in response the rise of fascism and World War II.

Read the entire history of the textbooks wars here:

History News Network | The Texas Textbook Controversy. It’s Part of a Long, Awful, Tradition.

“The Conservative War on the Humanities” | History News Network

May 26, 2015 / Debbie / 2 Comments

What would happen if we completely abandoned the humanities in higher education? The world would be very bleak! (see interview with Michael S. Roth)

This subject is related to my previous post on public education, but here the focus is on the humanities since much of the animus towards higher education is directed at the humanities. Conservatives insist that they are a luxury that we can no longer afford. This is a new stance in the conservative platform as pointed out by Andrew Hartman, author of A War for the Soul of America. Hartman thinks that new conservative position is “not only because most conservatives now dismiss the value of the humanities,” but as a product of “the traumatic culture wars, when left and right angrily battled over radically different visions of a humanities education.” Read Hartman’s discussion of this topic here:

History News Network | The Conservative War on the Humanities.

“This Is What Happens When You Slash Funding for Public Universities” | The Nation

May 26, 2015 / Debbie / 2 Comments

In Arizona the state legislature cut $99 million dollars from the higher education budget, and it is even worse in places like Wisconsin and Louisiana. This trend has been going on for some time, but the economic crisis prompted even more severe cuts to higher education. As Michelle Goldberg notes, many states have begun restoring funding, but “[e]ight Republican-dominated states, however, have kept cutting. Among them are North Carolina, Wisconsin, Arizona, Louisiana, and South Carolina.”

What is driving this trend? It is partly political (animus towards the “liberal” academia), partly ideological (absolute devotion to privatization and taxing cutting), and partly financial (the opportunity to make money off of education).

What are the consequences? 1) Higher tuition that will increasingly make college accessible only to the wealthy. 2) University’s are turning to solutions that will harm the long-term quality of education, such as larger class sizes and corporate partnerships that put the focus on making money rather than educating students. 3) There will be less time and money for faculty to do the research that is vital to the health and wealth of our nation. 4) Higher education will start to become more of a job-training program, rather than an educational institution that creates well-rounded and thoughtful citizens in addition to preparing them for their careers. 5) Inequality will increase.

Please read the entire article here:

This Is What Happens When You Slash Funding for Public Universities | The Nation.

History Wars: “Fight over AP U.S. History framework lands in N.J.” | The Auditor | NJ.com

May 20, 2015 / Debbie / Leave a comment

Republican state Sen. Joe Kyrillos proposed a resolution (SR128) that would encourage the College Board to alter the AP U.S. history framework, because “the framework the College Board adopted in 2012 ‘reflects a seemingly biased view of American history, overemphasizing the negative aspects of our nation’s history while omitting and minimizing many of the positive aspects,'” and that “the new test’s framework ‘does not adequately discuss America’s Founding Fathers, the principles of the Declaration of independents the religious influences on our nation’s history.'” Even though this non-binding resolution is unlikely to pass, the efforts to teach our students a distorted patriotic version of history is troubling. We should be educating and challenging our students, not indoctrinating them. Progress requires an educated and thoughtful citizenry. And it is only by confronting the past honestly that we can actually live up to our ideals.

Fight over AP U.S. History framework lands in N.J. | The Auditor | NJ.com.

“What’s the Point of a Professor?” – NYTimes.com

May 10, 2015 / Debbie / 1 Comment

Given the recent attacks on higher education, and the humanities in particular, Mark Bauerlein’s query (“What’s the Point of a Professor?”) is timely.

Reflecting on his own undergraduate education Bauerlein claims, “In our hunger for guidance, we were ordinary. The American Freshman Survey, which has followed students since 1966, proves the point. One prompt in the questionnaire asks entering freshmen about ‘objectives considered to be essential or very important.’ In 1967, 86 percent of respondents checked ‘developing a meaningful philosophy of life,’ more than double the number who said ‘being very well off financially.’ Naturally, students looked to professors for moral and worldly understanding.” This obviously no longer describes undergraduate attitudes. As Bauerlein notes, “finding meaning and making money have traded places. The first has plummeted to 45 percent; the second has soared to 82 percent.”

These changing attitudes have been at the root of the challenges to higher education and they threaten to transform it into a worker program. The stakes couldn’t be higher, but rather than address the larger issues that are driving the changes that he laments, Bauerlein lays the burden of turning the tide on professors. While I agree that we “can’t become a moral authority if you rarely challenge students in class and engage them beyond it,” this alone will not restore the prestige of professors or higher education.

Read the entire article here:

What’s the Point of a Professor? – NYTimes.com.

Privatizing History | Patrick Stephenson

April 24, 2015 / Debbie / 1 Comment

“An academic view of history that at least tries to be objective is a bit like a public good. We don’t all pay for it. But we all benefit from it. Because a basic grasp of history is, in my view, the foundation of critical thinking and democratic governance. But if history is a public good, we’re witnessing its privatization. The past has become a commodity that can be manufactured, packaged and sold to audiences eager to hear a good story that justifies their policies and their prejudices.” Wise words from Patrick Stephenson. Will we listen?

Read his article here:

Privatizing History | Patrick Stephenson.