The Big Lie: we need to know that teaching never matters in university rankings

There was an almost perfect article in the BBC news on line today:

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-29086590

What makes a global top 10 university?

It starts with the usual list of top universities:

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is in first place in the latest league table of the world's best universities.

It's the third year in a row that the US university, famous for its science and technology research, has been top of the QS World University Rankings.

Another science-based university, Imperial College London, is in joint second place along with Cambridge University.

Behind these in fourth place is Harvard University, the world's wealthiest university. And two more UK universities share joint fifth place, University College London and Oxford

Then, it goes on to list how these rankings are calculated:

But how does a university get to the top of the rankings? And why does such a small group of institutions seem to have an iron grip on the top places?

The biggest single factor in the QS rankings is academic reputation. This is calculated by surveying more than 60,000 academics around the world about their opinion on the merits of institutions other than their own.

Ben Sowter, managing director of the QS, says this means that universities with an established name and a strong brand are likely to do better.

The next biggest factor - "citations per faculty" - looks at the strength of research in universities, calculated in terms of the number of times research work is cited by other researchers.

As a template for success, it means that the winners are likely to be large, prestigious, research-intensive universities, with strong science departments and lots of international collaborations.

So, just to be clear, the rankings are all about how much research money the professors have to play with and how famous they get by utilizing that money. I was a professor at top ranked universities for 35 years. I brought in lots of money. I was cited often. And I helped my university in its rankings.

Great. What about teaching students? Never mentioned. I don’t mean never mentioned by this article, I mean in my 35 year career no one mentioned it. In fact, the more money you bring in, the more famous you are, the less you have to teach. That is one reason poorly paid adjuncts are teaching more these days.

I like this article because it says just this quite plainly:

Is that a fair way to rank universities? It makes no reference to the quality of teaching or the abilities of students?

The idea is that a student wanting to find an undergraduate arts course isn't really going to learn much from rankings driven by international science research projects.

And then this:

Those that focus on teaching rather than research will not be as recognized.

They leave out what I like to call “the big lie of college education.” No one ever tells a student applying to Harvard that he will be taught to do research almost exclusively because that is all his professors do or know how to do. He will not be taught to program by his computer science professors because they haven’t written a program in years. He will not be taught how to start a business by his business professors because they have never started one. He will not be taught anything about being a medical doctor because they don’t teach undergraduates. In fact he will not be taught anything of any use in his life at all in college unless he plans to become a researcher.

I never planned to become a researcher but that’s what I learned in college so thats what I became.

So, parents: when you decide to fork over $50,000  a year for Harvard remember Harvard’s goal will be the creating of a researcher. Do yourself and your kid a favor and ask him if that’s what he wants to be when he grows up.

Last week I had a business meeting in New York, and as I often do, I asked the people I was meeting with where they went to college. One said Harvard. He had majored in Economics. So, I said, “you got to meet some Nobel Prize wiener and hear all about microeconomic theory. Do you use any of what you learned there today in your work?”

“No” he said.

Isn’t it time we started talking about teaching? And, while we are at it, could we make that be teaching things that you might use as an adult?

My granddaughter goes to school; yet another sad story

This is another depressing story about school. Hearing about my children's and now grandchildren's time in school is what has turned me from being an AI researcher and into an education reformer.

This was written by my daughter. She is describing her daughter's first day of school:



We arrived the first day and were instructed to do all the usual first day things - I found her name tag and her desk and her cubby, we unpacked her backpack, hung up her hat, and then I signed her in.  Kids and parents were milling around in various stages of anxiety, ranging from sitting wordlessly in a corner to full on screaming. After a while we were directed to find a seat on the floor and choose a book to read. Mira went over the bins of books that had been placed on the floor, leafed through them, and then looked at me in astonishment.  "They're all ABC books," she said.  She looked back at the books with disdain, and I knew what she was thinking.  ABC books were for pre-schoolers.  She was a big Kindergartener now.  We'd promised her she'd be working on her reading in school (she already knows how to read simple books). Where were the books that were going to help her learn more about reading?

"Maybe that's just for today," I said.

Later that day, after pick up, I asked her how school was.

"The only good part was when we got a cookie," she said.

"That was the ONLY good part?" I asked.  "There must have been other good parts."

"We did math," she said.  

"Oh, that's great, you like math."

"No, it was RIDICULOUS."

I had never heard her use the word ridiculous before.

"Why was it ridiculous?"

"Because we did attendance, and we said how many people were there and how many people were absent, and then we counted the people.  That's not math, it's COUNTING."

The next day Steven dropped her off.  The ABC books were still there, in a bin on the floor.  He told her to ask the teacher if she could pick out a different book.

"The teacher said no," Mira reported back.  "Today we are doing ABC books."

The teacher, I'm sure, thought she was just being difficult.  She probably didn't think, well, obviously this child already knows how to read and doesn't need an ABC book.

When she came home she was most excited about lunch.

"Did you know that cafeteria is another word for lunch room?" she asked incredulously.  "Also, why didn't I get chocolate milk?  Why didn't I get school lunch? Why do I have to have home lunch?  Did you know that Kindergarteners get to eat in the cafeteria?  The preschoolers have to eat in their classrooms, but we're bigger so we get to go to the cafeteria."

This morning I promised her school lunch.  Just wait until she finds out today is Mexican Fiesta day in the cafeteria.

I have always wondered why the New York Times is obsessed with education

The New York Times is obsessed with education, but until now I never understood why. In Sunday’s Times Magazine we have Bill Gates deciding he now wants to change how History is taught. When did he become an education expert? I thought he was a college dropout who used his family’s money to build a giant company that never invented a thing. Well, what do I know?

So Bill Gates Has This Idea for a History Class ...

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/07/magazine/so-bill-gates-has-this-idea-for-a-history-class.html?hpw&rref=education&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=HpHedThumbWell&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0

There are numerous other articles in yesterday’s times about college and the wonder of calculus and the Chinese obsession with test scores. The Times never actually wants to change anything. They like whining about things they don't understand. Still I didn't get why.

Liking Work Really Matters

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/07/opinion/sunday/go-with-the-flow.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

A College Education Should Include Rooming With a Stranger

http://op-talk.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/09/07/a-college-education-should-include-rooming-with-a-stranger/?ref=opinion

A Fairer Shot for Student Debtors

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/08/opinion/a-fairer-shot-for-student-debtors.html?ref=opinion

And then I read this: 

Demanding More From College

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/07/opinion/sunday/frank-bruni-demanding-more-from-college.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

This article contains the following quote: “If college graduates are no longer reading the newspaper, keeping up with the news, talking about politics and public affairs — how do you have a democratic society moving forward?”

The New York Times thinks that if you don’t read the New York Times you can’t participate in a democratic society. This can’t be true since watching and reading about what politicians say and do simply isn’t something I notice the vast majority of people doing any more. Neither are they learning calculus (except under duress) nor are they interested in history. But the Times marches on demanding that whatever has been done historically in education be done again.

This is just one more vote for making students do whatever the person writing the article’s favorite thing is (see my last outrage). But, people don’t learn from being forced to study a subject. They learn because there is a need that they have that drives them to find out more.

The Times wants them to read the newspaper.

Shocker.

Maybe they can team up with Bill Gates to produce a New York Times test that every kid must pass.