The title of this article alludes to Joan Didion’s famous essay about “love and death in the golden land,” a cautionary tale about the wreckage left behind when dreams collide … Continue reading “A Dreamer of the Golden Dream: Jerry Brown’s Future for Higher Education”
On Valentine’s Day, The University of North Carolina System released “Leading on Literacy: Challenges and Opportunities in Teacher Preparation Across the University of North Carolina System.” For me, it was not love … Continue reading “Is the UNC System Serious about Teacher Training Reform?”
For many parents, the prospect of sending their kids off to college can be daunting. If the price tag alone doesn’t scare them silly, there are more than enough stories … Continue reading “The Conservative Case for Community Colleges, Part I: To Parents”
UNC-Chapel Hill’s infamous athletics-academic scandal has officially been swept under the rug. On October 13th, the NCAA’s Committee on Infractions announced that UNC-Chapel Hill will not be punished for the … Continue reading “The NCAA’s UNC Decision: Nothing to See Here, Move Along”
As Massachusetts was considering signing on to a national curriculum and testing plan called Common Core, one of its lead writers gave a presentation to its state board of education. … Continue reading “How Common Core Damages Students’ College Readiness”
Like hospital “superbugs” that grow increasingly deadly and difficult to kill, cheating by college students keeps morphing into new and more virulent forms. Notes hidden away under a shirt cuff … Continue reading “The New College Cheating: Why Not Buy Your Degree?”
Hamilton College has for years had an open curriculum, allowing students the freedom to shape their education as they think best. Whether that’s a good idea is debatable, but the … Continue reading “The Ugly Truth Behind a College’s “Diversity” Requirement”
This year the North Carolina State Board of Education is lowering grading standards in all North Carolina high schools, while the College Board is rewriting the SAT to align with Common Core. Because of these two changes, it’s imperative that UNC raise its minimum admission standards. And uncertainty surrounding the new SAT leaves GPA as the only potentially reliable measure. Raising the minimum required GPA to 3.0 for all 16 UNC institutions would preserve academic quality in the system and provide a clear, consistent standard for admissions officers to apply to incoming students.
The methods that some universities have devised to combat grade inflation—capping high grades and adding more “contextual” information to transcripts—are problematic. While it may be good for universities to experiment with some of these reforms, they don’t appear to be final solutions to a complex problem that has been festering for decades.
Moral bankruptcy is undermining higher education