You knew the California budget shortfall was going to have an impact on higher education in the state. But maybe you didn’t know that the pain will not be distributed evenly. Last weekend, John Engell, a colleague of mine from San Jose State University (and currently chair of the Department of English & Comparative Literature), examined the pain that may be visited on our university in an opinion piece he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News:
Category Archives: Social issues
President Obama on education.
In last night’s address to the joint session of Congress, President Obama said:
The third challenge we must address is the urgent need to expand the promise of education in America.
In a global economy where the most valuable skill you can sell is your knowledge, a good education is no longer just a pathway to opportunity – it is a pre-requisite.
Right now, three-quarters of the fastest-growing occupations require more than a high school diploma. And yet, just over half of our citizens have that level of education. We have one of the highest high school dropout rates of any industrialized nation. And half of the students who begin college never finish.
This is a prescription for economic decline, because we know the countries that out-teach us today will out-compete us tomorrow. That is why it will be the goal of this administration to ensure that every child has access to a complete and competitive education – from the day they are born to the day they begin a career.
Already, we have made an historic investment in education through the economic recovery plan. We have dramatically expanded early childhood education and will continue to improve its quality, because we know that the most formative learning comes in those first years of life. We have made college affordable for nearly seven million more students. And we have provided the resources necessary to prevent painful cuts and teacher layoffs that would set back our children’s progress.
But we know that our schools don’t just need more resources. They need more reform. That is why this budget creates new incentives for teacher performance; pathways for advancement, and rewards for success. We’ll invest in innovative programs that are already helping schools meet high standards and close achievement gaps. And we will expand our commitment to charter schools.
It is our responsibility as lawmakers and educators to make this system work. But it is the responsibility of every citizen to participate in it. And so tonight, I ask every American to commit to at least one year or more of higher education or career training. This can be community college or a four-year school; vocational training or an apprenticeship. But whatever the training may be, every American will need to get more than a high school diploma. And dropping out of high school is no longer an option. It’s not just quitting on yourself, it’s quitting on your country – and this country needs and values the talents of every American. That is why we will provide the support necessary for you to complete college and meet a new goal: by 2020, America will once again have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world.
I know that the price of tuition is higher than ever, which is why if you are willing to volunteer in your neighborhood or give back to your community or serve your country, we will make sure that you can afford a higher education. And to encourage a renewed spirit of national service for this and future generations, I ask this Congress to send me the bipartisan legislation that bears the name of Senator Orrin Hatch as well as an American who has never stopped asking what he can do for his country – Senator Edward Kennedy.
These education policies will open the doors of opportunity for our children. But it is up to us to ensure they walk through them. In the end, there is no program or policy that can substitute for a mother or father who will attend those parent/teacher conferences, or help with homework after dinner, or turn off the TV, put away the video games, and read to their child. I speak to you not just as a President, but as a father when I say that responsibility for our children’s education must begin at home.
I’m generally heartened by these remarks, but of course, I have some thoughts of my own to add.
Medical interpreters, societal commitments, and the challenges of footing the bill.
Over at The White Coat Underground, PalMD looks at the ways in which delivering good health care to deaf patients depends on providing good interpreters — and notices the difficulty of making this happen:
How do we approach this as a society?
Item 1: Deaf people have special needs with regards to interactions with the health care system.
Item 2: The government mandates that proper interpreters be provided for doctor visits.
Item 3: Neither patients nor doctors can afford to provide this service.
Now don’t go telling me that “all you rich doctors can afford to get the interpreter”—we most emphatically cannot. That is a simple fact, and if you don’t believe me, then you don’t. Epur, si moeve.
There is not a great deal of support for an expensive government mandate that would pay for interpreters for the deaf. How do we provide this critical service?
I think the way Pal has framed this is exactly right — this is a question that is an ethical challenge to us as a society. Given the limits on what any of us can accomplish as individuals, what are we committed to doing collectively? What ought we commit to do collectively? And what does this say about what goods we regard as necessities to a good life — or about which members of society we believe are entitled to partake of this good life?
Book review: Wired for War.
Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century
by P.W. Singer
New York: Penguin
2009
For some reason, collectively humans seem to have a hard time seeing around corners to anticipate the shape our future will take. Of those of us who remember email as a newish thing, I suspect most of us had no idea how much of our waking lives would come to be consumed by it. And surely I am not the only one who attended a lab meeting in which a visiting scholar mentioned a speculative project to build something called the World Wide Web and wondered aloud whether anything would come of it.
In the realm of foreign conflicts, our shared expectations also seem to land some distance from reality, as missions that are declared “accomplished” (or all but) stretch on with no clear end in sight.
In Wired for War, Brookings Institution senior fellow P.W. SInger asks us to try to peer around some important corners to anticipate the future of robotics in our conflicts and in our lives more broadly. The consequences of not doing so, he warns, may have significant impacts on policy, law, ethics, and our understanding of ourselves and our relation to our fellow humans.
Honorifics, credentials, and respect.
There’s a lively discussion raging at the pad of Dr. Isis (here and here) about whether there isn’t something inherently obnoxious and snooty about identifying oneself as having earned an advanced degree of any sort. Commenter Becca makes the case thusly:
“Why are people threatened by the idea that a profession ought to have professional standards, anyway?”
1) It gives the gatekeepers even more power than they already have. Given a world where professional credentials are denied to certain groups, it can get a bit ugly. I think the worst part is that people who are traditionally trodden upon, because they fought so hard to get the darn credential, end up being the ones most viciously fighting against respect for people without the credentials.
2) I’m not horribly opposed to professional standards in general, I just don’t think they should necesarily apply to researchers. If an MD doesn’t know what she’s doing, she kills people. If a scientist doesn’t know what she’s doing, she can change the status quo by doing something incredibly novel that others couldn’t imagine (not that it’s the most likely scenario; the most likely scenario is she will fall flat on her face… but there is an important distinction nonetheless). Heck, a kid in a science fair can discover something new (ocassionally, at the highest levels like Westinghouse, even something that academics should recognize- something publishable).
Ultimately, we wouldn’t be having this conversation if we didn’t take “Dr.” as a proxy for respect. No one will ever earn my respect by spending X years in school. Plenty of people without PhDs will earn it.
I’ve met very few PhDs who have unearned my respect for their hard work and intelligence that got them that degree (note the distinction between symbol = degree and reality = character). But there have been a few. I feel no obligation to call them “Dr.”.
“Seriously, what is the problem with recognizing expertise, hardwork, perseverence, and yes, intelligence? Why is that not progressive?”
There’s nothing wrong with it, and a great deal right!
But the relationship between schooling, expertise, hardwork, perserverence and intelligence and the number of letters displayed after your name is not a one to one function. Anyone who says otherwise is selling something (most likely a diploma).
“Ms. Manners would suggest that the polite thing to do would be to inquire of Dr. Biden which she would prefer, and (so long as the preference is for an honorific she has earned) use that.”
Did you mean Miss Manners? On the original discussion I posted her commentary on this. It can be summed up as: if someone wants to use a title, give it to them. If you are thinking of your own title, however, it’s a tad crude to draw excessive attention to your need for status.
I’m sympathetic to Becca’s points here, so I want to explore why it is I find myself leaning in the other direction on the appropriateness of “Dr.” as an honorific.
ScienceOnline’09: Diversity in science, online and off.
There were some really good discussions of ally work in the gender in science session led by Zuska, Alice, and Abel and in the race in science session led by Danielle Lee and AcmeGirl.
One of the issues that has become clearer to me is that there is an inescapable asymmetry in the relationship between allies and those (like scientists of color or women scientists) they are trying to support. (I think the discussion at Samia’s blog helped me feel like I got it well enough to put into words.) An ally is someone who wouldn’t have to care about the difficulties faced by members of the group s/he is trying to support; not being part of that group, the ally doesn’t face those challenges first hand. This means the ally is choosing to care — making an effort to take the issues of others seriously.
You say you want a revolution
Dr. Isis expresses reservations about signing on for Twisty Faster’s revolution.
ScienceWoman offers a sketch of what her revolution might look like.
Me? I’m pretty exhausted from today’s outing with my offspring, what with it being Winter Break, otherwise known as 24/7 parenting. But I have a few brief ideas of what I’d like to see on the post-revolutionary landscape.
Ethics and population.
Back at the end of November, Martin wrote a post on the ethics of overpopulation, in which he offered these assertions:
- It is unethical for anyone to produce more than two children. (Adoption of orphans, on the other hand, is highly commendable.)
- It is unethical to limit the availability of contraceptives, abortion, surgical sterilisation and adoption.
- It is unethical to use public money to support infertility treatments. Let those unfortunate enough to need such treatment pay their own way or adopt. And let’s put the money into subsidising contraceptives, abortion, surgical sterilisation and adoption instead.
I understand the spirit in which these assertions are offered — the human beings sharing Earth and its resources have an interest in creating and maintaining conditions where our numbers don’t outstrip the available resources.
But, there’s something about Martin’s manifesto that doesn’t sit right with me. Here, I’m not trying to be coy; I’m actually in the process of working out my objections. So, I’m going to do some thinking out loud, in the hopes that you all will pipe up and help me figure this out.
Permanent budget crisis.
There are some newspaper stories that must be pretty easy to write at this point because it seems like they’re essentially the same year in and year out. California is having another budget crisis, and the Californians who are going to take it in the teeth are students — especially students in the California State University (CSU) system, to which the university that employs me belongs.