I get the opposite out of that: 55% of students do learn useful skills in college, and 66% are required to write 20+ page reports.
I certainly learned some valuable things in college that I would not have discovered otherwise. (E.g., training in statistical mechanics and chemistry has proven valuable in a carreer in software engineering.)
There's some rotten-cherry-picking going on in the AP report. After four years, 64% have made significant gains. That's bad, but it's not as bad as the story wants us to think.
It does suggest that more college attendance may not be a magic bullet. (Of course, it would be great if policy-makers realized that there are no magic bullets.)
Agreed...in my defense, I intentionally said that the study concluded that there was little learning, explicitly not endorsing or rejecting the conclusion. A friend sent me the whole report. But 45% showing no significant improvement is pretty damn bad, no matter what the rest of the data looks like...or so I assert.
I get the opposite out of that:
ReplyDelete55% of students do learn useful skills in college, and 66% are required to write 20+ page reports.
I certainly learned some valuable things in college that I would not have discovered otherwise. (E.g., training in statistical mechanics and chemistry has proven valuable in a carreer in software engineering.)
-mac
LOL--totally right, mac... Why didn't I notice that?
ReplyDeleteYeah, well, it's hard to go wrong with math and science...it's mostly everybody else I worry about...
There's some rotten-cherry-picking going on in the AP report. After four years, 64% have made significant gains. That's bad, but it's not as bad as the story wants us to think.
ReplyDeleteIt does suggest that more college attendance may not be a magic bullet. (Of course, it would be great if policy-makers realized that there are no magic bullets.)
Agreed...in my defense, I intentionally said that the study concluded that there was little learning, explicitly not endorsing or rejecting the conclusion. A friend sent me the whole report. But 45% showing no significant improvement is pretty damn bad, no matter what the rest of the data looks like...or so I assert.
ReplyDelete