Great article—provides clear examples of a trend that we’ve all quietly suspected. There is, however, one thing that I think it misses:
If the average American has barely improved, what about the intellectual class? That is, those Americans who have at least attended some college?
In the American 1950′s (and in virtually every other country with a globally-respected education system today), college attendance was something for the top ten percent of the population. At present, 39 percent of 25- to 29-year-olds have a Bachelor’s degree, and nearly half have a degree of some kind.
While the dumbing-down of college can be somewhat ameliorated by the stratification of the college experience that we’ve seen (a State U degree used to be prestigious!), with ‘top-college education’ replacing ‘college education’ in our culture, in practice, it’s very hard to make a clean break, especially seeing as the U.S. education system is allergic to the idea that one person might ever be inextricably more qualified than another on the basis of their intelligence or natural work ethic. Proposals for a German—style path system, in which students that aren’t likely to thrive in higher education are directed towards careers they’re more likely to do well with, have been repeatedly shot down on this grounds.
Worth pointing out that high school has had a similar issue. NCLB made a lot of people feel better about themselves, but it essentially destroyed the last vestiges of rigor in the public school system. You can’t build a meaningful HS degree around the −2sd kid that isn’t allowed to wait a year and go over difficult material again, and is strongly discouraged from dropping out at 17 and getting an early start on his career (which would be significantly kinder for him—the extra money helps, and not everyone can learn Calculus).
Thanks! I definitely agree, and that’s what I was alluding to when I said more people were entering the intellectual class, possibly diluting its literacy. I learned about this from Paul Fussell’s book Class. He suggested the same number of people, around ten percent, are still going to real university, and the rest are essentially fakes.
I’m not sure what it’s like for American high schools, but in Alberta (Canada) we had different streams for different kids. Dash-1 courses were for academic stream kids, dash-2 was either non-academic or for someone who wants a college certificate or a trade, dash-3 focuses on employability, and dash-4 is for students with learning disabilities. There was also an extra distinction between normal dash-1 students and dash-1 students who were also taking the IB program, which is like AP. I’ve never thought about it, but I’ve never heard of anything like this in America, and I wonder if it’s common or not. It seems like a pretty good idea to keep different groups of students separate. Though I don’t really see a point of having the dash-2 and dash-3 students there at all. Let them join the workforce and make some money. It doesn’t matter how valuable you think the information is for them. They’re not paying attention anyway.
He suggested the same number of people, around ten percent, are still going to real university,
That’s an interesting position. It makes sense to me that that’s the number that’d have the qualifications to do so, but are they still getting the same quality of education today?
I’m not sure what it’s like for American high schools, but in Alberta (Canada) we had different streams for different kids. Dash-1 courses were for academic stream kids, dash-2 was either non-academic or for someone who wants a college certificate or a trade, dash-3 focuses on employability, and dash-4 is for students with learning disabilities.
That’s a very common-sense system, seems like a gentler version of what Germany and Korea do. Unfortunately, the U.S. system doesn’t look anything like it. We have only one track, with differentiation delivered in theory through AP courses (advanced kids) and special education (kids with severe learning disabilities) courses. Unfortunately, the former are a constant political target, and the latter are constantly in the process of “mainstreaming” students that are unsuited to standard classes by dropping them into gen. ed.
Great article—provides clear examples of a trend that we’ve all quietly suspected. There is, however, one thing that I think it misses:
In the American 1950′s (and in virtually every other country with a globally-respected education system today), college attendance was something for the top ten percent of the population. At present, 39 percent of 25- to 29-year-olds have a Bachelor’s degree, and nearly half have a degree of some kind.
While the dumbing-down of college can be somewhat ameliorated by the stratification of the college experience that we’ve seen (a State U degree used to be prestigious!), with ‘top-college education’ replacing ‘college education’ in our culture, in practice, it’s very hard to make a clean break, especially seeing as the U.S. education system is allergic to the idea that one person might ever be inextricably more qualified than another on the basis of their intelligence or natural work ethic. Proposals for a German—style path system, in which students that aren’t likely to thrive in higher education are directed towards careers they’re more likely to do well with, have been repeatedly shot down on this grounds.
Worth pointing out that high school has had a similar issue. NCLB made a lot of people feel better about themselves, but it essentially destroyed the last vestiges of rigor in the public school system. You can’t build a meaningful HS degree around the −2sd kid that isn’t allowed to wait a year and go over difficult material again, and is strongly discouraged from dropping out at 17 and getting an early start on his career (which would be significantly kinder for him—the extra money helps, and not everyone can learn Calculus).
Thanks! I definitely agree, and that’s what I was alluding to when I said more people were entering the intellectual class, possibly diluting its literacy. I learned about this from Paul Fussell’s book Class. He suggested the same number of people, around ten percent, are still going to real university, and the rest are essentially fakes.
I’m not sure what it’s like for American high schools, but in Alberta (Canada) we had different streams for different kids. Dash-1 courses were for academic stream kids, dash-2 was either non-academic or for someone who wants a college certificate or a trade, dash-3 focuses on employability, and dash-4 is for students with learning disabilities. There was also an extra distinction between normal dash-1 students and dash-1 students who were also taking the IB program, which is like AP. I’ve never thought about it, but I’ve never heard of anything like this in America, and I wonder if it’s common or not. It seems like a pretty good idea to keep different groups of students separate. Though I don’t really see a point of having the dash-2 and dash-3 students there at all. Let them join the workforce and make some money. It doesn’t matter how valuable you think the information is for them. They’re not paying attention anyway.
That’s an interesting position. It makes sense to me that that’s the number that’d have the qualifications to do so, but are they still getting the same quality of education today?
That’s a very common-sense system, seems like a gentler version of what Germany and Korea do. Unfortunately, the U.S. system doesn’t look anything like it. We have only one track, with differentiation delivered in theory through AP courses (advanced kids) and special education (kids with severe learning disabilities) courses. Unfortunately, the former are a constant political target, and the latter are constantly in the process of “mainstreaming” students that are unsuited to standard classes by dropping them into gen. ed.