Sender: johnp@queens-belfast.ac.uk
Date: Mon, 11 Nov 1996 02:42:41 +0000
From: John Pelan
Organization: DAMPT, Queens University of Belfast
To: dcrumbl@lsu.edu
Subject: Sympathy
The decline in standards is now a universal phenomenon, and there seems little one can do about it. Certainly here in the UK it is a hotly debated issue. The opponents suggest that that standards are *not* falling but that the quality of teaching is increasing. It is an interesting argument but one for which there is little evidence forthcoming, at least that I have seen.
The grade inflation in the UK is caused by pressure from the funding organizations. All UK students are currently entitled to free 3rd level education and the universities essentially get a bounty for each head from the Government.
However in an attempt to weed out 'poor courses', traditional market forces are used -- so that courses with fewer and fewer students get less money, year on year. Funding is strictly monotonic decreasing. The effect is, of course, to eliminate those courses/subjects that are perceived as difficult (as students will be reluctant to apply) rather than to control standards. Universities suffer financial penalty for failing students, so they often move weak students around various faculties until a course is found that they can pass.
Likewise, to proceed to post-graduate research the requirement of the funding bodies is often a first class honours degree. Departments who are worried about being able to get a sufficient number of qualified applicants for post-graduate posts can just bump up the number of 'firsts' that they award to ensure a reasonable supply.
My feeling is that 'gold' standards are required which can reliably assess the true quality of students from year to year and institution to institution. One imagines that the professional bodies that exist would have an interest in this but of course they need money from 'qualified' members and so may be reluctant to do anything. Universities should be required to publish the numbers and types of grades awarded so that any large-scale deviance from the expected distribution curve would be noticed by the public and potential employers alike. This information is difficult to come by at the moment and certainly is not volunteered by any university that I am aware of. It would only be a partial solution though.
A final worry of mine is that as the 'poor' students rise to become tenured staff, the rot will set in to Academe and it will be very difficult to extract it.
[Suggestion: Require an examination to be passed before a student can graduate.]
Date: Thu, 26 Jun 1997
From: "B.B. Gerstman" <B_Gerstman@compuserve.com>
Subject: Re: Proposed research
Dear Dr. Crumbley,
A couple of discussion points:
(a) On balance, I agree with you that SETs are a threat to society, and we are not alone. I heard a Prof. from Univ of Florida (James Twitchell) on NPR discussing the problem (Morning edition, 6/24/97). I've also found that my Administration is often more sympathetic to this view than most of my fellow Profs! We must continue to bring this problem to the attention of the Public.
(b) I believe SETs have their place. If nothing else, they provide a more or less accurate reflection of what the *entire* class is thinking. Without them, the atypical disgruntled student could be more damaging than they currently are.
(c) I believe the odd and petty jelousies of fellow colleagues is at least threatening as SETs, especially now that tenure is threatened. My view is that our best hope for rational teaching and scholarship is through formal Professor unions. I'd be interested in hearing your views on Professor Unions.
Keep up the good work. I'm with you.
Sincerely,
B. Gerstman
Date: Fri, 30 May 1997
From: RBriggs947@aol.com
Subject: Grade Inflation and Date of Faculty hire
Schoolcraft College (Livonia, MI) faculty have lately been bombarded by administration with reams of statistics regarding their "success rates," defined as % of students in their classes receiving 2.0 or above. Some of these have leaked out to students, with the predictable result that fat sections get fatter and lean ones leaner. No one seems to know what the purpose of publishing these figures may be, though they are usually accompanied with exhortations to boost one's success rate, no matter how difficult this may be for those who approach 90-95% 4.0s!
One noticeable correlation is between success rate and date of hire as full-time faculty, at least in the Liberal Arts Division, where I teach. With strikingly few exceptions, a hiring date of 1970 or earlier means a low success rate, 1990 or later a high one. (So few were hired in 1970-90 as to be statistically insignificant.) What can this mean ? I welcome your comments or anyone else's who may receive this message.
Robert A. Briggs, Prof. of History (full-time hiring date 1967, success rate somewhere around 65%)
Schoolcraft College, Livonia, MI 48152
RBriggs947@aol.com
From: bordenk@pmzinc.com (Borden, Karl)
Organization: PMZ, Inc.
Subject: Student Evaluations
Dear Dr. Crumbley:
Thank you for your letter of January 13 and for your kind comments regarding my WSJ letter of December 16, 1997.
I have been fighting a lonely battle for high academic standards and against the corrupting influence of student evaluations on this and other campuses for years, alas to little effect. During the years when I served as a Dean and a Provost, I refused to consider such data - preferring frequent classroom visitations in order to evaluate teaching effectiveness first hand. Now, as a senior professor in our department, I have announced to all that when I serve on promotion and tenure committees I will refuse to even read student evaluation data. The result, of course, is that I am rarely appointed to such committees by my Dean.
One of the reasons for the continued popularity of student evaluations as an evaluative tool is the same reason that traffic cops issue so many speeding tickets: they are easy to administer and have a superficial objectivity that results in their being only rarely challenged. The result is a lessening of administrative (or judicial) risk. No judgement is called for, only an application of arbitrary, quantitative standards that have little to do with the theoretical outcomes professed by the system.
I will of course continue to inveigh against student evaluations and the overall decline in the rigor of our instruction. I have come to the point that I believe there is little that can be done to halt the deterioration of our system. The eventual result, I believe, will be the replacement of our current system of higher education with some other system of preparing young people to be effective and productive members of our society.
I am reminded of a conversation I heard between Robert Bork and a conservative economist whose name I have now forgotten. Judge Bork said "We are witnessing, in my opinion, the disintegration of western civilization." The economist replied "Yes, of course we are ... But there is little that can be done about it, it will take a while, and in the meantime it is still possible to live well."
Regards,
Dr. Karl Borden
Professor of Financial Economics
University of Nebraska/Kearney
The text below is an accurate presentation of my comments and questions at the OSU/AAUP March 12, 1997 meeting 'Dialogue with President G.Gee'
- This is a season of Ranking and Rating; last week three national magazines published special issues about colleges and universities. We love-hate to read their tables and articles; sometime they are very instructive.
In his article 'It's WHAT they teach, STUPID!' John Elson writes in TIME/the Princeton Review (Spring 1997), p.14 :
"In a new book called 'Generation X Goes to College' pseudonymous author Peter Sacks tells of quitting his job at a newspaper to teach writing at a suburbian junior college. What he found was discouraging: intellectually incurious students and time-serving professors who cynically condoned grade inflation to please administrative bureacrats. The result, charges Sacks, is the classroom equivalent of consumer fraud."
This paragraph reminded me and a few colleagues of mine time and again of many cases, or many actions of Math Dept administrators which look bordering with cheating. Let us omit a long list of their strange actions in this category.
[It would include the producing a phony roster of a phony class to give a passing grade to (a) mathematically illiterate student(s) and declaring by Chair and Dean at the end of that quarter that the instructor of this class has an "overall excellence in teaching" with a special money award to this instructor. This (phony - b.m.) class was not the only reason of this award, a top college administrator told me.]
But I will mention one example which goes beyond any anecdotal evidence and provides statistics with thousands students involved:
In the years 1995 and 1996, at the start of a quarter Math-148 class' students went to the President's building (or other COPEZ locations) and paid $1.06 for a special booklet [a good value for $1 spent !]. This booklet listed the problems which would be offered [with slight variation: Terry's typing services becoming, for example, Rose's catering services] on their three midterm tests and final exam. It was not a collection of 200 or 300 exercises to practice before tests; no, just 10 or 12 problems for each midterm and final - neither more no less.
Is this testing system
(a) a smart pedagogical method to focus students' attention on important concepts and skills, or
(b) an institutionalized fraud (in a closely coordinated by the administration system without any participation of regular faculty) which cannot be tolerated any more, or
(c) something else?
To make this question or answer easier I will give more information. Under pressure from some faculty, in Winter 1997 the midterm-1 set of exercises was different from the booklet's one; students were told in advance about this change.
The table below gives the (ranges of) results of MidTerm-1 in AU'96 quarter, Line (1), when the assignment followed the booklet, and in WI'97 quarter, Line (2), when the assignment followed syllabus, the material taught in the previous weeks, and the stated course objectives as it is required by the OSU Bylaws, Rule 7-19, - but not the booklet.
TABLE
Range A B C D E No. of students
(1) AU'96 16.38 % 20.09 % 20.01 % 16.75 % 26.76 % 1349
(2) WI'97 0.44 % 2.73 % 7.21 % 12.02 % 77.60 % 915
Did Math Dept administration set up the Math-148 instruction and grading in 1995 and 1996 as - in John Elson and Peter Sacks' terminology - "the classroom equivalent of consumer fraud"?
Because SETEs (Student Evaluation of Teaching Effectiveness) seem to be the single most important RPT teaching evaluation instrument used by the RPT evaluators, and are assigned numerical scores on a University-wide standardized anonymous form (with Z-scores calculated as though the distribution were normal and the sample mean and variance were the actual parameters from the parent normal distribution, with positive Z scores being the single greatest
criterion for a "superior" rating in teaching -- as in Lake Wobegone, all teachers must be above average), it will be very difficult to change the culture here without evidence of a strong national movement. In the past, a student was requested to indicate her/his expected grade on the
SETE form; this has been abolished, many of us feel, because in large measure it was too telling.
In the preview method, the class meeting before the exam, the instructor puts up a copy of the actual exam in class (usually on an overhead projector) and discusses it so that there can be no
misunderstanding on the part of the students (one of the SETE questions has to do with the fairness of the exams). In the postview method, because a student doing poorly on an exam is clearly caused by the poor instructional technique of the instructor, a problem the instructor is dedicated to correct in the effort of becoming a more effective teacher, after the graded exam is returned to the student, the student may retake the same exam to improve his/her score and grade;
this process is recursive, terminating when one of three conditions are met -- the last grade (which replaces all previous ones) is satisfactory to the student's learning criteria, the student decides to terminate the process before achieving satisfactory learning as determined by this assessment instrument (the exam), or the term ends.
Thanks.
Anonymous
I have taught various subjects, at various levels. I often teach Red Cross courses, and if you've ever taken one, they have a standard SET. I always found this offensive. I KNOW I am a good teacher, I am told that often enough. But there are some people who do not like my high
energy level, or maybe I do come off a big arrogant for those who might not be able to keep up, so I get a bad evals...Big Deal...it doesn't change anything. It especially doesn't change the fact that those who learned something will probably retain it better than one of the teachers who just turns on the video smiles and says a few PC remarks.
A few weeks ago, I helped teach a big class for Ski Patrolers. Actaully, it was just a retest type of situation. But I put myself in the review room an offered people who wanted review a chance to relearn. Two women came over and asked for extensive review. In two hours, I went over the nine hours course, and they were so pleased. They said I was the best teacher they ever had, and proceeded to tells dozens of people this. Of course, there was no SET for a retest, and
their opinion did not count as much as it might have if someone called and complained because I told their daughter they did not swim well enough to be a lifeguard.
Just personal experience, to confirm your facts and numbers.
Tammy
I found your site a the other day and even though I am an undergraduate at LSU, I agree with most of your ideas. But there are those which I do not agree with that concern me. I read the letter regarding the elimination of tenure at Texas A&M (where I was a student) and was shocked, quadruply. The actions by the University were the first shock. Clearly they are infringing on the rights of the professors, on this I agree with you. But I must disagree with the closing statements
made by the author. To list them, but not argue now: tenure as property by right, the use of the notion "McCarthyism", unionization. My third shock was to read the TAMUS policy. It is much worse than the letter writer let on. And that is the fourth shock. Why when presented with a document as atrocious as that one, would a college professor focus on some of the trivial points instead of the essentials? The proposal regards professors as slaves. It is clearly stated.
Institutions of higher education exist for the common good. . .
The rights and privileges of faculty members extended by society . . .
The constitutionally protected rights of faculty members, as citizens, to freedom of
expression on matters of public concern must be balanced with the interest of the state . . .
They [faculty members] should maintain respect for the student and for the student's posture as a learner and should be appropriately available to students for consultation on course work.
Institutions of higher education exist for a deserving elite, not the common good; some of the material on your site will attest to this. Rights are a type of moral principle, not the fiats of "society" (in quotes here, because the policy excludes professors from this group.)
As moral principles, rights cannot be balanced with anything, particularly not the "interest of the state." Part of the problem there is that the state is a business, not a government, in this context. Few students deserve the respect of their professors, if any; the students RIGHTS should be respected, as should everyone else's. From the stories my best professors (the hard nosed ones) tell me, it would have been considered a serious breach of etiquette to address a professor outside of class; now the professors must sacrifice their private time to the whims of uneducated louts?
Slaves to "society", with privledges not rights, and the moral status of criminals are the faculty described in that policy. Yet the letter-writer focuses on the denial of those privledges?
Gregory Merchan
Student of Physics, LSU
Date: Wed, 06 May 1998
From: "Dr. Robert Kizlik" <bobk@adprima.com>
Subject: Academic Standards in Teacher Education
I came across your site while reading an article entitled "Higher Education at the End of the Millennium" by Peter Sacks in the Spring 1997 edition of Thought and Action. I was intrigued, and so I visited the SFRTAS site. I am quite impressed with what I've seen.
I teach in a college of education. The opinions, research, and comments on your site regarding academic performance and expectations of students is even more applicable to the young men and women who want to be teachers. In nearly 30 years in higher education, I have seen a marked deterioration in the quality of education majors. They exhibit all the characteristics described in the many parts of the SFRTAS site, only more so, as their content knowledge, on the average, is at about a 6th grade level. I find it amazing and disturbing that most of the students
will find their way into teaching positions. But the deeper question is where did they get the idea they could become teachers knowing so little?
In any event, I have bookmarked you SFRTAS site and plan to come back often.
Robert Kizlik
I teach mathematics and, as you can imagine, I don't get very complementary evaluations from the students because I have high standards. Our department has a strong commitment to high standards (so far) but I can see some possible pressure coming from 'higher up' if our FTE keeps going down. It is not unusual for half my students to fail or withdraw from my classes and that provides plenty of potential ammunition for certain administrative types to crank up the pressure if they wanted to.
Anyway, is there a mailing list or some way to subscribe to this Society? It would feel nice to know that I'm not alone here in Colorado.
Randy
Hays Glover
Bryan, TX 77802
Society for a Return to Academic Standards
Last Updated: 24 April 1998
