About Me

In writing the "About Me" portion of this blog I thought about the purpose of the blog - namely, preventing the growth of Socialism & stopping the Death Of Democracy in the American Republic & returning her to the "liberty to abundance" stage of our history. One word descriptions of people's philosophies or purposes are quite often inadequate. I feel that I am "liberal" meaning that I am broad minded, independent, generous, hospitable, & magnanimous. Under these terms "liberal" is a perfectly good word that has been corrupted over the years to mean the person is a left-winger or as Mark Levin more accurately wrote in his book "Liberty & Tyranny" a "statist" - someone looking for government or state control of society. I am certainly not that & have dedicated the blog to fighting this. I believe that I find what I am when I consider whether or not I am a "conservative" & specifically when I ask what is it that I am trying to conserve? It is the libertarian principles that America was founded upon & originally followed. That is the Return To Excellence that this blog is named for & is all about.

Sunday, March 9, 2025

Replacing The LSAT With The GRE May Be Just The Needed "Trick"

The last post linked the shortages of qualified people in the labor force, both now & in the future, to the high percentage of people who can not read @ a basic level by the 8th grade. The post went into detail regarding shortages of doctors, policemen, male public school teachers, engineers, & more that affect our lives negatively.

Conspicuous by its absence in the post was a discussion of lawyers.  A charter subscriber to this blog picked this up & wrote "I know a young fellow striving for a law degree, does well in class work, & teachers think he is very capable.  His next step is passing the LSATs & money.  But most of the questions on the LSATs do not apply to the law, so it comes to comprehension, ability to understand, knowledge, awareness, perception, discernment, & interpretation so if there is a trick he can follow I will relay the information to him.  And yes he is working."

The "trick" that our subscriber is looking for may lie in the test that the "young fellow" is studying for.  Yes, the LSAT (Law School Admission Test) is used by law schools to help evaluate applicants, but starting in 2016 some law schools started to accept GRE (Graduate Record Exam) scores so that today about half the law schools including Columbia, Harvard, & Georgetown on down accept scores from both tests.

My sister-in-law, a lawyer, told me that "the LSATs do not apply to the law" as our subscriber writes, but are geared to determine how the applicant thinks.  The LSAT is taken with pencils & paper & consists of five, 35-minute sections measuring analytical & logical reasoning & reading comprehension.   The GRE could be a better fit for a non-traditional law school candidate with an impressive application including a high GPA & extra curricular activities.  Such a candidate might be more comfortable because the GRE is taken by computer figuring out definitive answers to questions involving algebra, geometry, trigonometry, & calculus in addition to reading comprehension, vocabulary, & writing.  Something like the quizzes I present from time to time.  Both tests are difficult.

Although schools started to say in 2016 they were flexible in accepting either test in order to attract students from a wider variety of backgrounds, particularly in STEM fields, it is also true that there had been a falloff in applicants & matriculants from 2010 each year to 2015.  You would not be far off to think accepting the GRE was an attempt to stop this downward trend - which did stop in 2016 although it cannot be concluded that accepting the GRE was the reason.  See graphic below - source of the next two graphics is the Law Professor Blogs Network (Jerry Organ).









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With the above downward trend in overall applications came a corresponding downward trend from 2010 to 2015 of the best & brightest law school students defined as those with LSAT scores of 165+ (above 90th percentile) that also did not start to turn around until 2016.  Such applicants would be competitive @ virtually any law school in the country.  Unfortunately, the number of students with scores from 150 to 159 continued the downward trend in 2016 while those @ the bottom of the scale (140 to 149) had a slight increase.  LSAT scores range from 120 to 180.  See graphic below for the trend of those students with LSATs of 165+.










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Law School enrollment continued to increase after 2016 but has fallen the past two years.  Acceptance of the GRE gets some of the credit for the small increase in enrollment after 2016.  See graphic below - source LawHub.









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So lawyers join the many other professions highlighted on this blog that have declined in number the past fifteen years.  Fairly or not, the reputation of lawyers is low (like that of Congress who is made up of lawyers) so to moan about a shortage of lawyers will not bring much sympathy.  Still, a good lawyer can be very valuable when closing on a house, getting a divorce, helping with taxes on a financial plan, or teaching constitutional law correctly.

And the compensation is still very good for those with the 165+ LSAT scores who graduate from a top law school.  See graphic below.









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So the "trick" our subscriber may be looking for concerning his friend's problem with the LSATs may be to find a law school that will accept the GRE results.  I hope it works for them.

I present below a sample question from both the LSAT & the GRE for the "young fellow" & the entire readership to consider.  Send me your comments on the LSAT & the solution to the GRE question.  I will post appropriate comments from the LSAT question & all correct answers to the GRE question or alternatively send the correct answer to any one who requests it.

Just think - being able to answer questions like the following in the real world is what making $200,000 per year is all about for someone in their 20s with a first class law degree.

Sample LSAT Question

In trying to reduce the amount of fat in their diet, on average people have decreased their consumption of red meat by one-half in the last two decades.  However, on average those who have reduced their consumption of red meat actually consume substantially more fat than those who have not.

Which one of the following, if true, most helps to resolve the apparent discrepancy described above?

A. Many more people have reduced their consumption of red meat over the last two decades than have not.

B. Higher prices over the last two decades have done as much to decrease the consumption of red meat as health concerns have.

C. People who reduce their consumption of red meat tend to consume as much of other foods that are high in fat as do those who have not reduced their consumption of red meat.

D. People who reduce their consumption of red meat tend to replace it with cheese and baked goods, which are richer in fat than red meat.

E. Studies have shown that red meat contains slightly less fat than previously thought.

Sample GRE Question

A developer has land that has x feet of lake frontage. The land is to be subdivided into lots, each of which is to have either 80 feet or 100 feet of lake frontage. If 1⁄9 of the lots are to have 80 feet of frontage each and the remaining 40 lots are to have 100 feet of frontage each, what is the value of x?

Sunday, February 16, 2025

Eighth Grade Reading Failure Carries Over Into Adulthood

This post links the 22% to 31% of 8th graders from 1992 to 2022 who could not read @ a basic level with the shortages of qualified people we have today - from doctors to policemen to air traffic controllers.  The post shows how these 8th graders in 1992 are now 46 years old & do not contribute meaningfully to society - & what's worse, their lives are not fulfilling.  Just like in the 8th grade reading test the same percentage of people fail an adult survey entitled Do Adults Have The Skills They Need To Thrive In A Changing World? while the gap between the highest & lowest performing adults widened in the last ten years as technology & automation left more poorly prepared people behind.


***

Even before the enactment of ObamaCare there was a looming shortage of doctors forecast in America.   The Association of American Medical Colleges projects a primary care shortage within the next decade of up to 55,000 doctors & up to 124,000 physicians derived from an estimated 268,000 retirements & possibly only 15,000 new doctors coming in each year.  With the cuts in doctors' fees in many hospitals & medical insurance programs along with the persistent threat of universal healthcare's price controls & rationing in the proposed Medicare For All entitlement it is no wonder that people would choose to become a warehouse manager rather than a brain surgeon.

More recently the shortage extended to pharmacists, accountants, & policemen.  

According to the Pharmacy College Application Service the number of pharmacy-school applicants dropped by more than a third from its peak a decade ago resulting in pharmacies reducing hours or even closing stores on weekends because of staff shortages.

The shortage of accountants is forcing small & mid sized firms to hire overseas accountants even when the U.S. income tax filing season gets in full swing - which we are just about in now.  Imagine what this says - foreigners in Bengaluru, India or South Africa know how to complete an American income tax return but Americans don't.

The accounting profession was hurt starting with a 9% decline in U.S. students who received a bachelor's degree in accounting (57,500 degrees in 2012 to 52,500 degrees in 2019) with the downward trend continuing.  As I expected to find in researching this post, fewer people are sitting for the four part CPA examination.  Evidently working the fields in the hot Arizona sun is not the only job Americans won't or can't do.

You don't have to check further than your local news to learn of the shortage of policemen.  For instance Chicago is losing two officers for each one it graduates from the police academy & San Jose has seen a two thirds drop in applications to the police force over recent years.  Twenty years ago the NYPD had 20 applicants for every open position - today there is a 1,700 policeman shortage resulting from the defunding of police movement & a general demoralizing mindset of putting the criminal as a first priority & the victim last or not @ all.  This type of recruitment problem & shortage extends to the border patrol, military, & the national police force - the FBI.

And just within the last few months the shortage of male public school teachers has taken its place on center stage as principals struggle to find qualified applicants with teaching credentials.  The share of the number of male public school teachers has dropped from a third to under a quarter in the last 50 years thereby depriving many young boys of a male figure of authority @ home & in school.

In this regard on January 29 the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) issued The Nation's Report Card 2025 which highlighted continuing declines in reading scores for both 4th & 8th graders.  Math scores showed a slight decline for 8th graders & a slight uptick for 4th graders.

Tennessee is trying to improve this situation by passing a law that students be held back in third grade if they don't meet certain benchmarks - apparently acknowledging my premise for @ least the last two decades: "How do you get to the 9th grade if you are only reading @ a third grade level?"

And now the one I have dreaded the most - the test scores of the 40,000 candidates who took the Fundamentals of Engineering (FE) exam declined about 10% during the pandemic meaning these people don't qualify to sit for the Professional Engineering exam which must be passed in order to become a licensed professional engineer.  The result is a shortage of engineers & a lower level of competency among those who passed (with the lower scores).  Civil structural engineers, who failed to answer questions about the use of trusses in construction of bridges & roadways, had the highest first attempt fail rate of all the disciplines @ 35% - the other major engineering disciplines (chemical, electrical, & mechanical) ranged between 25% to 30% first attempt fail rate.

And of course the mid air collision on January 29 highlighted once again that there is a significant shortage of air traffic controllers in the U.S.  The FAA attributes the cause of the shortage to a rigorous training process, mandatory retirement age (set by Congress in 1972 @ 56 years old), & difficulty in attracting qualified candidates under 31 years old.  At the FAA  Academy in Oklahoma City the attrition rate can reach 40 to 50%.

To summarize the miserable trend portrayed above, our education system has produced a society that has declined in medical safety & service (shortage of doctors & pharmacists) as well as physical safety (shortage of policemen, border patrol agents, military recruits, & air traffic controllers).  The lack of qualified accountants & CPAs will result in erroneous business reports that will swallow up investments & pension assets - e.g., Macy's experienced a $151 million of false bookkeeping entries & coverup by a lone employee that went undetected by its auditor KPMG for over three years thereby raising questions about the competency of the auditors as investors' losses mounted.  Businesses will not be able to expand @ their desired rate because there are not enough qualified engineers to design, engineer, construct, & support such expansions & increases in productivity - the critical factor for economic growth & increasing our standard of living & prosperity.

For an explanation of how this happened please refer to the following graphic which was made from data from The Nation's Report Card 2025 mentioned above.  The blue line shows the % of 8th graders who could read @ the basic or above level from 1992 to 2022.  The red line shows that the share of 8th graders reading @ the basic or better level has dropped back to the same share as 1994 & only 1 percentage point higher than it was in 1992.  

The NAEP basic level denotes partial mastery of prerequisite knowledge & skills that are fundamental for performance @ the NAEP proficient level (i.e., being able to read so that you can function in the world).  In 2022, the percentage of 8th grade public school students performing at or above the NAEP Proficient level in reading was 29 percent nationally, with 10 states having a lower percentage of proficient 8th grade readers than the national level: AK & KS - both @ 26%; DE @ 24%; TX @ 23%; MS, AL, WV, & DC - all @ 22%; OK @ 21%; & NM @ 18%. 









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The reading statistics for 8th graders are important because people who are not good readers by the 8th grade most likely never will be - being disinclined to read as an adult thereby limiting their life's potential.   

But most importantly, the graphic underlies the connection between people who were once 8th graders & now are adults - someone in the 8th grade in 1992 is now 46 years old.  The area above the blue line curve means that the 22% to 31% of the 8th graders from 1992 to 2022 who could not read above a basic level are now adults 46 to 18 years old who probably still don't read @ a basic level.  This adds up to tens of millions of people.

I highlight this connection between the results for 8th graders, who were poor readers when they were 13, & adults who struggle to make a living.  On December 10 the OECD released the results of their latest study entitled Survey of Adult Skills 2023: Do Adults Have The Skills They Need To Thrive In A Changing World?.  Thirty-one countries participated.  Click here to see the results for the United States.  The results for the other thirty countries are on the first link.

The survey is "a product of the OECD Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC). (It) provides a comprehensive overview of adults' literacy, numeracy, and adaptive problem solving skills – skills that are fundamental for personal, economic, and societal development."

In summary the United States is below the OECD average in literacy, numeracy, & adaptive problem solving with the biggest difference being in numeracy - see Figure 1 of the United States report.

The survey found that 28% of adults scored @ Level 1 or below, meaning they have low literacy proficiency - right in line with the 22% to 31% of 8th graders (now adults taking the OECD survey) who couldn't read @ a basic level between 1992 & 2022.  

The survey for the U.S. report states that  "at Level 1, they can understand short texts and organized lists when information is clearly indicated, find specific information and identify relevant links. Those below Level 1 can at most understand short, simple sentences.  At the other end of the spectrum, 13% of adults (OECD average: 12%) scored at Levels 4 or 5 in literacy and are high performers. These adults can comprehend and evaluate long, dense texts across several pages, grasp complex or hidden meanings, and use prior knowledge to understand texts and complete tasks." 

The survey found "In the United States, average results in 2022-23 went down compared to 2012/15 in literacy and numeracy.  In both literacy and numeracy, the share of low-performing adults (scoring at Level 1 or below) increased.  Meanwhile, the share of high-performing adults (scoring at Levels 4 or 5) remained stable (Figure 4 of the U.S. report).  In both domains, therefore, trends were more negative at the lower end of the distribution, and the gap between the highest- and lowest-performing adults widened between 2012/15 and 2022-23."

The OECD adult study & others have shown that adults who were poor readers in the 8th grade experienced more bouts of unemployment, overall low or poor wages, frequent enrollment in the food stamps program, higher disability payments, higher rates of single parenthood & child poverty, elevated mortality & a low level of individual well-being & civic engagement.  These adults are generally thought of as less trustworthy, less likely to vote, & more likely to not be in excellent health. 

About a quarter of the U.S. population is enrolled in Medicaid & about half that many are on food stamps.  Enrollees in both of these welfare programs are likely to be poor readers.

Now if you graduated from high school & can't read, & are smart enough to know that you can't read, teach yourself or find someone who can teach you.

If you graduated from high school & can't read & don't do anything about it your life will most likely be one of difficulty, hardship, & more than your fair share of unhappiness - or even worse.

In short,  anyone who can't read will never develop their full human potential.  They will never realize that they make out of life what they strive for & therefore have not only cheated themselves out of an enhanced future but society out of a contributing member capable of filling the types of jobs described herein whose shortages plague the country more & more every day.

Sunday, January 26, 2025

ACTA Report Provides A Civic Literacy Assessment Of College Students

"An educated citizenry is a vital requisite for our survival as a free nation." - A quote often attributed to Thomas Jefferson.  Although there is no evidence in his writings that he ever made the statement it is an accurate reflection of Jefferson's views on the importance of education & is a principal reason he founded the University of Virginia. 


What Jefferson did say was "Whenever the people are well informed, they may be trusted with their own government."  In this regard Jefferson focused on literacy, arithmetic, history, & civics - the study of the civil & political rights & obligations of citizens in a society.

During this past summer of 2024 the American Council of Trustees & Alumni (ACTA) surveyed over 3,000 college students & found  that far too many college graduates have little or no understanding of their own system of government.  You don't need Jefferson's wisdom to see this finding illustrates one of the common sense types of problems Benjamin Franklin was talking about when he answered Elizabeth Powell's question about what sort of government the delegates of the Constitutional Conventionhad created - "A republic, madam, if you can keep it." 

The ACTA survey report entitled Losing America's Memory 2.0 - A Civic Literacy Assessment Of College Students verified the findings of other posts over the years that show the poor state of American university students' civic literacy - not to mention the other basic subjects Jefferson highlighted above.  Several of these previous posts include man on the street interviews with Jay Leno & Mark Dice.  Click here to watch Mark in some of these past posts convince people to sign a petition to support a national illiteracy program in the schools & here to watch Mark convince people to sign a petition to repeal the Bill Of Rights where he tells the petition signers "Obama is doing everything he can to repeal the Bill Of Rights & we're just showing the citizenry is right behind him."

Now these interviews are from over a dozen years ago & the above ACTA report from July 8, 2024 doesn't show progress.  Consider some of the results I selected from the above report:

Q1. Who is the current President of the Senate? 
14% Mitch McConnell
10% Charles Schumer
27% Kamala Harris
28% Joe Biden
20% Not sure

Q8. Which branch of the government has the power to declare war?
48% The Executive
32% The Legislative
3% The Pentagon
5% The Judicial
11% Not sure

Q11. Which government action freed all slaves in the United States?
56% The Emancipation Proclamation
2% The Declaration of Independence
9% The Civil Rights Act of 1866
28% The 13th Amendment
6% Not sure

Q18. Article I of the U.S. Constitution describes the powers of which branch of government?
22% The Executive
36% The Legislative
8% The Judicial
35 The Bureaucracy
32% Not sure

Q20. In what year was the U.S. Constitution written?
51% 1776
32% 1787
12% 1789
5% 1812

Q28. How many justices must be on the Supreme Court, according to the Constitution?
11% Seven
33% Nine
12% Twelve
25% The Constitution does not specify a number
19% Not sure

Q13. To whom is Jay-Z married?
1% Taylor Swift
75% Beyonce
6% Rihanna
1% Miley Cyrus
17% Not sure

Paying tens of thousands of dollars for a college education with graduates having no better idea of the governance of the world they are about to enter does not make sense @ any level. It is best to understand what students are expected to learn before going away to college. In this regard ACTA prepares annual evaluations of over 1,100 colleges & universities exclusively for this purpose & I share these with the readership. Let me know if you need help in this regard.

But a large amount of this material should really be learned in grades 6 through 12. This brings it right down to the parents getting involved & doing something about it if it's important to them if their child only knows the answer to Q13 above.