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.

Thursday, March 24, 2011

The Final Four of Learning

Below is the subject message from the American Council Of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) that handicaps the Sweet 16 schools based on education curriculum.  I have highlighted ACTA's wonderful website entitled "What Will They Learn" several times on this blog.  It should be mandatory reading for anyone planning on sending a student to college before the first application is made.   
 
Just look over the pitiful requirements for a student to graduate from these Sweet 16 schools & you'll quickly see the trouble America is in.  It is not that our students are dumb - its just that they don't know anything after they graduate plus are tens of thousands of dollars in debt.

Dear ACTA Friend,

 

As college basketball fans know, the Sweet 16 begins today: the next two rounds of the national championship tournament will determine the Final Four. But while commentators speculate about athletic upsets and players' professional futures, no one seems to talk about what these student-athletes--and their fans--are ostensibly at college to do: learning. So we at the American Council of Trustees and Alumni thought we'd have a little fun and engage in a hypothetical Sweet 16, in which teams win not because of grace under pressure or field goal percentages, but because of what students will learn. Read on to discover the Final Four of Learning.    

 

We evaluated teams according to our What Will They Learn subjects: composition, literature survey, American history or government, economics, foreign language, college-level math, and science. Let's go region by region.  

 

WEST  

Duke basketball court

Today's West games in Anaheim pit San Diego State against Connecticut, and Duke against Arizona. San Diego requires four subjects including foreign language, while students at Connecticut can fulfill the foreign language requirement with only elementary study, so it's hasta la vista to the Huskies. Arizona has a strong basketball team, but they all could graduate without any math or science, so Duke heads on to the Elite Eight - when it comes to the core curriculum.

 

Duke and San Diego State have the same requirements. While Duke is far more expensive, San Diego State graduates only about two thirds of its students in six years, so we'll give the nod to Duke.

 

SOUTHEAST 

BYU BasketballTonight we'll also begin the Southeast regional games in New Orleans--where we see schools sporting the weakest core requirements in the tournament.

 

In the classroom, Butler upsets Wisconsin, where students can graduate without composition, literature, American history, economics, or math. But Brigham Young beats Florida and Butler for being the only Sweet 16 school to require American history or government. 

 

EAST 

North Carolina Tar Heel

On to the East games in Newark. Ohio State, Kentucky, Marquette, and North Carolina all require composition, foreign language, math, and science, but not literature, econ, or American history.

 

Although UNC, like Ohio State, charges out-of-state students a tuition over $22,000 (not as much as in-state rival Duke!), we'll send the Tar Heels through to the Final Four to recognize their 85% graduation rate and set up an epic (if imaginary) semi-final contest with Duke. (Marquette graduates 80% of their students in six years, Ohio State graduates 75%, and Kentucky only 60%.)

 

SOUTHWEST 

Kansas 

Finally, we have the Southwest region. Florida State and Virginia Commonwealth both require composition and mathematics. But Florida State requires science and foreign language and so ends VCU's Cinderella story.

 

In the other game, the Richmond Spiders must learn a foreign language, but Kansas wins the day with requirements in composition and literature. Indeed, Kansas is the only Sweet Sixteen team to require literature. How sweet that sounds!

 

Who will win on the basketball court?  That's a question we're not prepared to answer.   But, what do students learn off the court? That's a question we should all be asking.

 

All the best.    

Anne Signature  

 

P.S. Please forward to your friends who might also be asking, "what about the classroom?"

 

 

1 comment:

  1. How times have changed. In my generation, parents wanted their children to go to college for a good education. Today they send them to college for sports and money they can earn playing sports after graduation.

    Why bother to learn? - play football (college pays your expenses) and you live a good life. If college has a good team, they receive large donations from corporations to help with expenses.

    Call it luck, but if it wasn't for people like Lise Meitner, unappreciated female mathematical physicist, who did testing and experiments regarding nuclear fission our progress would have been appreciably slowed from what is was and is. She lived in Germany and Hitler did not have faith in people who had brains. She knew her number would be coming up for death - somehow escaped to America.

    People like Albert Einstein, developer of theory of relativity, also somehow got out of Germany.

    In 1939, he and other scientists wrote FDR a letter saying an atomic bomb, if it could be developed would save lives in a war. Because of this letter FDR authorized the "Manhattan Project" that developed the atomic bomb during World War II under the command of Lieutenant General Leslie Groves JR. Einstein was not involved in the project. The rest is history. BTW, letter to FDR mentioned Germany was also conducting studies and experiments on nuclear weapons.

    Remember, brains win out all the time for major projects - not sports.

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