PROTECTING CIVIL LIBERTIES

Many thanks for the May/June 2003 issue on several topics related to "A question of balance." Your articles and [AFT President Sandra] Feldman's comments focused on real current civil liberties issues.

In the conventional media, these changes to America's privacy have been largely overlooked, but your stories were "fresh winds" for changes in classrooms, and campus halls and residences.

Many would agree with AFT vice president William Scheuerman--that there have been violations in the cultural and legal traditions of privacy and the free exchange of ideas in this county.

--Larry Wills
Red Hook, NY
 

While searching for some clue to identify Barbara McKenna, author of "A Question of Balance," I discovered the name in modest 2-point font on the masthead of all places. I never expected such reticence from someone who had just painted the president, most Republicans, the Department of Justice, the FBI, the INS, campus security, and almost everybody except the dear librarians and the swashbuckling ACLU as dangerous enemies of the American way of life. I didn't expect such unassuming ways from a writer clever enough to weave "Patriot 2,"--a leaked draft--into the middle of the piece in such a way as to blur together Patriot 1 and 2 in the minds of most busy readers. An inspired tactic in an otherwise conventional display of ideas. You really must identify yourself in the future. You've earned it.

--Katharine Daly
Via the Internet
 

Editor's note: McKenna has been managing editor of AFT On Campus for the past 15 years, and was a Washington, D.C.-based higher education journalist and magazine editor for the prior 10 years.

CHOOSE BUTTER OVER GUNS

I don't think we can support education spending and at the same time acquiesce to record military spending, as Sandra Feldman suggests in her recent (May/June 2003) Where We Stand column. In many ways the issue comes down to guns or butter, and as educators we have to choose where we stand. Feldman neglects to mention that President Johnson's Great Society programs were short-circuited by ruinous spending on the Vietnam War.

No, in these perilous times for education and for our nation, we need to clearly advocate for the society we envision. If public education is to stand a chance, AFT needs to fight against American wars of empire and against President Bush's ruinous tax cuts. The goal of Bush and his allies is to dismantle public goods and privatize them, and in the process break up unions like AFT. It's time to take off the gloves and fight this threat.

--Andrew Jones
Burlington, VT

THE CURSE OF GRADE INFLATION

The article by Stuart Rojstaczer, "Where all grades are above average," (April 2003 Off the Tower) while damning, is actually moderate. It has been my experience, after nearly 40 years of teaching graduate students, that honest grading is welcomed by neither the parents, nor the administration, nor many of the students. Happily, some of the brighter students resent grade inflation because they know it debases their own achievements.

Having always taught in a public university, I am aware that grade inflation is largely a gift from prestigious private universities; the article singles out Pomona, Duke, Harvard and Columbia, but they are by no means alone. Lately, pop-ups on my PC have included invitations to receive any college degree, including the Ph.D. degree, from a "prestigious unaccredited university." "No admissions tests! No books! No papers! No exams! Degree guaranteed!" Many students believe this is the way higher education ought to be given.

We've brought it on ourselves.

--Charles Guzzetta
New York, NY
 

Rojstaczer's essay on grade inflation is morally bankrupt, academically fraudulent and above all dishonest!

Rojstaczer has not issued a C in over two years and has "forsworn" C's ever since, he says. If, in fact A's, B's, and C's were the only grades available, Rojstaczer's feeble attempt at grading, and his minor irritation with the process might be tolerable. However, his total disregard for F's, D's and C's dilutes and falsifies any B or A given by him. It completely erodes any sense of competence his students may have in his ability to evaluate them, and more importantly to "trust" the content of his lectures. Rojstaczer's grading is disingenuous and blatantly misrepresents the criteria that we as professors need to uphold.

I am personally known as a demanding professor, who teaches extremely difficult material. I give lengthy assignments, due dates are strictly enforced, and midterms and finals are always challenging. I continue to fail students who deserve an F, and honor students who work hard with an A. My students accept the challenges that I present them and know my grade is the best tool of assessment that I can offer them. It is fair, honest, and from the heart. I respect my students for their efforts, and they respect me for telling the truth.

--Jon Hazilla
Boston, MA

Rojstaczer should be ashamed of lowering his standards! There seems to be less of this in community colleges, which is probably why our dropout rate is around 50 percent.

The problem however is one which can be solved. Today, each teacher can set his or her own standards so there is no common standard. Not only can they grade however they want but they can teach whatever they want and test however they want. No wonder it is a mess!

The solution is simple and is one which, to no avail, I have talked about for years. The person who teaches and the person who tests should not be the same person. In fact testing should be done by the department or the school. In the case of England it's the country! There must be a common standard. Without it there is chaos. The final grade should be based mainly on a final exam made up by the department. Better it should be a standardized test made up by an organization whose purpose is to make up such tests. An overlooked but very positive effect of doing this is that the teacher is no longer the judge and executioner of the student but the person whose goal it is to help him pass the test. Students will look at the teacher in an entirely different way, a very positive and human way, since the teacher will have no role in the grading of the student.

--Ronald Fischer
San Jose, CA

Isn't it always our job, as teachers, to inspire students to learn for the sake of learning, and not just for the external reward of a good grade? Instead of merely bemoaning the loss of grades as a motivator, we should analyze, and work to prevent, the process by which students become "grade-hungry" in the first place.

As educators, we have all witnessed students who do the minimum work required for an A, who only care about the material if it will "be on the test," or who even cheat or plagiarize in order to obtain a good grade. This behavior is in striking contrast to that of young children, who constantly explore, test and ask questions, all without the "motivation" of grades. What turns these eager young children into grade-hungry, but otherwise unmotivated, students? Perhaps the educational system itself, in which we give children grades and other rewards for performing intellectual activities, is to blame. Grading shifts the focus from the intrinsic pleasure and reward of these activities to the perceived pleasure of the external reward, thus squelching children's innate desire for learning.

--Nicholas Solter
Irvine, CA

HOW WE TEACH PHYSICS IS BANKRUPT

Regarding your April 2003 Speak Out ("Should high schools teach physics first?"), when accepting the Oersted Medal for notable contributions to physics instruction in 1999, David Goodstein remarked, "if teaching physics were a business, we would be filing for bankruptcy." Apparently, Jim Jarvis disagrees. In arguing for keeping physics last, he contends that "instruction in physics has been marvelously successful so far." But here is a reality check:

• U.S. high school students scored among the lowest of all countries on the physics achievement section of the last international study (TIMSS).

• The U.S. has the lowest percentage enrollment in high school physics of all industrialized nations--the percentage enrollment in advanced physics in U.S. high schools is a whole order of magnitude lower than these countries.

• The number of college students in the U.S. majoring in physics is now at an all-time low.

Remarkably, in Jarvis' physics, Last + Least = Marvelous Success.

While "Physics First" or "Physics Light" may not be the cure for all the nation's science education woes, how could it possibly be worse than the present "Physics Heavy," that has served so few, with too much, for so long?

It is worth noting that the present biology-chemistry-physics order of teaching sciences is not the result of any educational or scientific design. It is how the science subjects evolved historically in high schools in the U.S. (and only in the U.S.) between the 1890s and 1930s. While the order made some sense in the early 20th century, it makes little sense today. Imagine teaching high school languages in one- (and only one) year courses in the fixed order, Spanish-French-Latin. While it seems laughable, that is exactly the way we organize and teach high school science. It's time for a change.

--Keith Sheppard
New York, NY