It is extremely common in the modern “E”nvironmental movement to see the conflation of normative opinions of what various environmental policies ought to do with actual claims regarding the actual conduct and character of real world environmental policy. Even though many of us believe that good species conservation policy (for example) ought to encourage the [...]
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Posted in Education on Mar 29th, 2012
If all tenure-track faculty members left academia tomorrow, would anyone notice? Of course the question is mostly, but not entirely tongue in cheek. Here are some facts to consider: Of the $273 billion that was spent by public higher education institutions in 2008-9, only $75 billion was dedicated to “instruction.” In other words, about 1/4 [...]
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Posted in Education on Mar 26th, 2012
Former high school physics teacher Andrew Knight is mad! Our schools are failing. Rarely does real learning happen in modern classrooms, and when it does, it is often merely a byproduct of each student’s pursuit of an independent and potentially conflicting goal: high grades. … They choose easy teachers. … They harass teachers about grades. [...]
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Posted in Education on Mar 18th, 2012
Victor Davis Handon’s brutal analysis of the culture of academia. He, of course, cannot possibly be describing anything like what happens at my institution.
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Posted in Education on Mar 12th, 2012
It’s simple. When they inevitably do not work, I most definitely do not want that albatross hanging around the neck of voluntary exchange and free-markets. Not at all. And why would I say such a thing? Because instituting school vouchers to me is no different that giving people insurance subsidies in the health care sector [...]
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I advocate a 100% elimination of government K12 schools. 100%. No secrets there. Even if I were forced to accept government schooling, I’d like to see those schools have much more discretion in how they organize curricula and just as important more discretion in how they discipline their students (I don’t mean ruler smacks, I [...]
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Posted in Education on Mar 7th, 2012
I’ve been silent for now on the entire Rush Limbaugh dustup and my excellent colleague’s insights on it. Perhaps I’ll put up some thoughts shortly, but for now, without my comment, here is the response to all of this from our University President: I was deeply disappointed to read UR Professor Steve Landsburg’s recent blogs [...]
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Posted in Education on Mar 2nd, 2012
When economists think about agency problems they typically describe cases where there are clearly identified “principals” (those whose plans we hope to be executing) and “agents” (those who typically are responsible for executing the plans). The point we make about “principal-agent” problems is that when we drive a wedge between who the decision-maker is and [...]
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Posted in Education on Feb 23rd, 2012
There was an old joke in the Soviet Union that went something like, “yep, the workers’ paradise is great – we pretend to work and they pretend to pay us.” The irony that this charade occurred in the homeland of the Potemkin Village was not lost on them. The same can be said of higher [...]
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Posted in Education on Feb 22nd, 2012
Many of my readers may know that the single-event that most changed my intellectual development, and my outlook on the world, was when someone who was once very close to me abrogated everything I thought I once understood about the point of the academy, the pursuit of inquiry and the seeking of a better world. [...]
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