3-year degrees/race to the finish

[MarathonRunner]

Québec does three year degrees. But you have to complete two years of Cégep first (kind of like an associate's). High school ends after grade eleven, however.

Yep. And Ontario used to go to grade 13/OAC, and Newfoundland used to finish high school at grade 11, and an undergrad at MUN was 5 years, not 4.

There are Canadians universities offering three-year degrees, non-honours of course. And colleges offering three-year degrees as well, in provinces where colleges are now degree-granting institutions. We don't, in Canada, have the same general education or liberal arts that most US universities have. Sure, programs have electives and specialized/restricted electives, but there's no liberal arts requirement. Comp is an elective, not a requirement, and while various writing courses exist, none of them are called composition.  There's Academic Writing, Writing in Engineering, Writing in the Sciences, but none of those are required courses. It's a different system than the US.

[Wahoo Redux]

It also overlooks the fact that most American K-12 education is so very, very poor.  American high school grads are often years behind students in other countries when they head to college.

Apparently, some years are a waste of time. Therefore, reduce K-12 to 1-10!

CUNY used to have remedial courses for Reading, Writing, and Math, because of the large influx of students who couldn't read, write, or do math. I'm not sure if these courses are still mandatory as I recall reading about the Reading courses being eliminated, and then the Writing courses because of the impact of these courses on the students' self-esteem.

ETA: Just found this article:

CUNY Ends Traditional Remedial Courses
January 12, 2023

University Finishes 7-Year Phaseout of the Outdated Non-Credit Bearing Remedial Courses
Now Offers Targeted Students Corequisite Support in First-Year Math and English Classes

Riotous! The article states that the non-credit remedial courses are being replaced by for credit co-requisite courses.

Nobody is being done a favor here, except perhaps the administrators.

I did research on this a few years ago and found that students one level below first-year composition did better in writing-intensive content courses than in remedial English. "Drill and kill" isn't as effective for adult students as is learning in context, reading well-written prose, and caring about what you are writing about.

Great! Do it in High School.

Our high schools really are not set up to provide good mentorship.  My hat's off to high school teachers who are expected to do a great deal with very limited resources and parents and school boards breathing down their necks.  We used to have this discussion with Polly all the time.

If you want that kind of teaching in secondary ed, we will need to spend a great deal more money on it and delegate that money evenly in all communities.

I'd say that it is much more likely that we'll revive funding for higher ed before we balloon funding for K-12.

As Polly would say, "No magical thinking."

[Hibush]

One interesting angle on this is second degrees. Getting a second degree, (not a graduate degree, a second Bachelor's degree), usually doesn't require an additional 4 years, since the electives are kind of transferable.

Presumably, in the limit as (number of degrees) goes to infinity, the number of "additional" courses required will be just the required courses for the major itself.

Oh, what an evil thought! That would just be another way of fueling the higher education arms race.

I doubt that is the intention of whoever is trying to get permission to offer the degree and market it as a substitute for a Bachelors, not a complement for a Bachelor's.

As I said, quality depends on what's in there. Take England: Three year degree focusing on a single subject. Sounds pleasing to me. Even having half a melange of the usual suspects in a US three year degree would at least save money. But it also depends on the subject. I can't imagine an engineering degree lasting only three years. One's bridges would collapse.

The three year post-bac, then the two-year post-post-bac, and so forth until you have micro- and nano- and femto-degrees. While the time to degree (and tuition) keeps getting smaller, the students never leave and never stop paying tuition. It's genius! Marketers know this model well, so persuading parents and student to keep paying uses a familiar game plan.

[dismalist]

One interesting angle on this is second degrees. Getting a second degree, (not a graduate degree, a second Bachelor's degree), usually doesn't require an additional 4 years, since the electives are kind of transferable.

Presumably, in the limit as (number of degrees) goes to infinity, the number of "additional" courses required will be just the required courses for the major itself.

Oh, what an evil thought! That would just be another way of fueling the higher education arms race.

I doubt that is the intention of whoever is trying to get permission to offer the degree and market it as a substitute for a Bachelors, not a complement for a Bachelor's.

As I said, quality depends on what's in there. Take England: Three year degree focusing on a single subject. Sounds pleasing to me. Even having half a melange of the usual suspects in a US three year degree would at least save money. But it also depends on the subject. I can't imagine an engineering degree lasting only three years. One's bridges would collapse.

The three year post-bac, then the two-year post-post-bac, and so forth until you have micro- and nano- and femto-degrees. While the time to degree (and tuition) keeps getting smaller, the students never leave and never stop paying tuition. It's genius! Marketers know this model well, so persuading parents and student to keep paying uses a familiar game plan.

That can't be true. If it were, four year colleges would not protest the allowing of three year degrees. Rather, they'd be first in the queue to start their own. Called self-interest.

No, this is a substitute for a four year degree, not a complement.

[Wahoo Redux]

I was shocked by this: "Last summer, another panel — this one the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities, a regional accreditor — approved a plan by a pair of four-year colleges in Idaho to offer bachelor's degrees consisting of just 90 credits, 30 fewer than normal."

How low can we go?

https://www.chronicle.com/article/race-to-the-finish

America wants cheaper, easier, and faster bachelor's.

Even professional academics on The Fora question the need for whole disciplines in education.

Idaho is one big Trumpy resentment made manifest. 

Nothing in this story is surprising.

And maybe it is time for this to happen.  Just teach kids the basics of their business degrees and send them on their way.  Send the real intellectuals to the Ivies which will have no trouble filling up 4-year degrees.

[Langue_doc]

It also overlooks the fact that most American K-12 education is so very, very poor.  American high school grads are often years behind students in other countries when they head to college.

Apparently, some years are a waste of time. Therefore, reduce K-12 to 1-10!

CUNY used to have remedial courses for Reading, Writing, and Math, because of the large influx of students who couldn't read, write, or do math. I'm not sure if these courses are still mandatory as I recall reading about the Reading courses being eliminated, and then the Writing courses because of the impact of these courses on the students' self-esteem.

ETA: Just found this article:

CUNY Ends Traditional Remedial Courses
January 12, 2023

University Finishes 7-Year Phaseout of the Outdated Non-Credit Bearing Remedial Courses
Now Offers Targeted Students Corequisite Support in First-Year Math and English Classes

Riotous! The article states that the non-credit remedial courses are being replaced by for credit co-requisite courses.

Nobody is being done a favor here, except perhaps the administrators.

I did research on this a few years ago and found that students one level below first-year composition did better in writing-intensive content courses than in remedial English. "Drill and kill" isn't as effective for adult students as is learning in context, reading well-written prose, and caring about what you are writing about.

Talk to people who've taught remedial courses for several years and have also taught ENG 101 courses in the city who will tell you that for any kind of learning, students need to know the basics--sentence structure, grammar, basic vocabulary--in order to benefit from context-based courses. As for well-written prose, even students in non-CUNY intro courses don't know how to recognize, let alone appreciate it. These are native speakers of American English! I teach writing, as do most of my colleagues, and speak from experience. I used to score ACT essays for CUNY (you didn't need to be CUNY faculty to do so) before CUNY transitioned to the CUNY written essay tests, and found it rather depressing, because these were essays written by students who had graduated from high school. I understand that standards have fallen and continue to fall since then.

The schools, unfortunately, cannot do much about teaching students to read and write because of time constraints. I learned from my students one year that the English teacher has consecutive classes all day with at least 25 students in each class, so grading/commenting on any kind of writtten work is not feasible. The first time some of these students get practical feedback on their writing is in college, especially in remedial courses for students who were passed through the school system without being taught to write a simple correct sentence.

[Wahoo Redux]

The schools, unfortunately, cannot do much about teaching students to read and write because of time constraints. I learned from my students one year that the English teacher has consecutive classes all day with at least 25 students in each class, so grading/commenting on any kind of writtten work is not feasible. The first time some of these students get practical feedback on their writing is in college, especially in remedial courses for students who were passed through the school system without being taught to write a simple correct sentence.

And there you go.

[dismalist]

...
Talk to people who've taught remedial courses for several years and have also taught ENG 101 courses in the city who will tell you that for any kind of learning, students need to know the basics--sentence structure, grammar, basic vocabulary--in order to benefit from context-based courses. As for well-written prose, even students in non-CUNY intro courses don't know how to recognize, let alone appreciate it. These are native speakers of American English! I teach writing, as do most of my colleagues, and speak from experience. I used to score ACT essays for CUNY (you didn't need to be CUNY faculty to do so) before CUNY transitioned to the CUNY written essay tests, and found it rather depressing, because these were essays written by students who had graduated from high school. I understand that standards have fallen and continue to fall since then.

The schools, unfortunately, cannot do much about teaching students to read and write because of time constraints. I learned from my students one year that the English teacher has consecutive classes all day with at least 25 students in each class, so grading/commenting on any kind of writtten work is not feasible. The first time some of these students get practical feedback on their writing is in college, especially in remedial courses for students who were passed through the school system without being taught to write a simple correct sentence.

I sympathize.

But broader questions are:

--Why can't kids write after 12 years in school?
--If they can't, why are they in college?

The relevant kids are likely bored out of their minds and might be better off doing some kind of hands on training instead of college. As for the writing part, if schools fail at something, shorten its duration! Failure would be less costly in time and money.

When I was a kid in New York city about a billion years ago, there were three types of High School, vocational, commercial, and academic. [I don't know what the criteria were for matching kids with schools.] That seems a lot more useful to the kids than what we have now. I'm guessing that in a commercial High School one could do a lot of what's in a college Business degree. :-)

[Wahoo Redux]

I sympathize.

But broader questions are:

--Why can't kids write after 12 years in school?
--If they can't, why are they in college?

The first college composition class was held either in 1874 or in 1885, depending on how you read their catalogue, at Harvard. 

The stated aim was to work as a placeholder until local high schools could bring their teaching up to snuff. 

I think I may have found the article that takes a historical purview of college composition, but I am going to a concert this evening so will review it tomorrow.

The point of the article, if it is the one I am thinking of which I read some time ago, is that academics have always thought college freshmen and sophomores are undertrained.  Always.  Plato was apparently frequently disgusted with his students.

Writing well is not easy.  This is something that those of us who teach English or run writing centers try to hammer back at faculty----it seems like it should be an easy skill to master, but it is not.  It is like acting or playing a musical instrument; some people are naturally gifted, but they are rare.  Most of us have to work very hard to play Beethoven, and only the best play Tchaikovsky; Shakespeare sounds idiotic in most people's mouths, even when they are trained thespians.

Bigger point being: 18 and 19 year olds have never written well even if we think they should. 

[ciao_yall]

...
Talk to people who've taught remedial courses for several years and have also taught ENG 101 courses in the city who will tell you that for any kind of learning, students need to know the basics--sentence structure, grammar, basic vocabulary--in order to benefit from context-based courses. As for well-written prose, even students in non-CUNY intro courses don't know how to recognize, let alone appreciate it. These are native speakers of American English! I teach writing, as do most of my colleagues, and speak from experience. I used to score ACT essays for CUNY (you didn't need to be CUNY faculty to do so) before CUNY transitioned to the CUNY written essay tests, and found it rather depressing, because these were essays written by students who had graduated from high school. I understand that standards have fallen and continue to fall since then.

The schools, unfortunately, cannot do much about teaching students to read and write because of time constraints. I learned from my students one year that the English teacher has consecutive classes all day with at least 25 students in each class, so grading/commenting on any kind of writtten work is not feasible. The first time some of these students get practical feedback on their writing is in college, especially in remedial courses for students who were passed through the school system without being taught to write a simple correct sentence.

I sympathize.

But broader questions are:

--Why can't kids write after 12 years in school?
--If they can't, why are they in college?

The relevant kids are likely bored out of their minds and might be better off doing some kind of hands on training instead of college. As for the writing part, if schools fail at something, shorten its duration! Failure would be less costly in time and money.

When I was a kid in New York city about a billion years ago, there were three types of High School, vocational, commercial, and academic. [I don't know what the criteria were for matching kids with schools.] That seems a lot more useful to the kids than what we have now. I'm guessing that in a commercial High School one could do a lot of what's in a college Business degree. :-)

Household income.

The research also shows that corequisite courses with a mainstream FY comp class are far more effective than strictly remedial classes. Mainly because students may need remediation for a lot of reasons, and they are more likely to identify and focus on their key issues than if they are in a broad-brush fix-everything class. Half is stuff they already know so it's a waste of time. Half is stuff they need to work on, but they don't have time because of the other half.

[dismalist]

...
Talk to people who've taught remedial courses for several years and have also taught ENG 101 courses in the city who will tell you that for any kind of learning, students need to know the basics--sentence structure, grammar, basic vocabulary--in order to benefit from context-based courses. As for well-written prose, even students in non-CUNY intro courses don't know how to recognize, let alone appreciate it. These are native speakers of American English! I teach writing, as do most of my colleagues, and speak from experience. I used to score ACT essays for CUNY (you didn't need to be CUNY faculty to do so) before CUNY transitioned to the CUNY written essay tests, and found it rather depressing, because these were essays written by students who had graduated from high school. I understand that standards have fallen and continue to fall since then.

The schools, unfortunately, cannot do much about teaching students to read and write because of time constraints. I learned from my students one year that the English teacher has consecutive classes all day with at least 25 students in each class, so grading/commenting on any kind of writtten work is not feasible. The first time some of these students get practical feedback on their writing is in college, especially in remedial courses for students who were passed through the school system without being taught to write a simple correct sentence.

I sympathize.

But broader questions are:

--Why can't kids write after 12 years in school?
--If they can't, why are they in college?

The relevant kids are likely bored out of their minds and might be better off doing some kind of hands on training instead of college. As for the writing part, if schools fail at something, shorten its duration! Failure would be less costly in time and money.

When I was a kid in New York city about a billion years ago, there were three types of High School, vocational, commercial, and academic. [I don't know what the criteria were for matching kids with schools.] That seems a lot more useful to the kids than what we have now. I'm guessing that in a commercial High School one could do a lot of what's in a college Business degree. :-)

Household income.

The research also shows that corequisite courses with a mainstream FY comp class are far more effective than strictly remedial classes. Mainly because students may need remediation for a lot of reasons, and they are more likely to identify and focus on their key issues than if they are in a broad-brush fix-everything class. Half is stuff they already know so it's a waste of time. Half is stuff they need to work on, but they don't have time because of the other half.

Household income is certainly wrong. The assertion confuses correlation with causation. :-)

I have nothing against better ways of doing things. My question is why do it at all. If things are failing it might be best to close it down and search for alternatives rather than improvements.

If my Safeway store is selling rotten meat and sour milk, it's best to close it down. That's even been done with a hospital in DC where it was realized it wasn't going to get its act together.

Commercial High School instead of MBA! :-)

[Hegemony]

The funding model for K-12 is a big part of the problem — basing it on the local property taxes. I went to a very bad high school in a poor neighborhood. The school had almost no resources. The pay was pitiful. Of course most of the teachers were the kind who couldn't get a job in a better school district. (Along with a few noble souls trying for the greater good.) Crumbling building, ancient books and not enough for each class, students who often came from poverty-stricken and chaotic homes, violence in the neighborhood that made students inclined to stay home so they wouldn't get beaten up on the way in, bad teachers with large classes — why would anyone think this school would produce upwardly mobile successful students? As I have mentioned before, a kid in my math class sold drugs — in class — to the teacher. I was one of the very few who got out and up, and that was because my parents were affluent middle-class professionals who just happened to build a house in a bad neighborhood. The people from struggling families hardly stood a chance in that school.

[dismalist]

The funding model for K-12 is a big part of the problem — basing it on the local property taxes. I went to a very bad high school in a poor neighborhood. The school had almost no resources. The pay was pitiful. Of course most of the teachers were the kind who couldn't get a job in a better school district. (Along with a few noble souls trying for the greater good.) Crumbling building, ancient books and not enough for each class, students who often came from poverty-stricken and chaotic homes, violence in the neighborhood that made students inclined to stay home so they wouldn't get beaten up on the way in, bad teachers with large classes — why would anyone think this school would produce upwardly mobile successful students? As I have mentioned before, a kid in my math class sold drugs — in class — to the teacher. I was one of the very few who got out and up, and that was because my parents were affluent middle-class professionals who just happened to build a house in a bad neighborhood. The people from struggling families hardly stood a chance in that school.

That funding source is largely over. Within States, expenditures per pupil tend to be equalized. In addition, there are federal money injections aimed at poor neighborhoods. Expenditures per pupil in Boston, New York City, Chicago, DC, LA and Atlanta are the highest.

There is a body of research that says additional expenditure doesn't matter for outcomes. Other research says the opposite.

NYC spends over $31K per pupil, or over three quarters of a million dollars per class of 25 per year. How much do you want?

[ciao_yall]

The funding model for K-12 is a big part of the problem — basing it on the local property taxes. I went to a very bad high school in a poor neighborhood. The school had almost no resources. The pay was pitiful. Of course most of the teachers were the kind who couldn't get a job in a better school district. (Along with a few noble souls trying for the greater good.) Crumbling building, ancient books and not enough for each class, students who often came from poverty-stricken and chaotic homes, violence in the neighborhood that made students inclined to stay home so they wouldn't get beaten up on the way in, bad teachers with large classes — why would anyone think this school would produce upwardly mobile successful students? As I have mentioned before, a kid in my math class sold drugs — in class — to the teacher. I was one of the very few who got out and up, and that was because my parents were affluent middle-class professionals who just happened to build a house in a bad neighborhood. The people from struggling families hardly stood a chance in that school.

That funding source is largely over. Within States, expenditures per pupil tend to be equalized. In addition, there are federal money injections aimed at poor neighborhoods. Expenditures per pupil in Boston, New York City, Chicago, DC, LA and Atlanta are the highest.

In the state where I work, state funding is "equalized." And, schools with more affluent parents sell a lot more gift wrap, cookie dough and high-end silent auction prizes, not to mention additional local taxes they pay towards their schools.

There is a body of research that says additional expenditure doesn't matter for outcomes. Other research says the opposite.

NYC spends over $31K per pupil, or over three quarters of a million dollars per class of 25 per year. How much do you want?

The most expensive private schools in NYC cost over $50K per year. Someone thinks it's worth it to pay teachers, tutors, books, supplies, building repair and maintenance... you name it.

I can't imagine what research methods would find spending per student didn't have an impact on student outcomes.

[Wahoo Redux]

NYC spends over $31K per pupil, or over three quarters of a million dollars per class of 25 per year. How much do you want?

Americans are funny.

They want the results. 

They don't want to pay for them.