Arum on NPR cites lack of rigor at American colleges

Richard Arum of New York University, interviewed on National Public Radio, on the lack of academic rigor at American college campuses.
Her is the link to the audio archive file at NPR's site.

Arum emphasized the need for students to apply themselves. He cited studies showing that students did very little homework and avoided courses that required writing long papers. Students apply themselves? I thought that teachers'/instructors' jobs was to entertain students. Someone send the memo to college and school administrators!

Arum also negatively cited the practice of evaluating instructors by relying on student evaluations of teachers. Positive student evaluations college instructors are inevitably correlated with the grade that they anticipate receiving and their sense that the instructor is entertaining, rather than boring. Any wonder that there is grade inflation.

Vocational Schools Work Better, Report Says

BETTER FUNCTIONING VOCATIONAL SCHOOLS; TREND OF POOR SCHOOL ADMINISTRATOR INTEGRITY; MOTHERS CALLING FOR END TO EMPTY CREDITS (NO MORE LETTING THEM EAT EMPTY CREDITS)

"The New York Sun," that Gilded Age newspaper, reincarnated briefly in the 2000s, ran this story: Vocational Schools Work Better, Report Says

Ridiculously, policy makers in the New York City Department of Education have pursued an idea that all students are ready and interested in going to college. Yet this is an inappropriate policy, if one is familiar with many of the city's students. Nonetheless, the city has been closing, or attempting to close vocational education schools, witness the city's attempts to close Maxwell Vocational High School in East New York.
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The scandal of empty credits, given in credit recovery programs, came most glaringly to light in the Bronx high school publicized this week in "the New York Times:"
"City Opens Inquiry on Grading Practices at a Top Rated Public School."

Phony credits for phony work: this is the Bloomberg/Klein legacy.
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Thankfully, some Brooklyn mothers are protesting the empty credits plague in the city:

"The Empty Credit Problem"

Brooklyn Young Mothers’ Collective has spent the past year researching empty credits and advocating for policies that will back the accumulation of credits with adequate knowledge. We have found that while doling out empty credits may expedite a students’ high school graduation, it is likely to exacerbate his or her lack of college readiness. This issue is not isolated to the Theater Arts Production Company School, but pervades many schools in New York City, especially alternative schools that cater to over-aged, under-credited students. As many pregnant and parenting students attend these schools, this problem especially impacts the students with whom we work.

Read their post for more of their article.

Dumbed down uniform manufacturer defends misspelt jersey

Alas, it's part of the dumbing down of our society.

A Washington, D.C. basketball team, the Rough Riders, of Theodore Roosevelt High School, named for the Progressive Era president Theodore Roosevelt, contracted to buy some jerseys for a boys' team.

Unfortunately, as Yahoo Sports reports, the uniform manufacturer misspelt the jersey as the "Ryders." Shamefully, the manufacturer defended the misspelling as "the cool way" to spell jersey.