Free to Choose

I have been watching these fascinating videos featuring Milton Friedman. The videos begin with a short piece on the economy by Milton Friedman, and then end in a debate on the issues in the Chicago Library. The debates at the end are the most interesting, with Friedman responding to their questions and accusations.

Milton Friedman (July 31, 1912 – November 16, 2006) was an American economist, statistician, academic, and author who taught at the University of Chicago for more than three decades. He was a recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. Among scholars, he is best known for his theoretical and empirical research, especially consumption analysis, monetary history and theory, and for his demonstration of the complexity of stabilization policy.

Part 1: The Power of the Market

Part 2: The Tyranny of Control

Part 3: The Anatomy of a Crisis

Part 4: From the Cradle to the Grave

Part 5: Created Equal

Part 6: What’s Wrong with Our Schools

Part 7: Who Protects the Consumer

Part 8: Who Protects the Worker

Part 9: How to Cure Inflation

Part 10: How to Stay Free

What Americans Keep Ignoring About Finland’s School Success

There is an interesting article about education in the Atlantic about what Americans can learn from Finland. Here is a brief section. I am not sure though how a desire for equity can improve schools.

From his point of view, Americans are consistently obsessed with certain questions: How can you keep track of students’ performance if you don’t test them constantly? How can you improve teaching if you have no accountability for bad teachers or merit pay for good teachers? How do you foster competition and engage the private sector? How do you provide school choice?

The answers Finland provides seem to run counter to just about everything America’s school reformers are trying to do.

For starters, Finland has no standardized tests. The only exception is what’s called the National Matriculation Exam, which everyone takes at the end of a voluntary upper-secondary school, roughly the equivalent of American high school.

Instead, the public school system’s teachers are trained to assess children in classrooms using independent tests they create themselves. All children receive a report card at the end of each semester, but these reports are based on individualized grading by each teacher. Periodically, the Ministry of Education tracks national progress by testing a few sample groups across a range of different schools.

As for accountability of teachers and administrators, Sahlberg shrugs. “There’s no word for accountability in Finnish,” he later told an audience at the Teachers College of Columbia University. “Accountability is something that is left when responsibility has been subtracted.”

For Sahlberg what matters is that in Finland all teachers and administrators are given prestige, decent pay, and a lot of responsibility. A master’s degree is required to enter the profession, and teacher training programs are among the most selective professional schools in the country. If a teacher is bad, it is the principal’s responsibility to notice and deal with it.

More Books to Come!

I am looking forward to picking up some different books when my wife and I go on vacation after I graduate in May. Here are some of the books I am taking with me.

1. How to Write a Sentence, And How to Read One: Stanley Fish
2. Brave New World: Aldous Huxley
3. Academically Adrift: Richard Arum
4. Introducing Theological Interpretation of Scripture: Recovering a Christian Practice: Daniel Treier
5. Paul: Follower of Jesus or Founder of Christianity? David Wenham

Concerning Academically Adrift Joel Willitts has a little summary and thoughts about the book which should be noted.

A number of points have already got me thinking. First, students in college have little to no academic focus. Perhaps you’ve met one of those described as “drifting dreamers”: students with “high ambitions, but no clear life plans for reaching them” (3). These students enter college and are largely “academically adrift”. What was not surprising to me since I have experienced is that despite lacking academic focus college students are not suffering in their classes with lower grades. Why? Because, according to the authors, students have developed “the art of college management”. This skill refers to their ability succeed not by hard work, but by “controlling college schedules, taming professors and limiting workload” (4). Students “preferentially enroll in classes with instructors who grade leniently” (4). At my institution, students vote with their feet. I’ve learned to adjust my course expectations so that I don’t have a great migration after the first week of school. One does not have the luxury to stand on principle and demand rigor, when your classes sizes are monitored and less than 10 is unacceptable.

Second, Arum and Roksa make the point that the academic environment on most college and university campuses does not promote academics as its primary element of culture. Today what is encouraged is athletics, social life, and extra-curricular activities. These say nothing to the fact that many students are now working a heavy part-time job of over 20 hours a week.

Third, a consumeristic approach to education and “credentialism” are two interesting and interrelated points. Students today for a number of cultural reasons view education from a purely consumeristic perspective. This approach is fueled by the idea of credentialism. The assumption is that an education serves as a means of admission to a job or future success. What one needs is a credential to get a job or attain a certain position in the market place; thus, one gets an education purely for this end. With these two assumptions at work it is no wonder that students seek to receive services within an academic institution that “will allow them, as effortlessly and comfortably as possible” attain “valuable educational credentials that can be exchanged for later labor market success” (17).

Fourth, Arum and Roksa suggest that part of the problem with the lack of learning taking place in colleges and universities is that professors are encouraged to care more about their profession than about their students. This was a difficult pill to swallow, but I do think that there is a tendency, at least for me, to want to devote less time preparing lectures, teaching, grading, and advising and more time to scholarly activity.

Academically Adrift

On January 15 a new book called Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses came out.  There is a discussion about its premise at NY Times.