Links for 11/24/10

Doug Lederman

The last two years have seen the emergence of the closest thing in arguably 50 years to a national higher education agenda in the United States.

The convergence around the "college completion agenda" -- put simply, the now widely held view that the country must in the next 10-15 years significantly increase the number of Americans with a quality postsecondary credential -- has been driven by many factors… arguably even more important has been the fact that the country's highest-profile foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the most visible foundation focused primarily on higher education, the Lumina Foundation for Education, have both thrust college completion to the top of their agendas…

Michael S. McPherson, president of the Spencer Foundation, approached the same set of developments, but from the perspective of what he called a "professional skeptic," …

Foundations are "not supposed to be involved in politics," McPherson said… "it is in tension with the original spirit of what foundations are designed to do: go off and do their own thing," he said…
"It can lead to a 'ready, fire, aim' strategy," he said. "We have certainly seen that sometimes they act as if it is 'too urgent for us to stop and think about.' "

McPherson made clear that he was not casting his lot instead with what is often the preferred approach of higher education leaders and researchers (including "ours at Spencer"), when left to their own devices: "The 'ready, aim, aim, aim a little more, recheck your aim, fire' strategy."

Andrew J. Coulson

High school graduates are no better prepared today than they were in previous generations, despite the fact that we’re spending 3 times as much on their K-12 educations…

Perhaps government is not the best source of progress and innovation after all? Perhaps if we want to see progress and innovation in education we should allow it to participate in the free enterprise system that has been responsible for staggering productivity growth in every field not dominated by a government monopoly?

George J. Stigler’s deliciously nihilistic 1973 piece.

“It seems paradoxial beyond endurance to rule that a manufacturer of shampoos may not endanger a student's scalp but a premier educational institution is free to stuff his skull with nonsense."...