“More concerning, say the editors, is that this trend may be a symptom of a growing dysfunction in the biomedical sciences, one that needs to be addressed soon. At the heart of the problem is an economic incentive system fueling a hypercompetitive environment that is fostering poor scientific practices, including frank misconduct. The root of the problem is a lack of sufficient resources to sustain the current enterprise. Too many researchers are competing for too little funding, creating a survival-of-the-fittest, winner-take-all environment where researchers increasingly feel pressure to publish, especially in high-prestige journals.”
Not the best of news, but better for things like this to be brought up internally than be forced upon the discipline from without.
The Making of World-Class Universities, of the Chinese Variety - Commentary - The Chronicle of Higher Education
Very interesting. One thing that caught my attention was this take on incentivizing teaching.
A related innovation has to do with teaching. Those university professors not judged to be good teachers are placed on a research track, which, far from being a reward as in the United States, prevents those assigned to it from achieving the highest rank in their fields. The result is to create good researchers who work hard to become good teachers.
Another thing mentioned were limited tenure contracts, thus enforcing professorial review with potential consequences.
'Trust Us' Won't Cut It Anymore - Commentary - The Chronicle of Higher Education
“Trust us.”
That’s the only answer colleges ever provide when asked how much their students learn.
Sure, they acknowledge, it’s hard for students to find out what material individual courses will cover. So most students choose their courses based on a paragraph in the catalog and whatever secondhand information they can gather.
No, there’s isn’t an independent evaluation process. No standardized tests, no external audits, no publicly available learning evidence of any kind.
Yes, there’s been grade inflation. A-minus is the new C. Granted, faculty have every incentive to neglect their teaching duties while chasing tenure—if they’re lucky enough to be in the chase at all. Meanwhile the steady adjunctification of the professoriate proceeds.
Still, “trust us,” they say: Everyone who walks across our graduation stage has completed a rigorous course of study. We don’t need to systematically evaluate student learning. Indeed, that would violate the academic freedom of our highly trained faculty, each of whom embodies the proud scholarly traditions of this venerable institution.
Now we know that those are lies.
Science by Proxy - Commentary - The Chronicle of Higher Education
TL;DR:
Grant money ties down too many professors; grant process needs to be reformed; do this or have science perish!
Robert J. Samuelson - School reform's meager results
This article is rather pessimistic about education reform. The baseline argument is that due to a desire not not cut students out from a high school education, students have a much lower motivation to actually work at their studies, as they’ll get moved up a grade regardless (almost). This means that most standard education reform measures cannot really work until the students have a motivation to work.
He goes on to analyze the standard education reform calls, ie more students, higher salaries, or more preschool. He cites data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress dating back to 1971/3 and showing that there really hasn’t been much improvement at all. Looking ahead to college freshmen, he cites a professor points out the need for remedial education at the college level, and how prevalent it is.
None of this really disproves the need for reform, but if we keep spending so much money on reforms that are unlikely to display improvements from them when the issue is that students just care less, what’s the point?
