Leadership for the union representing some 6,000 faculty and coaches in the 14 universities in Pennsylvania's State System of Higher Education today [October 20, 2012] unanimously approved a strike authorization vote.
Monday, October 22, 2012
PA university faculty seek OK to strike
According to the PG, State System faculty union leaders approve strike authorization vote
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Fire 'em all!
Who needs these colleges?
Why is this thread at all relevant to Mt. Lebo?
Why is This thread relevant to Mt. Lebanon?
Because a large percentage of MTLSD graduates continue their education at some form of higher education and a large portion go to one of the state colleges.
So Mt. Lebanon parents with kids in middle or high school might want to keep in mind not only the rapidly escalating district's payroll and pension obligation, but also those of the state's universities when they go to the polls in two weeks.
Because the University of Pittsburgh has a policy to openly endorse MtL Lebanon School Board candidates on their letterhead and Pitt faculty are actively engaged in Mt Lebanon politics. What's even more ironic is that they don't even live here!
Why would you live in Mount Lebanon and be satisfied sending your student to one of these substandard schools?
Is that you Raja?
All you Penn State alumni guess 12:52 just told you- you are NOT Mt. Lebanon material.
Get out now, you don't have the right pedigree.
12:52 you'd be doing the community a great service by delivering your declaration publicly at a school board meeting.
Everyone needs to know our superintendent is a product of substandard schools. From the district announcement of his hire: "Dr. Steinhauer holds a Master of Education in Educational Administration and a Doctorate of Education in Educational Administration, both from Pennsylvania State University. He has a Bachelor of Science in Music Education from Indiana University of Pennsylvania."
Thanks for the heads up.
4:14 and 4:38, The article cited in the post did not mention Penn State. The universities mentioned in the article are California, Clarion, Edinboro, Indiana and Slippery Rock. Thanks for playing.
Ah yes 4:46 you are correct, Dr. Steinhauer's BS in Music is his only substandard degree. He'll be glad to hear that.
As will the faculty at the other state universities should the PASSHE go on strike, giving them an incentive to ask for more money.
Is there a break down on the MTLSD staff degrees and schools from which they were acquired?
They won't provide academic track information. Many are graduates of the old state teacher college system mentioned above.
4:14 was talking about Mt Lebanon teachers!
No 4:14 was talking about any current resident or future residents (those offspring of MTL parents) that graduated from or may be currently attending a " substandard" school.
I'm betting a lot of those parents that sent their kids to one of the 14 colleges would love to see their offspring return to MTL to raise the grandkids.
12:52 saw fit to ridicule both the faculties of the 14 state universities, graduates (include some fine MTL teachers) parents and administrators of the "substandard" schools.
Gleaned from an article posted on InsideHighered.com
The Myth of Ivy Advantage
August 22, 2012 - 3:00am
By
Karen Kelsky
Some months back I wrote a column in The Chronicle of Higher Education called "Graduate School is a Means to a Job." The column began with issues a prospective graduate student should consider before entering graduate school at all. I wrote:
"Go to the highest-ranked graduate department you can get into — so long as it funds you fully….. [But] never assume that the elite, Ivy League departments are the highest-ranked or have the best placement rates. Some of the worst-prepared job candidates with whom I've worked have been from humanities departments at Yale, Harvard, and Princeton. Do not be dazzled by abstract institutional reputations. Ask steely-eyed questions about individual advisers and their actual (not illusory) placement rates in recent years."
Too bad we've veered off the original topic though, the rising cost of education.
Correct, the rising cost of education that has come about from big union democrats who employed and organized their liberal friends precisely for the reasons cited by 10:56pm - nobody else wanted them; and so they live like a parasite on the host ( the taxpayer) inside of a body like the Mt Lebanon School District!
-and we get the bill!
We get the bill because Matt Smith votes for it.
At one time the cost to attend a state college was less than an equivalent private school - but that is not always true today. It certainly wasn't true for my three daughters, all of whom took degrees from Geneva College in Beaver Falls.
As someone who taught in a post-secondary institute, I watched the college dynamic change over the years. In the 1960's there were literally tons of college applicants directly out of high school (baby boom, remember), even though the number of high school students going directly to college was smaller as a class percentage than it is today (again, think "baby boom"). There were also fewer colleges and universities than there are today. Standards were high and the completion rate was not an issue (remember "Look to your left - look to your right - one of you won't be here next year!"). Today the number of kids coming out of high school is a fraction of what it was in the '60's, and in many cases they are not nearly as well prepared. But colleges dropped their standards (and raised their prices) to attract more kids. They also reformatted their programs to attract adult students - not a bad thing in itself.
The student loan program has also had an unanticipated consequence in driving up prices. Colleges know that there are guaranteed funds out there and have allowed their internal expenses to rise without fear of "bending" the bottom line. And because "a kid in the seat is a buck in the bank," as one college administrator once told me, colleges have an incentive to push marginal students through the program to keep the revenue flowing. The Feds put pressure on in this area as well by reviewing graduations rates (although they do this more for private, technical schools than they do for public colleges).
I told each of my girls that there is a difference between training and education. You get training for a job; you get education for yourself. Training makes you fit to make a living; education makes you a better person. Fortunately, today, due to many extremely good distance learning opportunities - some of which are FREE, a person has greater access to both training and education than at any time in our nation's history.
Higher education can be an emotional issues, especially for parents. The faculty at our state's colleges certainly know this, and count on it to a certain extent in order to help raise their compensation. Lost in the process is whether a kid really wants to go to college, and his parents' insistence that he or she must. Often these kids end up with a BA in the easiest subject the kid can handle. That would be OK - if that is what the kid wants - but it's of dubious value if the kid actually wanted to be an electrician. Speaking of which, next time you need some wiring done in your home try calling a BA in Music.
Correction: "..by reviewing graduation rates.."
I want to build on Richard's points. Personally, I would like to see synchronization, integration, and collaboration between Pennsylvania Economic policy and Pennsylvania Eductional policy.
All of our schools, including our public high school system needs to be aligned with the long-term planning of our state economic policy. Our schools need a focused mission and a clearly defined role of educating residents for the jobs and needs of the economy over the next 3-10 years.
Useless subjects like: art, athletics, humanities, philosophy, greek and roman history, etc add little value to the economic output of our state.
We need to train people for tech, energy and a revitalized manufacturing economy.
In fact, we could probably drop 25% of the staff in the Mt Lebanon School District without seeing any significant change in either the quality of education, or the usefulness of what the kids learn.
Give the taxpayers a break!
In fact, I also want to add the social activities like the school dances, boat rides and whatever else our hard earned money is being wasted on to my list of useless and wasteful activities.
I'm sorry to disagree Mr. Kendrick. I believe our k-12 schools do not expose our youth to enough philosophy or art.
“I cannot teach anybody anything. I can only make them think” ― Socrates
Yes, we can expose our kids to 2+2=4, show them how to plug in a computer and press the on button. Even how to use a hammer.
But is that all there is to creativity and productivity?
Mr. Kendrick, perhaps Steve Jobs explains my position better.
"And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example: Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn’t have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can’t capture, and I found it fascinating.
None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later."
I'm not impressed. I've always felt that Steve Jobs, Michael Dell and Bill Gates were fortunate to surround themselves with educated people that could translate their visions into reality.
Each could have done even more if they had pursued their education to completion.
Before anyone mentions Bill Gates, let me remind everyone that his Harvard degree wasn't earned like everyone else.
Mr. Kendrick, not trying to be a smart-aleck, but could you enlighten us as to what more Mr. Jobs, Gates or Dell need(ed) to achieve to impress you?
Mr. Jobs impressed me, working from his parents garage he (despite Mr. Obama's claim to entrepreneurs that they didn't build it) he launched a company that indeed changed the world.
But again, I'm still wondering how this sidetrack has any relevance in the discussion of the rising cost of higher education. If you put college out of the reach for many and if they do go, saddle graduates with mountains of debt, where will the next Macintosh innovation come from?
How about this example on the creation of FedEx:
"While attending Yale University, Fred Smith wrote a paper on the need for reliable overnight delivery in a computerized information age. His professor found the premise improbable, and to the best of Smith's recollection, he only received a grade of C for this effort, but the idea remained with him."
No, I'm not suggesting everyone drop out of college or not strive to get into the best school possible.
Smith, Jobs, Gates, Dell are exceptions. My only point was in counter to Mr. Kendrick's suggestion to eliminate the arts, humanities, philosophy and athletics from K-12 education.
One never knows where inspiration will come from.
Here's an interesting thought on philosophy.
Oh, the Thinks You Can Think!
Author: Dr. Seuss
Publisher: Random House Books for Young Readers
Summary
"Contains one of Dr. Seuss's solid-gold morals, the joy of letting one's imagination rip."--The New York Times.
"Guidelines for Philosophical Discussion
by Nathaniel Mahlberg
Reading “Oh the Thinks you can Think” by Dr. Seuss with elementary school children would be a lively way to inspire a conversation among the students about puzzling philosophical matters such as the nature of thought, imagination, reality, art, and representation, as well as issues of possibility and conceivability."
Personally Mr. Kendrick, I believe there isn't enough time spent on philosophy and ethics in public education. Possibly, because teachers are ill-prepared to deal with it and more concerned with SAT and PSSA test results.
Just one individuals opinion.
Interesting article in the Wall Street Journal today, Mr. Kendrick. It appears at least one person shares my opinion and the paper found it important enough to print.
How to Avoid a Bonfire of the Humanities by Michael S. Malone
He writes: "Could the humanities rebuild the shattered bridge between C.P. Snow's "two cultures" and find a place at the heart of the modern world's virtual institutions? We assume that this will be a century of technology. But if the competition in tech moves to this new battlefield, the edge will go to those institutions that can effectively employ imagination, metaphor, and most of all, storytelling. And not just creative writing, but every discipline in the humanities, from the classics to rhetoric to philosophy. Twenty-first-century storytelling: multimedia, mass customizable, portable and scalable, drawing upon the myths and archetypes of the ancient world, on ethics, and upon a deep understanding of human nature and even religious faith."
Here's the link - http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444799904578048230286503390.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
Sorry Elaine, gone way off the initial topic.
A four-year degree is neither sufficient nor necessary for an individual to become an educated, productive, and responsible member of society. We all know someone who displays these attributes who does not have a degree and is considered “exceptional.” But it wasn’t until recently, say since 1960, that a college degree became socially mandated for all – and its absence a cause for condolences.
Today we frequently read about well-known individuals in business, academia or politics who had felt it necessary to fabricate a degree for their resumes in order to get ahead - and who, late in life, come to grief for their sins.
Degree Not Needed. But fabrication need not always be necessary. Read the remarkable obituary of the recently-deceased Stanford Ovshinsky, founder of a new field of physics, the electronics of amorphous materials.
Despite the fact that Ovshinsky had no college degree at all, his ideas and discoveries led to thin film technology, flat screen TVs and over 400 patents. A former chairman of the University of Chicago’s department of physics praised him with the words, “nobody in the past 50-60 years has created such a revolution in science.”
Ovshinsky was born in Akron, Ohio where he graduated from high school. He was fascinated by science and educated himself far beyond the high school curriculum, thanks to a good public library. His first job as a machinist in the rubber industry. In his spare time he studied computers and neurophysiology. He began to develop (and patent) sophisticated equipment for the automotive industry. He eventually founded his own company Energy Conversion Devices to commercialize his inventiveness.
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