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Stop all the clocks. Cut off the telephone. Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone. For the UK’s University lecturers are going on strike. On Wednesday. Put it in your diary. It’s a catastrophe.
If anybody notices, of course.
“We’ve got the support of the students,” said one earnest lecturer, on the radio this morning. From what I remember of my own ear-ringed, combat-trousered, drunken oblivion, in academia, I used to just love lecturers going on strike. It was simply great for extending hangover recovery times. And with Wednesday being a traditional sports day, within British Universities, the lecturers, I presume, will only be sacrificing about three hours pay, from their 10am coffee break, which starts the morning, to the 1pm finish time, which ends their arduous half-working day.
So brave of them. Don’t ya think? → Continue reading: Bringing down the ivory tower
This is quite a little story, and with my libertarian stirrer hat on I say that the more it gets around the better, because the more it will draw attention to the existence of the libertarian journal Liberty, and of the libertarian movement generally. And when a little story gets written about in the New York Times, I guess that makes it not such a little story:
ALPINE, Tex., Feb. 16 — The first indication that Dr. Larry J. Sechrest’s neighbors and students had read his article titled “A Strange Little Town in Texas” was when he began receiving death threats and obscene phone calls and his house was vandalized.
The article by Dr. Sechrest, an economics professor at Sul Ross State University, was published in the January issue of Liberty, a small libertarian magazine with a circulation of about 10,000 and only two local subscribers, one of whom is Dr. Sechrest. But it was weeks before people heard about it in remote Alpine, which is three hours from the closest Barnes & Noble, in Midland, Tex.
The article lauded the beauty of West Texas, the pleasant climate, the friendliness and tolerance of the locals. But Dr. Sechrest, who has a Ph.D. in business administration from the University of Texas, also contended that “the students at Sul Ross, and more generally, the long-term residents of the entire area, are appallingly ignorant, irrational, anti-intellectual, and, well, … just plain stupid.”
Well, death threats and obscene phone calls does sound pretty plain stupid to me, so although Sechrest may regret his candour, he has nothing to apologise for.
Sadly, Liberty seems to be one of those paper publications which is reluctant to give all its writings away on the Internet until several years have passed (which you can understand), so the actual article by Larry Secrest that caused all the fuss is not linkable to. But in addition addition to the NYT piece linked to above, there’s also this from the Desert-Mountain Times:
Sechrest said he regretted publishing parts of the article that have caused such a strong reaction in the community.
“I thought there were two libertarians in the community,” he said. “If that’s true, I thought, ‘Who will ever see it’ – it never crossed my mind it would cause such an uproar. If I knew the reaction it would cause, would I have done it? Of course not.”
Ah, but the libertarian movement is bigger and more pervasive than you think!
The New York Times piece ends on a positive note:
Last week Dr. Sechrest said he had begun to receive more positive e-mail and phone calls. He noted in particular an e-mail message from a former student.
“As I read your article I found myself laughing out loud and saying things like ‘amen’ and ‘true,’ ” the former student wrote. “At the same time I felt somewhat guilty because it really did offend people I really care about. There’s no denying these are legitimate concerns. The lack of interest in anything beyond Brewster County lines also baffled me.”
The student added, “It is my sincere hope that all involved can extract what is true and good from your article, and get over the rest.”
The message was signed, “A former clod.”
Maybe getting a not unsympathetic write-up in the New York Times will stir Alpine into being less cloddish, and Sul Ross State University into improving its standards. It certainly sounds as if that could be the longer term outcome. Maybe Sechrest has done the whole area a favour, in other words. If he has, it would not be the first time in human history that criticism was met first with anger, but then with a resolve by the people criticised to do better in the future.
There was a nice little post yesterday at Daryl Cobranchi’s homeschooling blog:
A teacher’s union official has said that g-school teachers are incompetent. I’m sure she didn’t mean to but it is the only logical conclusion.
1. Teachers are underpaid (according to the union official)
2. “If you don’t pay competitive salaries, we’re never going to get competent teachers.”
Therefore, the current teachers must be incompetent. Q.E.D.
Cruel, but correct.
Almost everywhere I turn I hear bad news and horror stories about youth and education. Based on that I was quite surprised by this paragraph in a DOD press release:
These reference group scores are called norms. The current ASVAB norms were developed in 1980, and no longer accurately reflect the aptitude of today’s youth. Over the past 20 years, aptitude levels in the United States have increased. Scores on educational achievement tests such as the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) are up; high school and college attendance rates have increased; youth demographics have shifted; and the country has experienced an explosion in technology development and application. Consequently, the 1980 norms are no longer representative of American youth.
It must be the computer games.
I think it is at least plausible to propose that a vast swathe of bad ideas and damaging policies are borne on the wings not of malevolence or even stupidity, but simply economic illiteracy: a fundamental failure to grasp how money actually works.
If that is the case, then this kind of thing is encouraging:
Personal finance education looks set to become a regular part of school life, following a series of successful pilot schemes across the country.
The charity the Personal Finance Education Group (Pfeg) has been working with teachers to help them provide extra-curricular lessons covering everything from straightforward budgeting to calculating interest and getting a good deal on a mobile phone.
One teacher said: “I think it will broaden their horizons; they will certainly have a better understanding of how to manage money. I think they’ll also have a better understanding of the taxation system and why you pay tax.”
However, enthusiasm should be tempered by the possibility that the subject is not being taught very well or, worse, that the whole thing is the project of ghastly statists who want to use this as a means of driving home pro-tax propaganda to a new generation.
But, those caveats aside, this could be welcome because even if it transpires that this is really all part of a lefty ‘get-them-while-their-young’ programme, the effect might be to start prodding young brain cells in directions that their teachers never intended them to go.
Peter Briffa catches Polly Toynbee talking sense:
The middle classes, who benefit most, might have preferred an earmarked income tax rise to extra university fees.
The government replies that 80% of taxpayers never went to university, so why should they pay too? Besides, if taxes rose, there are better spending priorities. Why should the 50% with too few opportunities fork out for the lucky ones? That’s very nearly a good enough answer – but it raises key questions, too.
For that is not social democratic thinking: on that basis, why should those without children pay for schools? Or those without cars pay for roads? Or the great majority who never use trains pay for the 4% who commute by rail? Or those outside London contribute �1bn a year to the tube? Or southerners pay for the Angel of the North, while ballet-haters pay for Covent Garden? And why should the majority pay for social housing or tax credits they will never use?
Once you start to question who should pay for what, the idea of national collective provision crumbles. Where is the line in the sand? Where does it stop? Is there really something about universities that is clearly, qualitatively different to any of the above? You might just argue that there is a stronger personal financial gain to be had from a degree which justifies a personal contribution. But the same case might be made for why the suburban commuter should pay the full cost of his train, paying for his pleasure at living somewhere salubrious. �
Very good! PT of course intends that all these very good questions should be answered with:yes. Yes, southerners should pay for the northern angel, yes ballet-haters should pay for ballet, etc. And yes, higher education despisers should pay for other people’s higher education. But for once, I like the cut of her jib. Asks Briffa mischievously: Is the penny finally dropping for La Toynbee? No of course not. She is incorrigible. But might not some of her readers find their brain cells being prodded into unfamiliar directions by all this flagrant logic.
This spasm of Toybee sanity reminds me of when people say that I should oppose some little government tyranny not for being tyrannical (that being perhaps too difficult or unpopular to do effectively), but for being inconsistent with some other not-so-tyrannical arrangement. Beware of asking for consistency in such circumstances, I reply, you just might get it, in the form of consistent tyranny. Toynbee starts by arguing for consistency and immediately finds herself sounding for the duration of her point like the purest sort of libertarian.
Heh.
Education experts are apparently flocking to Belfast. Baaaaaaaaaaaaaa humbug.
The pre-report linked to above includes an intriguing titbit:
Prof Brighouse is expected to recommend that schools and parents of pupils who perform worst in tests should receive extra Government money.
In his speech this afternoon, he will propose a financial incentive for schools to take on poorer performing students.
That could have some interesting incentive effects.
At first it reads like bad news:
China not to pursue profit-oriented education: official
BEIJING, Jan. 6 (Xinhuanet) — Chinese education minister said here Tuesday that China will not place profit-gaining capability as the primary par for education.
At a press conference organized by the State Council Information Office, Minister Zhou Ji said that education is basically a cause for social benefits.
Governmental encouragement of private investment into education does not mean gaining economic returns is the priority for schools, said Zhou, adding that more private funds could alleviate burdens of the government for financing education.
Meanwhile, China welcomes overseas partners who are able to provide quality education service to the Chinese.
A newly adopted law stipulates that private schools are legally equal to their public counterparts.
Statistics show that by the end of 2002, about 61,200 privately-funded schools enrolled more than 11 million students. A total of 712 programs were jointly carried out by Chinese and overseas educators, nine times that of seven years before.
“Profits pursuit in education might endanger equal rights of education for every Chinese citizen,” Zhou said.
What’s going on here? My take: the Chinese government knows it has to have great gobs of education if it is to race ahead economically like it wants to. But (just like India) it can’t afford to supply this entirely out of its tax revenue. So it is going to encourage private sector, profit-oriented education. But won’t encouraging profit-oriented education encourage profit-orientation? No, says the government. We won’t be encouraging profit-oriented profit-oriented education, only non-profit-oriented profit-oriented education. So there.
And the shorter version of the above reads: never believe anything until it is officially denied. In China, as in so many places, “official” is another word for “not”.
The point here is not the answer, which is contradictory waffle. The point is the question, which is: how about all this private sector education? How about it indeed.
I am increasingly starting to believe – and I seem to recall (quick phone call) our own David Carr hinting here not so long ago at something similar – that the next great challenge to statism and statist economic policies may come not from the likes of us, but from the East.
My day has been deranged by the discovery, which I made at about 4 pm, that Simon Schama’s televised History of Britain has been shown and is still being shown continuously on UK History (one of the free digital channels) throughout the day, from 7 am until 1 am tomorrow morning. I’ve been dipping into it ever since I found out about this, having only caught bits of it when it was on one of the bigger channels first time around.
Most of the historical personalities mentioned by Schama were reasonably familiar to me. I know who Elizabeth I was, and when. I know who Thomas Cromwell, Tom Paine, William Wordsworth were, approximately speaking. But one name, in the the episode about the Victorian age, was entirely new to me: Mary Seacole:
Mary Seacole, the “black Florence Nightingale” was once one of the best-known women in England. She was a Caribbean doctress who had travelled widely, and was able to put her skills to good use in the Crimean War. Denied the opportunity to work with Nightingale, she travelled there on her own to minister to wounded British soldiers. Thousands of them remembered her with gratitude and affection.
That’s her. That’s definitely who Schama was talking about. Denied an official nursing position, she simply went out to the Crimea on her own initiative, and got to work, feeding the soldiers before they went into action in the ‘hotel’ she somehow contrived to have built (I think that’s what Schama said), and then prowling the battlefield searching out the wounded and feeding them and caring for them, and even curing them with her West Indian remedies, which, said Schama, saved many a life, as the word “doctress” certainly suggests.
I’m guessing that knowing about Mary Seacole is probably a generation thing. I am of the generation that learned dates and maps and chaps, but which made no great effort to search out worthy people other than White Male worthies for deserved – and I dare say sometimes undeserved – celebration. So I’m guessing that Mary Seacole is now an increasingly well known figure among younger people with any curiosity about Britain’s past. But I’d never heard of her. Thanks to Simon Schama and the UK History channel, now I have.
And thank you also to the Internet, and in particular to Google (apparently some are complaining about Google – for its sinfulness in wanting to make money). All I had to go on was how the name sounded, but soon, up came the magic words: “did you mean Mary Seacole?” and the means were in front of my to satisfy any curiosity I might feel about this remarkable woman.
When I read The Wealth of Nations for the first time, I liked Adam Smith’s idea that lecturers would respond better to their students if the students directly paid their lecturers. But I wasn’t sure if it could work in the world of modern higher education. Well, it turns out that when Madsen Pirie was a lecturer at Hillsdale College in Michigan, he was indeed – in part – paid according to how well the students thought he did his job. And, as he explains on the ASI Blog, it seemed to work very well.
Of course, the less-radical introduction of tuition fees in Britain is doing wonders. Lecturers who I’ve spoken to say that students are starting to expect more as it is their money that is being wasted. And universities know that American students – who pay much higher fees – will sue if they don’t get what they are paying for. Anyone who cares about the quality of university education should write a thank you note to Tony Blair.
More news from the Independent concerning the globalisation of education, which is all mixed up with the global mega-success story that is the English language:
A successful Chinese industrialist was boasting proudly that his son was at a British educational institution, one of the best in the country. However, he couldn’t remember which. After racking his brains, he decided to call his wife on the mobile phone. But his wife couldn’t recall the name of the elite establishment either. In desperation, the entrepreneur had only one choice: he fast-dialled his son in the United Kingdom to ask where the boy was being educated.
This is a true story, illustrating not only the Chinese affection for mobile telephones, but also their enthusiasm for a foreign education. In China, to receive your schooling or your degree at an institution in Britain, or Australia, or the United States automatically puts you into the top league. The name of the university or school is not as important as the fact that you have tasted learning outside the People’s Republic. No wonder universities from the United Kingdom are falling over one another to meet this huge demand.
Last year, the number of Chinese students in the UK reached a new record – 25,000. But there are millions of people in China now who aspire to, and receive, a university education and would leap at the chance to get a degree from the UK. In the three years between 1997 and 2000, there was remarkable growth in student numbers within China, according to the Observatory on Borderless Higher Education. Numbers increased from 3.2 million students to a staggering seven million. (The government target is 15 million.)
Ironically, given China’s status as a Communist country, many of the new universities that are being set up to deal with this demand are private. There are 1,300 private institutions now in operation, and alliances between Chinese and foreign organisations are burgeoning.
While English educators fret about whether English people are well enough behaved, Chinese educators worry that the Chinese are too well behaved. Too dutiful, obedient, conformist, uninventive, inflexible.
Seriously, one suspects that the real product here is not just Anglosphere education, but Anglosphere education plus a bit of that Anglosphere attitude, hence the indifference concerning exactly which University their children go to. It could be a winning combination. Although I reckon word will soon get around which universities are the best.
It makes you wonder what Mao would have thought about it all. “I ordered you to have a permanent revolution and challenge all authority, but I didn’t mean this!” Attitude!
And quite aside from the impact of all this on China, there is the interesting matter of how it will affect Britain. How long before someone uses the word ‘swamped’ to describe what is happening to higher education? All those foreigners, taking our children’s places. And working too hard.
So Dianne Abbott’s decision to send her son to a private school is indefensible.
Says who? Says Ms Abbott:
On BBC2’s This Week, Miss Abbott, a member of the Socialist Campaign Group of MPs, said: “I’ve said very little about this because anything you say just sounds self-serving and hypocritical. You can’t defend the indefensible.
Since Ms Abbot appears to be lost for words, allow me to assist. Here are a few things Diane Abbott could say:
- “I have realised that education is too important to be left to the state.”
- “Perhaps everyone should have as much choice as I do.”
- “If I am not prepared to condemn my child to the state system, why should anyone else?”
- “The pursuit of equality for all means everyone gets crap.”
But Ms Abbot has not said any of those things. And she never will.
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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