Quality – Hyperbolic

We’re drowning in BS

Jan 172018

While we all try to ward off the winter chill, I flag for your reading list an article that has made something of a stir, Higher Education Is Drowning in BS. Most of the author’s messaging will reprise a familiar theme here, where indeed so much of what is handed down from Main Admin wouldn’t pass for butterscotch pudding. We lack accountability; we lack transparency; we lack genuine shared governance. And in the absence of these cleansing agents, equity is lost, quality diminishes and costs keep going through the roof.

In other words, we are indeed drowning in BS.

Increasing quality might not reduce costs

Quality, Science No Responses »

Dec 292017

It’s always nice to see examples where careful research challenges popular dogma, so in that spirit I flag an article about measurement of rates at which uninsured people use emergency rooms (first noticed in a Washington Post article about same.)

Healthcare insurance is of course not squarely in our software/cyber wheelhouse, but the skeptical “show me” temperaments illustrated here surely are. Many very expensive policy decisions have been sold to the public on the premise that uninsured people rely on emergency room visits in place of regular health care offerings, with a consequent increase in costs and clogging of the facilities. The authors (who publish their work in the above Maryland-based journal) study the question and report the ER visit rates of insured and uninsured people are comparable.

The threat to validity of old lore might be one of perception, they say; uninsured people are not as commonly seen in the waiting rooms of non-emergency offices, so their appearance in emergency rooms is noticed more. In other words, it wasn’t that uninsured people used the ER more so than insured people so much as they used regular facilities so much less. (To which we would say: “Duh.”)

The cited paper has more nuggets regarding linkages between costs and quality of care, and we commend to you a reading of the full paper – just as we commend a willingness to question, not just accept assertions that “sound right.” Especially if assertions are made to you from people who have a business interest in willing them to be true.

Use management-speak to give the impression of expertise

Culture, Education, Quality No Responses »

Nov 232017

How business bullshit took over is required reading for students who would like preparation to make meaningful contributions to the world rather than serve in the cycle of production, distribution and consumption of bullshit.

The article will tell you where the cartoon Dilbert came from, and goes on to explain how ideas that may be weak on their merits can be plumped up for sale by wrapping them in novel language, slathering on generous portions of hucksterism and blending in a pinch of mysticism (or just plain elitism for the agnostics among us.)

Most of what the author treats involves industry as a whole, but his points apply equally well in the education industry. And indeed, much of what we do on campus involves performing tasks that both feed and result from the ‘culture of bullshit’ – tasks that, when objectively portrayed, can’t be firmly connected with core missions which might have inspired a university system in the first place. We measure ourselves with elastic yardsticks that reward make-work yet often don’t stand up well as predictors of students’ success, generation of knowledge that others usefully apply in science, or development of products (or services) that capture markets.

Preference for an elastic yardstick is understandable. Our campus lacks accountability so mostly we have freedom to define our own success criteria. Why not make the yardstick fit what we do rather than what we aspire to do? It sure is easier to sell students “experiences” rather than prepare them to perform hard tasks. Doing the latter would get them – and us – out of our comfort zones. Ewww … that makes for tough teaching reviews and a rockier time promoting like-thinking friends.

And look what happens to heretics who try to pierce the language barrier and figure out what practices generate intrinsic (instead of virtual) value? There’s always one who politely points out how the Emperor has no clothes, and then it gets ugly. The masses quickly recognize the importance of going along to get along. Keep your head down and keep the system going.

Speaking as one of the heretics, I hope students take a lesson from the linked article. Get past the educational leet speak, push yourself out of the linguistic comfort zone we build in our majors and learn how to tell when you’re getting served content of genuine value instead of a big cup of tasty, well, you know.

Regulation for thee, not for me …

Education, Quality No Responses »

Sep 282017

This campus recently adopted a Web Accessibility Policy, which earlier today Provost Mary Ann Rankin reminded us of by means of a memo to campus administrators. Soon “all university Web pages used for academic and business purposes must be compliant with applicable state and federal regulations, specifically, Sections 504 and 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990.”

The essence of her memo was to alert campus stakeholders to this and offer guidance on how to move forward, for which one of the helpful links given is to a campus Web Accessibility page whose sole apparent purpose is to then offer the reader a chance to click through to another campus Web Accessibility page.

Awkwardly, and as of the point I blog this morning, neither of the pages to which Provost Rankin refers us for 504, 508 and ADA compliance is actually 504, 508 or ADA compliant, at least according to freely available web tools which one can use for checking. (There are also broken links – that’s business as usual for the Provost site – and W3C compliance problems.)

We always appreciate how leadership offers us teaching examples for our students.

Spending plan vs education plan – what’s the difference?

Education, Government, Quality No Responses »

Aug 232017

The Sun tells what everyone already pretty much knows: fewer than half of the students in Maryland public schools are on track for college readiness, according to latest PARCC scores, or Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers. This is grim news given that the instrument is itself only the most basic indicator of college preparation.

Preparation is worst where the state spent most. Quoting the linked article:

In Baltimore, math scores held steady while English scores inched up. Still, fewer city students passed the exams than in neighboring districts. Only about three of every 20 city students in grades three through eight passed both math and English. Almost 12 percent passed math, about the same as last year. Fifteen percent passed English, an increase of 1.4 percentage points from last year.

Maryland implements spending plans, not education plans. For those keeping score, the state dramatically ramped up funding for public schools over the last twenty five years, measuring its success by how much it spends, not what students can do as a result of their often not-so-close encounters with schools. As a result, the present news will be viewed by officials as a success … after all, the checks cleared, which was the whole point. Too bad for parents who thought their taxes were supposed to have been buying more than teacher union fealty.

Anyone who thinks this doesn’t impact us at College Park is kidding himself. This is a campus that lists skin color and orientation (among other characteristics) among ways an applicant can be deemed prepared for the flagship, so dismal PARCC scores which don’t factor in those characteristics won’t significantly affect our admission practices. We will maintain business as usual at the front door. But the professoriate in charge of generating scholarship will increasingly struggle in the face of a student base that similarly struggles with preparation. Time spent back-filling substandard education coming in to the flagship is time not spent pushing back the frontiers of knowledge in our respective disciplines.

All this is a recipe for implosion. The entrepreneurial mindset of public school officials does not stop at our front door; overall we continue to increase tuition beyond sensible limits, basically just raking in cash because it is on the table. Thoughtful people watch this knowing it is not sustainable. We have previously pointed out here how the bubble is already bursting around us, and we thus say it again: the market will reach a tipping point, after which consumers will demand to know why they pay so much for such poor outcomes, often in restrictive environments that negate the entire argument for campus as a place of free expression and thought in the first place.

We’re doing it wrong.

How to demagogue mac and cheese

Quality, Science No Responses »

Jul 162017

NY Times Goes Mac & Cheesy with Science is the headline at ASCH in what turns out to be a nice summary of how writers can demagogue just about anything by using the right tactics. We include the article here as a good example of the kind of language to look for in deciding when not to put much stock in an article that purports to be about science.

Clean energy isn’t so clean after all

Commerce, Information, Quality No Responses »

Jul 062017

We love tracking the unwelcome consequences of policy decisions that are made under a banner of righteousness but which bring surprises to those who weren’t listening to scholars who tried to point out what was in the fine print. This one’s a doozy.

National Review points out Discarded solar panels are piling up all over the world, and they represent a major threat to the environment. If you only measure the value of solar power from after the panels are up and before they come down, then probably there is a net plus – plus or minus those awkward moments when the sun isn’t shining of course. If you only drive forward with that in mind, the surprise waiting you is a net loss to our environment’s health, since the cost of procuring the more exotic materials needed for these panels is great (a lot more waste water, a lot of pollution) and the discarded panels pile up rather than become recycled. (Also batteries, this is not a prime consideration in the linked article.)

Scholars would want to objectively weight the lifecycle properties and make sound decisions; cherry picking your results is something you only do to justify outcomes you’ve already figured out. That may be good for your wallet if you’re in the enviro business, but it isn’t necessarily good for the environment.

Great work if you can get it

Education, Quality No Responses »

Jun 282017

Study finds pay for public college presidents up 5.3 percent confirms once again that it’s good to be king … err … president.

5.3 might be the mean for presidential bumps last year, but once again Maryland leads the way, as (according to the Diamondback reporting of salaries, which may be time-shifted due to how long it takes for public information to trickle out to the public) Wallace Loh jumped almost 15 percent in the last cycle ($526,590.30 to $600,314.00). The 2013 report listed him at $459,000.

Not bad for an era through which most of us have labored under wage freezes imposed by the state.

Journal whitelists, journal blacklists

Information, Quality No Responses »

Jun 202017

More on the state of scholarly publications these days in What I learned from predatory publishers, an opinion piece in a special issue at the linked site.

More catch up: surveying the campus scene

Education, Quality No Responses »

Jun 152017

College education is supposed to involve more than just ‘knowing stuff’. It might be just that in the minds of bean counters who increasingly drive campus policies. After all, they want bigger revenue streams and lower overhead, so the faster they can declare delivered! on an undergrad experience, the sooner they can bring in the next customer. Get ’em up, move ’em out! Nevertheless, classically it was a lot more – and our society needs it to be a lot more.

That’s why interested scholars look cautiously at articles like Many Colleges Fail to Improve Critical-Thinking Skills. And you should too. (Sorry about the pay wall, but you should be able to get that from on-campus accesses.) Same for Is the U.S. Education System Producing a Society of ‘Smart Fools’? We might not like the answers to that question.

Objective evidence of our collective failures on campus can be found everywhere. We see activities reported such as The Campus Inquisition at Evergreen State College, and also Those ‘Snowflakes’ Have Chilling Effects Even Beyond the Campus. (Another pay wall.) These articles report how communication skills are going down, perspective is narrowing and any sense of respect for diversity or selfless dedication to causes greater than an individual is becoming lost.

[And there are plenty of examples of how the products of today’s educational systems think that there ought not be consequences in the marketplace, which historically has served a hard but most excellent mechanism for quality improvement. Take for example: The tech world is rallying around a young developer who made a huge, embarrassing mistake.]

Utterly not a coincidence is the economic link, as mentioned in The US college debt bubble is becoming dangerous. In fact some of us have been trying to raise the alarm that higher education is in a bubble which is bursting around us. (What a shame College Park is driving itself to a place that will not allow our campus to be one of the survivors, much less to a leadership role in transforming higher education for the better.)

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