[ExI] big rip in education

[William Flynn Wallace]

Most things are not forgotten that are learned in school, but you may have
to use more sensitive tests.  For example, who was that guy who wrote about
Walden pond?  If asked like that, some would not be able to come up with
the answer, but if asked in a multiple choice format most would know right
away.

And anyhow, it's not just how much you know that education tries to instill
in people, it's the ability to learn them that is revealed in schools.
Also, going a long way in school is a good test of one's ability to do dull
work, get along with people and bosses (the teachers).  Boot camp is not
about learning to dig holes and then fill them up - it's about learning to
obey orders without question (but not without griping!).

Yes, we are shooting ourselves in the foot by hanging huge debts on our
graduates and then sending them off to drive cabs.

bill w

On Wed, Mar 6, 2019 at 6:13 PM Dan TheBookMan <danust2012 at gmail.com> wrote:

> I’m wondering why no one here has discussion Bryan Caplan’s on education:
>
> https://press.princeton.edu/titles/11225.html
>
> Or have I missed it? The TL;DR rundown of his book is this: education is
> mostly signaling. Degree inflation is mainly not increasing worker skills
> or even detecting talent, but merely an expansive (and, therefore, mostly
> wasteful) signal. Think of the analogy with buying an expansive engagement
> ring. According to Caplan, this best explain degree — why the BA and BS
> degrees have become the new high school diploma.
>
> He also responds to other theories and even other purposes to education,
> such as having an informed citizenry. On all these, he shows that the data
> doesn’t much fit. For instance, with regard to an informed citizenry, the
> data seems to show few students recall much of their civics and history
> lessons. They seem to memorize enough to pass the test and then promptly
> forget this stuff. Which is kind of signaling works: the goal is to signal
> — not to retain or use what’s learned.)
>
> And, yes, he does discuss how people can basically pursue knowledge and
> skills online and outside of schooling or degrees. (Of course, a problem
> for employers is a signal tends to be cheaper for them than, say,
> extensively confirming someone has independently mastered some skill or
> domain.)
>
> Comments?
>
> Regards,
>
> Dan
>    Sample my Kindle books at:
>
> http://author.to/DanUst/
>
>
>
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