3 ms·

I think you might be misunderstanding the amount of distrust placed in the root comment. He's claiming the more prestigious a University is, the more likely th

by htag 3y ago

I think you might be misunderstanding the amount of distrust placed in the root comment. He's claiming the more prestigious a University is, the more likely they are to take unethical funding because increased funding leads to more prestige. It's an attack on the integrity of modern science as practiced by academia, not on a subset of studies.

runarberg 3y ago
I kind of think the status of US schools is not very well known, or at least not consistently known: To summarize the situation. US education institutes are laying off hundreds of teachers, cancelling courses, cutting services, etc. across the board. If a teacher is hired, it is most likely for part-time, on lower wages, with fewer benefits. If a teacher is guaranteed tenure after x many years, chances are they will be laid off, and their programs cancelled before this happens. At the primary level, schools are being aggressively merged, and sometimes even closed, to save money for the school district. At the same time administrators in said schools are ballooning, more administrators are being hired, and their pay keeps going up (while other staff pay is stagnant). If there is money being allocated to the schools, it most likely goes into administration, not education. Administration has also become a political gig. Administrators move between school systems, get higher and higher positions, fill out their resumes, and gain prestige (all the while being payed more and more). What they actually do, is anybodies guess, most of the time they are simply in the way of teacher making actual changes which would benefit students. A typical scenario is a new higher administrator comes in, wants to look important and decides to create more administrator position and hire a security contractor to impose a security theater on campus. I guess this this what your grand-parent was talking about. And how it comes to no-ones surprise when funding for this ballooning administration costs come from the same industry which is killing us all and our climate.
- geodel 3y ago
  > US education institutes are laying off hundreds of teachers, cancelling courses, cutting services, etc This also does not make much sense when one sees this humongous growth in new courses, departments, degrees and academic positions in first place over last few decades. So many universities did not become 5 star resorts by just keeping strictly educational services.
  - runarberg 3y ago
    I’m sure there is data to be found, and I’m actually curious about it my self. I don’t know where to begin looking for it though. But I’m open to be proven wrong. To be clear, I’m talking about the education system as a whole, not just prestige universities, but also community collages as well high schools and primary schools. Prestige universities like Stanford will always find funding to do what they want (e.g. from fossil fuel companies) this includes ballooning administrators playing the CV game, as well as keeping existing courses open while even opening new courses. Community collages and poorer school districts cannot afford to do all, and—it is my experience—they are way more likely to pick funding their administrators at the cost of education.
    - geodel 3y ago
      I get your point. The way I see this growth of admins is side effect of giving what people wanted which is "world-class amenities, world class education, more nutrition options, more security, more healthcare, more activities, more courses, more entertainment options, more electives, more everything" . Individually every single item looks eminently reasonable and in aggregate it can give reasonable cover to universities to have admins to support all of this.
      - runarberg 3y ago
        I don’t know if you have any experience in this, but in community collages in my area students and faculty alike are raising protests and threatening strikes because they are precisely not getting what they want, which is for their courses to stay open and for their teachers to remain on staff. It is my guess that the only people getting what they want with the ballooning admins are the bosses (i.e. admins them selves; and stakeholders in the educational industry who get to sell their stuff to schools, e.g. security firms).
  - anonymouskimmer 3y ago
    An adjunct would teach more courses at a lower pay than a tenured faculty member.

by htag 3y ago

runarberg 3y ago

I kind of think the status of US schools is not very well known, or at least not consistently known: To summarize the situation. US education institutes are laying off hundreds of teachers, cancelling courses, cutting services, etc. across the board. If a teacher is hired, it is most likely for part-time, on lower wages, with fewer benefits. If a teacher is guaranteed tenure after x many years, chances are they will be laid off, and their programs cancelled before this happens. At the primary level, schools are being aggressively merged, and sometimes even closed, to save money for the school district. At the same time administrators in said schools are ballooning, more administrators are being hired, and their pay keeps going up (while other staff pay is stagnant). If there is money being allocated to the schools, it most likely goes into administration, not education. Administration has also become a political gig. Administrators move between school systems, get higher and higher positions, fill out their resumes, and gain prestige (all the while being payed more and more). What they actually do, is anybodies guess, most of the time they are simply in the way of teacher making actual changes which would benefit students. A typical scenario is a new higher administrator comes in, wants to look important and decides to create more administrator position and hire a security contractor to impose a security theater on campus. I guess this this what your grand-parent was talking about. And how it comes to no-ones surprise when funding for this ballooning administration costs come from the same industry which is killing us all and our climate.

geodel 3y ago
> US education institutes are laying off hundreds of teachers, cancelling courses, cutting services, etc This also does not make much sense when one sees this humongous growth in new courses, departments, degrees and academic positions in first place over last few decades. So many universities did not become 5 star resorts by just keeping strictly educational services.
- runarberg 3y ago
  I’m sure there is data to be found, and I’m actually curious about it my self. I don’t know where to begin looking for it though. But I’m open to be proven wrong. To be clear, I’m talking about the education system as a whole, not just prestige universities, but also community collages as well high schools and primary schools. Prestige universities like Stanford will always find funding to do what they want (e.g. from fossil fuel companies) this includes ballooning administrators playing the CV game, as well as keeping existing courses open while even opening new courses. Community collages and poorer school districts cannot afford to do all, and—it is my experience—they are way more likely to pick funding their administrators at the cost of education.
  - geodel 3y ago
    I get your point. The way I see this growth of admins is side effect of giving what people wanted which is "world-class amenities, world class education, more nutrition options, more security, more healthcare, more activities, more courses, more entertainment options, more electives, more everything" . Individually every single item looks eminently reasonable and in aggregate it can give reasonable cover to universities to have admins to support all of this.
    - runarberg 3y ago
      I don’t know if you have any experience in this, but in community collages in my area students and faculty alike are raising protests and threatening strikes because they are precisely not getting what they want, which is for their courses to stay open and for their teachers to remain on staff. It is my guess that the only people getting what they want with the ballooning admins are the bosses (i.e. admins them selves; and stakeholders in the educational industry who get to sell their stuff to schools, e.g. security firms).
- anonymouskimmer 3y ago
  An adjunct would teach more courses at a lower pay than a tenured faculty member.