4 ms·

That is the entire problem in a nutshell. You cannot reject more than one or two students in a year or the school will reject you.

by 1970-01-01 5mo ago

scarmig 5mo ago
That's a symptom of the problem, not the problem itself. Treating universities as a system, it is deeply problematic and even immoral to saddle students with tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt to enter programs that it is entirely predictable that the student will fail at. The solution is to use all the methods available to predict how successful the student is likely to be after matriculating, not to water down curriculum to the point where the most marginal student in the class will pass.
- SoftTalker 5mo ago
  But universities need the tuition to support ever more bloated administrative hierarchies and salaries. Most are in a state of abject panic because international graduate enrollments (a cash cow) are way down in the past couple of years. Staff layoffs are starting to happen, which were previously almost unheard of.
- throw9494krrj 5mo ago
  No, moral is to make student loans subject to regular bankrupcy. Student should be also able to get refound, if university misrepresents or lies about their job prospects! Universities are business as any other!
  - scarmig 5mo ago
    That would be a reform I'd get behind. At the same time, it's still a bad use of funds, and lenders likely wouldn't have the ability to discriminate based on likelihood of bankruptcy or success in an academic program. So it just shifts costs from the student unlikely to succeed to the lender and students likely to succeed.
  - account42 5mo ago
    At that point you don't have a loan, you have a subsidy. That's OK though, many countries do have that.
    - mckn1ght 5mo ago
      Those countries are usually quite strict about who they will subsidize though. Not a bad thing IMO.
  - no-name-here 5mo ago
    > No, moral is to make student loans subject to regular bankrupcy. Aren't the issues that there is no collateral/nothing to repossess? What kind of issuer would give a 5 or 6 figure loan with no collateral and nothing to repossess?
    - recursive 5mo ago
      If no one would issue a loan, that might suggest that these loans should not exist.
      - californical 5mo ago
        And maybe that tuition costs must go down so that they can still get students enrolled
john_strinlai 5mo ago
>You cannot reject more than one or two students in a year this seems absurdly low, from my experience. but i have only taught in one school, so maybe we're the outlier? i would say one to two failing students per course is the baseline, not the cap. can you share where you are getting this number from? is that the guideline where you teach?
- 1970-01-01 5mo ago
  Just use AI: https://abcnews.com/WN/houston-teachers-fired-students-failing-grades/story?id=9834924&utm_source=chatgpt.com https://abcnews.com/WN/houston-teachers-fired-students-faili... See also: Adele Jones, Steven Aird, Diane Tirado It's a complete national mess. You don't know what will happen in your school until you do it. Half of the country hates hard teachers, the other half loves them.
  - john_strinlai 5mo ago
    >Just use AI: your article appears to be about high school? 1 to 2 failing students per course is expected (from lived experience, not ai)
    - 1970-01-01 5mo ago
      HS and undergrad students have overlapping math levels: Algebra, Pre-calc, and Calc.
      - john_strinlai 5mo ago
        we're talking about this claim you made: "You cannot reject more than one or two students in a year" which you appear to be basing on a high school article your ai supplied you, which is irrelevant to how many students a post-secondary institution can fail per semester. overlapping math levels is unrelated.
        1970-01-01 5mo ago
everdrive 5mo ago
In part this is a consequence of blank slate ideology, which presupposes that all students are equally capable of identical outcomes and that individual student failures are always / usually systemic failures in disguise. This is a silly perspective, but the blank slate folks really got their tendrils in just about anywhere. In reality, some people are simply bad at math. More education will help, but they will always be disadvantaged compared to people who are more naturally predisposed. (note, I'm quite bad at math myself) It may seem altruistic to err on the side of caution here and try to catch the kids that fall through the gaps, (again, assuming that they are falling through the gaps due to systemic failures) but as the article points out, there is a limit to this approach; eventually it brings the talented students down and degrades the program.
- holden_nelson 5mo ago
  Eh, I don’t know. We’re talking about high school math proficiency here. The upper 80% of students should be capable of passing that, in my estimation. Regardless of differences in capability among that 80% (which I acknowledge!)
- jimbob45 5mo ago
  Have you not seen Stand and Deliver? We’ve seen incredible teachers prove over and over again that no student is truly unreachable given enough time and attention.
  - stevenhuang 5mo ago
    I don't think anyone has ever doubted that. The problem is our education system cannot support giving these students "unlimited time and attention".

That is the entire problem in a nutshell. You cannot reject more than one or two students in a year or the school will reject you.

scarmig 5mo ago

That's a symptom of the problem, not the problem itself. Treating universities as a system, it is deeply problematic and even immoral to saddle students with tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt to enter programs that it is entirely predictable that the student will fail at. The solution is to use all the methods available to predict how successful the student is likely to be after matriculating, not to water down curriculum to the point where the most marginal student in the class will pass.

SoftTalker 5mo ago
But universities need the tuition to support ever more bloated administrative hierarchies and salaries. Most are in a state of abject panic because international graduate enrollments (a cash cow) are way down in the past couple of years. Staff layoffs are starting to happen, which were previously almost unheard of.
throw9494krrj 5mo ago
No, moral is to make student loans subject to regular bankrupcy. Student should be also able to get refound, if university misrepresents or lies about their job prospects! Universities are business as any other!
- scarmig 5mo ago
  That would be a reform I'd get behind. At the same time, it's still a bad use of funds, and lenders likely wouldn't have the ability to discriminate based on likelihood of bankruptcy or success in an academic program. So it just shifts costs from the student unlikely to succeed to the lender and students likely to succeed.
- account42 5mo ago
  At that point you don't have a loan, you have a subsidy. That's OK though, many countries do have that.
  - mckn1ght 5mo ago
    Those countries are usually quite strict about who they will subsidize though. Not a bad thing IMO.
- no-name-here 5mo ago
  > No, moral is to make student loans subject to regular bankrupcy. Aren't the issues that there is no collateral/nothing to repossess? What kind of issuer would give a 5 or 6 figure loan with no collateral and nothing to repossess?
  - recursive 5mo ago
    If no one would issue a loan, that might suggest that these loans should not exist.
    - californical 5mo ago
      And maybe that tuition costs must go down so that they can still get students enrolled

john_strinlai 5mo ago

>You cannot reject more than one or two students in a year this seems absurdly low, from my experience. but i have only taught in one school, so maybe we're the outlier? i would say one to two failing students per course is the baseline, not the cap. can you share where you are getting this number from? is that the guideline where you teach?

1970-01-01 5mo ago
Just use AI: https://abcnews.com/WN/houston-teachers-fired-students-failing-grades/story?id=9834924&utm_source=chatgpt.com https://abcnews.com/WN/houston-teachers-fired-students-faili... See also: Adele Jones, Steven Aird, Diane Tirado It's a complete national mess. You don't know what will happen in your school until you do it. Half of the country hates hard teachers, the other half loves them.
- john_strinlai 5mo ago
  >Just use AI: your article appears to be about high school? 1 to 2 failing students per course is expected (from lived experience, not ai)
  - 1970-01-01 5mo ago
    HS and undergrad students have overlapping math levels: Algebra, Pre-calc, and Calc.
    - john_strinlai 5mo ago
      we're talking about this claim you made: "You cannot reject more than one or two students in a year" which you appear to be basing on a high school article your ai supplied you, which is irrelevant to how many students a post-secondary institution can fail per semester. overlapping math levels is unrelated.
      - 1970-01-01 5mo ago

everdrive 5mo ago

In part this is a consequence of blank slate ideology, which presupposes that all students are equally capable of identical outcomes and that individual student failures are always / usually systemic failures in disguise. This is a silly perspective, but the blank slate folks really got their tendrils in just about anywhere. In reality, some people are simply bad at math. More education will help, but they will always be disadvantaged compared to people who are more naturally predisposed. (note, I'm quite bad at math myself) It may seem altruistic to err on the side of caution here and try to catch the kids that fall through the gaps, (again, assuming that they are falling through the gaps due to systemic failures) but as the article points out, there is a limit to this approach; eventually it brings the talented students down and degrades the program.

holden_nelson 5mo ago
Eh, I don’t know. We’re talking about high school math proficiency here. The upper 80% of students should be capable of passing that, in my estimation. Regardless of differences in capability among that 80% (which I acknowledge!)
jimbob45 5mo ago
Have you not seen Stand and Deliver? We’ve seen incredible teachers prove over and over again that no student is truly unreachable given enough time and attention.
- stevenhuang 5mo ago
  I don't think anyone has ever doubted that. The problem is our education system cannot support giving these students "unlimited time and attention".