An Economist article - called The disposable academic

Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time.
http://www.economist.com/node/17723223

From the sounds of it, if an university doesn’t bring in the PhD students - no research is done on the cheap. Hence the growing student body seeking a PhD, even though they may not be jobs for them at the end of the day.

How about ‘An Article…’, rather than ‘A Article…’.

RETIRING PROFESSORS — WHO LISTENS?

Here is the announcement from Frontier Centre for Public Policy:
Frontier Centre’s Rod Clifton appointed Professor Emeritus
The Frontier Centre for Public Policy is pleased to announce that Rod Clifton, a Senior Research Fellow, will be named Professor Emeritus at the University of Manitoba on Tuesday, April 30, 2013.

Congratulations!

It’s not automatic that ALL professors who retire get emeritus status.  The designation, apparently, goes through a process. Not to detract from Rod Clifton’s honor and deserved status I bring forward some history.

There is at least one case where emeritus status for a retired professor was denied — for William Ayers, University of Chicago. (Google — Ayers emeritus status.) His emeritus application was not only denied but a whole can of worms was re-opened in 2010. 

Ayers, of course, is notorious for having been a member of Weathermen, a domestic terrorist group in the US and who is still an activist in education and political protests.  His books on education, especially on social justice, continue to promote his radical left political ideology in teacher training and professional development of teachers.

Here is the most forthright analysis of the long-term damage Ayers has proliferated on our society http://www.newsrealblog.com/2010/09/29/unrepentant-terrorist-ayers-denied-emeritus-status-university-book-sales-unaffected/

*** “It is bad enough that Ayers was never punished for his despicable and cowardly crimes.  But it is deeply unsettling to ponder the long term effects of the venom he has injected into our educational system.  How many young teachers’ minds have been forever infected by the insidious rantings of this marxist revolutionary lunatic?  By extension, how many thousands and thousands of young children’s minds have been similarly polluted by this bile?  The damage done may be so profound and widespread as to never be undone.

That is why I was not overwhelmed with joy when I learned that Ayers had been denied professor emeritus status.  The damage done to our nation by this detestable troll is deep and lasting.  The denial of professor emeritus status is not what I would consider “justice.”

It hasn’t even affected sales of his indoctrination manuals at college bookstores.” ***

Rod Clifton:  Today I thank you for your helpful analysis and comments on this SQE site.  Your contribution, however, is particularly distressing.  Distressing, because it engenders alarm and helplessness.

Distressing, because the shocking growth of Education PhDs and tenured academics in education is VERY troubling since serious implications arise.  Here are some:

1 They work hard to retain and manufacture jobs for themselves, regardless of how many unemployed teachers they churn out — minus, by the way, the needed skills so needed such as ability to teach reading, math, and helping special needs students.

2 Education faculties are the ONLY professional training institution that, besides training for the trade, has undertaken a self-appointed second mandate, that of systematically and radically transforming society through their trade.  This glut of extra, unemployed teachers are still there to spread their acquired political gospel.

3 The byproducts produced by this ever expanding Education PhD and tenured academic glut is huge indeed — byproducts which have the effect of further embedding and disseminating their extreme subversive political views.  Of course, not all are of this left persuasion, but many are, and the exponential growth of the left point of view in education is so rapid and insidious, it threatens to swamp both universities and civil society, and democracy itself.  Each passing year sees more education “research” and books on “critical thinking and “critical pedagogy” (a code term for teaching about oppression, not about what we may think critical thinking should be.)  There are more journals being spun out about education workplace control.  There are more conferences and special interest groups than ever, promoting progressive education.  Consequent militancy in this “profession” is increasing.

QUESTION:  Do people listen to old professors?  It depends.  They still listen to Ayers because he has a whole tribe of well-trained disciples, well-placed.  Will people listen when Rod Clifton raises an alarm?  I think his public policy Think Tank needs to do more work on the dangers raised.

Just to add more fuel to the fire, here, just published in the Wall Street Journal is another retired professor, Donald Kagan, Yale, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323789704578446614144636002.html deploring the bleak new future where content-poor new Core Curriculum could lead to a foreseeable slippage from democracy to tyranny. His anguish is deep.

On the front of critical pedagogy - it has penetrated into the policies and practices of school. Here is one small recent example. Just imagine a 8 year old girl, being put into a supply closet, locked for the entire school day, for making a simple statement in passing to a couple of her classmates, “The principal’s rules are stupid.”  A week later, she is tossed into the supply closet, at the beginning of the school day, and release at the end of the school day, for simply voicing her opinion on the principal’s rules.

“Christine told VOCM Openline with Bill Rowe this morning that her daughter was left in a supply closet for an entire school day because she called the Principal’s rules “stupid” the week prior. She says she was in shock when her daughter came from from school that day.”
http://www.vocm.com/newsarticle.asp?mn=2&id=33595&latest=1

The girl has ADHD with high anxiety but is not a behaviour problem.

Critical pedagogy teaches that the collective is good, and individualism is bad. Speaking against the collective and at any part of the collective will be punished. In the case of the 8 year old girl, she voiced her opinion, ratted on by another classmate, and a week later without explanation locked in a supply closet for the school day..

The bleak new future and the damage being wrought in the public education system is devastating not only to democracy but the economic health of our nations.