1. Moses Hadas, Old Wine, New Bottles – A Humanist Teacher at Work,
New York: Pocket Books, 1962, p. 3.
2. This paraphrase on the ‘leading a horse to water’ aphorism is modified
slightly from the version recounted by Dale E. Arrington.
3. Henry Bauer, reports on declining student performance in Introductory
Chemistry, Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University: January
1992; December 1992; October 1993; January 1994.
4. Walter J. Deal, “Declining exam scores”, Chemical & Engineering
News, 24 April 1995, p. 4.
5. Henry H. Bauer, “Students’ bad attitudes”, Chemical & Engineering
News, 7 August 1995, p. 5.
6. Peter Sacks, Generation X Goes to College, Chicago &
LaSalle (IL): Open Court, 1996.
7. J. E. Stone. “Inflated Grades, Inflated Enrollment, and Inflated
Budgets: An Analysis and Call for Review at the State Level”, Education
Policy Analysis Archives, 3 # 11, 26 June 1995 (a peer-reviewed electronic
journal operating as a LISTSERV under the name EPAA at LISTSERV@asu.edu;
ISSN 1068-2341; gophered at INFO.ASU.EDU in the sub-directory CAMPUS-WIDE
INFORMATION at WWW URL: http://info.asu.edu/asu-cwis/epaa/welcome.html).
8. Some people, of course, will dispute anything. Possibly relevant
factors other than the general phenomenon I’m claiming:
The students taking this course were supposed (by the Chemistry Department’s
course description) to be in non-technical curricula. Nevertheless, several
departments in Agriculture and Home Economics advised their majors to take
this course because they regarded General Chemistry as too tough. That
advice in itself, of course, supports my main thesis: many faculty in Agriculture,
Human Resources, Education and other areas as well know that students come
to college unable to cope with the chemistry, mathematics, and physics
that entering college students used to be expected to handle, just a decade
or two or three ago.
I began my analysis because I had been assigned a miserably inadequate
classroom (an abandoned movie theater) in 1990; I put additional questions
on the course-rating forms to find out whether students thought that had
an impact. But from 1992 on the classroom I used was entirely adequate.
9. Henry H. Bauer & William E. Snizek, “Encouraging students in
large classes to ask questions: some promising results from classes in
chemistry and sociology”, Teaching Sociology, 17 (1989) 337-340.
10. The minimum passing score was in the range 58-60 over all the years
concerned. But extra-credit points were available; and all examinations
were 1-out-of-4 multiple-choice questions, so that the lowest score attainable
in practice was on average 25%. Thus the actual minimum passing grade for
knowledge demonstrated and extra effort put in was 33-35 out of 75-84,
that is between 40 and 45%. (I’m rather ashamed to admit how low my standards
had sunk, but those are the facts.)
Expectations were hardly too high as to the subject matter, either:
the textbook had gone through 6 editions by the early 1990s, indicating
that it enjoyed widespread adoption around the country.
11. Janice Weinman, “The challenge of better-prepared students”, Chronicle
of Higher Education, 27 October 1995, pp. B1,2.
12. A. L. Hileman, “Student attitudes about class absences, class attendance,
and requiring attendance at Virginia Tech”, Master’s Thesis, Virginia Polytechnic
Institute & State University, 1992; cited in Currents – Research
Reports in Student Affairs (VPI&SU), 2 #1, Fall 1992.
13. “Students blame professors in class-cutting”, Roanoke Times, 3
March 1993, p. NRV7; “Students point finger at professors for class cutting”,
Montgomery County (VA) News-Messenger, 2 March 1993, pp. 1,2 (AP).
Some actual figures from Fall 1992: Friday 4 September, 44% at 2 p.m.;
Monday 14 September, 63% at 2 p.m.; Monday 21 September, 77% at 11 a.m.,
59% at 2 p.m.; Friday 2 October, 61% at 11 a.m.; Friday 16 October, 37%
at 2 p.m.
14. Tana Allen, “Professor deserves more respect” (letter), Collegiate
Times (VPI&SU), 29 October 1991, p. A8.
15. Letter on file, name withheld as a courtesy to its author.
16. The occasional reason given can be disarming. This semester I had
a call just before class from one very good student: he would not be able
to come, and could not therefore hand in his assignment, because he had
been unable to walk across the campus in the bright sunlight, his eyes
couldn’t stand it and he had bumped into five people before giving up and
going back to his dormitory. He couldn’t understand what the problem could
be. “Are you on any medication?” I asked, hoping he would understand what
I really meant. “No”, came the reply, “but my eyes are all blood-shot.
And I did stay up all night”.
17. Scott Coner, HST 2354 (VPI&SU), Fall 1995.
18. 1% chose “a”, 3% “b”, and 20% “c”. I had made the survey at the
same time as an exam was given to ensure a high percentage of responses.
19. Either something like this:
One mole is
a. a different number for each element
b. always 6 × 1023
c. always 6 × 1023 grams
d. always 6 × 1023 atomic mass units
or something like this:
The atomic mass of mercury is 200. In 50g of mercury there are how many
atoms?
a. 200 × 6 × 1023
b. 50 × 6 × 1023
c. (50/200) × 6 × 1023
d. (200/50) × 6 × 1023
20. Memo, 13 January 1993, J. O. Glanville to John Dillard, Chemistry
Department, VPI&SU.
21. For example, both Beyond Velikovsky: The History of a Public
Controversy (1984) and Scientific Literacy and the Myth of the Scientific
Method (1992) were favorably reviewed in Nature and Science as well
as elsewhere.
22. Virginia Scholar, newsletter of the Virginia Association
of Scholars, ISSN 1073-7235.
23. Walter Deal, “Chemistry 1A exam scores – 1986 vs. 1994”, 26 February
1995.
24. Dale E. Arrington, personal communications, December 1995.
25. Paul Field, Chemistry, VPI&SU, personal communication.
26. Thomas G. Waddell, Guerry Professor of Chemistry, University of
Tennessee at Chattanooga, memo to Dean of Arts & Sciences, 10 August
1995; by personal communication from Prof. Waddell.
27. Jackson Toby, “In war against grade inflation, Dartmouth scores
a hit”, Wall Street Journal, 8 September 1994, p. A18.
28. Roberta F. Borkat, “A liberating curriculum”, Newsweek,
12 April 1993, p. 11.
29. Craig Lambert, “Desperately seeking summa”, Harvard Magazine,
May-June 1993, pp. 36-40.
30. Peter C. Baker, “The causes and consequences of grade inflation”,
Chronicle of Higher Education, 9 February 1994.
31. Jim Glanville, “Student perception of instruction”, 28 April 1993
(CHEM 1036-0818, VPI&SU).
32. Harold McNair, personal communication, 1992 or 1993.
33. Anonymous, “Mutterings of a burned-out professor”, Journal of
Chemical Education, 71 (#9, September 1994) 739-40 (brought to the
author’s attention by Brahama D. Sharma).
34. Mark Bush, personal communication, 9 August 1995.
35. Jennifer Reader, personal communication, 13 March 1996.
36. Pamela Zurer, “Nobel Laureates disagree at misconduct hearing”,
Chemical & Engineering News, 3 July 1995, p.6; Richard Stone,
“Baltimore defends paper at center of misconduct case”, Science,
269 (14 July 1995) 157.
37. James E. O’Reilly, personal communication, 10 August 1995.
38. Larry G. Butler, personal communication, August 1995.
39. “Coyote hunters and Dean’s daughters in the biochemistry
classroom”, an essay by Larry Butler (Biochemistry, Purdue University).
40. Dean Calloway, personal communication, 16 August 1995.
41. Thomas C. Ehlert, personal communication, 16 August 1995.
42. Caroline Bridgman-Rees, personal communication, 18 August 1995.
43. Harold Leonard, personal communication, 21 August 1995.
44. James F. Wolfe, personal communication, 24 August 1995.
45. Jennifer Reader, personal communication, 29 August 1995.
46. Gordon F. Santee, personal communication, 23 August 1995.
47. Idem., 4 March 1996.
48. JoAnn Paslawsky, “Bad attitudes – who’s to blame?”, Chemical
& Engineering News, 25 September 1995, p. 4.
49. Sam (Sukhamaya) Bain, “Bad attitudes – who’s to blame?”, Chemical
& Engineering News, 25 September 1995, p. 82.
50. Walter Deal, personal communication, 11 March 1996.
51. In Sheila Tobias, They’re Not Dumb, They’re Different: Stalking
the Second Tier; cited by Dale E. Arrington, personal communication,
22 December 1995.
52. Memo, 10 February 1993, John A. Muffo to Deans, Directors, and
Department Heads, VPI&SU.
53. Marvin Gold, “Not all are university caliber”, Enterprise-Record
(Chico, CA), 30 April 1995 (clipping sent by author). 54. George Andrews
of Pennsylvania State University, cited in Barry Cipra, “Science education:
calculus reform sparks a backlash”, Science, 271 (16 February 1996) 901-2.
55. Ben Gose, “Promoting intellectual life”, Chronicle of Higher
Education, 8 March 1996, pp. A33-4.
56. Harlan Miller, “Spring of discontent”, Spectrum (VPI&SU)
15 #31, 6 May 1993, pp. 3,6,7.
57. Christopher Shea, “Unusual trade school makes no apologies for
military-style approach”, Chronicle of Higher Education, 12 January
1996, p. A36.
58. Mary Crystal Cage, “The post-baby boomers arrive on campus”, Chronicle
of Higher Education, 30 June 1993, p. A27.
59. Karen C. Daugherty, personal communication, 23 April 1996.
60. Alex Weiss, e-mail, 12 June 1996.
61. Nenad M. Kostic to George A Kraus, Chair (Chemistry, Iowa State
University), 6 April 1994.
62. E-mail to Professor Herman Doswald, Virginia Polytechnic Institute
& State University, 22 April 1996.
63. Jim Otteson, personal communication, 17 May 1996.
64. Personal communication from Bruce Lewenstein, Departments of Communications
& Science & Technology Studies, Cornell University, June 1996.
65. Personal communication from Yervant Terzian, chair of astronomy,
Cornell University, June 1996.
66. Linda Raber, “NSF finds major gains in science, math proficiency
are unevenly distributed”, Chemical & Engineering News, 13 May
1996, p. 24.
67. Robert A. Paterson, personal communication, 21 August 1996.
68. J. B. Jones, personal communication, 22 or 23 August 1996.
69. Gordon A Sabine, personal communication, 23 May 1996.
70. Brenda Sampe, Quiz #5 (Essay: Albert Einstein is only one instance
of people of brilliant achievement who had been only average or mediocre
in school or college. Can we learn anything, from such cases, about how
school and college learning should be designed?), HST 2354, Spring 1996,
Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University.
71. E-mail from JoAnn Paslawsky, 25 April 1996.
72. WMU-AAUP [Western Michigan University chapter of the American Association
of University Professors], Perspectives on Instruction at WMU, March
1996, p. 7.
73. Ernest L. Eliel, From Cologne to Chapel Hill, Washington
(DC): American Chemical Society, 1990; pp. 113-4.
74. F. Curtis Michel, “Science literacy at the college level”, Physics
Today, January 1993, pp. 69-71.
75. The “experts” disagree, whether or not ratings by students are
strongly influenced by the grades they get or expect to get. At least in
freshman chemistry in the classes I have taught, there is strong evidence
that student ratings and grades are correlated. At the University of Kentucky,
in four separate courses of about 200 students each, over a period of 7
years, my rating by students went almost linearly from 2.9 by “D” students
to 3.7 from “A” students – students with failing grades rated me as high
(3.3) as did students getting between “B” and “C”.
In 1991, I found at Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University
that “A” students rated me 0.5 higher than did “C” students, virtually
the same as earlier at Kentucky.
Personal contacts and the occasional serendipitous anecdote indicate
that the good students still appreciate my performance. Once, presumably
in response to a complaint, one of my department heads interviewed students
I had taught the previous semester, and he told me that they had been enthusiastic;
intentionally he had chosen students who had earned “A”s.
76. Yet in the Humanities classes that I was also teaching, and in
the occasional graduate course, I was still being rated at about 3.5 out
of 4, sometimes a bit more and sometimes a bit less. Surely this, virtually
in itself, demonstrates that there is something very wrong with the
contemporary use of student-evaluation numbers as an administratively convenient
measure of “teaching performance”.
77. Being poorly rated by disgruntled students can be entirely demoralizing
for inexperienced instructors. My young colleague showed me the written
comments accompanying the rating forms and was barely reassured when I
told him that I get this semester after semester: a handful of highly favorable
and grateful remarks, a double handful of spiteful bitching, and many complaints
about having to learn so much and about difficult exams. On the rating
forms themselves, high scores for “knowledge of subject”, low scores for
“inspires interest in subject” – from students who don’t wish to be taking
chemistry in the first place, remember (several teaching assistants told
me how often in the labs they hear students saying, “Why am I taking this
course? I always hated chemistry”).
78. That is somewhat easier for us tenured full professors*, of course;
though I still find it difficult not to be depressed by ratings below 3-out-of-4
and by expressed dissatisfaction, even as I try to remember the appreciable
number of remarks I get like “You really seem to care about your students,
thanks!!”; “I greatly enjoyed your … class. I learned more from you than
any other chem teacher I’ve had”; “I am amazed by your knowledge and love
of the subject”; “Thank you for making Chemistry a ‘relevant’ subject for
me”.
* The aphorism is attributed to Milton Friedman, that academic freedom
is enjoyed chiefly by tenured full professors approaching retirement.
79. . The largest variance in teaching evaluations comes
from whether the course is mandatory or elective, the number of students
in the class, the academic level of the course, and various other factors
not under the instructor’s control (e.g. Richard D. Shingles, “Faculty
ratings: procedures for interpreting student evaluations”, American
Educational Research Journal, 14 [Fall 1977] 459-70; Philip C. Abrami,
Les Leventhal, & Raymond P. Perry, “Educational seduction”, Review
of Educational Research, 52 [Fall 1982] 446-64).
There are a few genuinely outstanding teachers who attain national
recognition (for example, economist Al Mandelstamm – see Henry H. Bauer,
“The trivialization of sexual harassment: lessons from the Mandelstamm
case”, Academic Questions, 5 [#2, Spring 1992)] 55-66 ). And there are
the unfortunately visible few whose classroom behavior is so injudicious
or otherworldly as to make it plausible for outsiders to call it incompetent.
Student ratings may single those out – but then for those unusual cases,
student ratings are not needed to reveal the facts to their colleagues.
In the main, student evaluations merely measure popularity, which
is not necessarily a good thing in a teacher – perhaps especially not with
students who don’t care to study, who regard studying as an imposition.
80. “Teacher evaluations may become public”, Collegiate Times
(VPI&SU), 25 August 1995, p. A3.
81. Luther Brice, acclaimed master teacher of chemistry at Virginia
Polytechnic Institute & State University, personal communication, 27
April 1996.
82. Oscar Handlin, “A career at Harvard”, American Scholar,
65 #1 (Winter 1996) 47-58.
83. Richard B. McKenzie, The Political Economy of the Educational
Process, Boston, The Hague, London: Martinus Nijhoff, 1979.
84. pp. 84-5 in (83).
85. p. 92 in (83).
86. pp. 35-38 in (6).
87. p. xi in (6).
88. John A. Muffo to Phase II Task Force Members, 31 March 1993 (Virginia
Polytechnic Institute & State University), subject: “Killer” courses.
(These were defined as either an average QCA of less than 2.0 or combined
D & F grades for more than 20% of the class.)
A colleague responded: “In the interest of providing a balanced overview
… please consider also distributing an analogous list of courses in which
students perform disproportionately well (e.g., >20% A’s, high QCA courses,
etc…). Perhaps this list could be entitled “Easy A’s” or “Patsy and Cream
Puff Courses” — James M. Tanko to John A. Muffo, 12 April 1993.
“Suicide” courses would be a more appropriate description than “killer”,
of course. After all, students who don’t learn what quizzes have shown
them they don’t yet know, are behaving suicidally. But so too, it seems,
are instructors who attempt to maintain standards.
89. William Cole, “By rewarding mediocrity we discourage excellence”,
Chronicle of Higher Education, 6 January 1993, pp. B1,2.
90. Jeffrey A. Bell, “Grade inflation?”, The Scientist, 13 April
1992, p.12.
91. Brian P. Williams, in response to an exam question about science
education and literacy, HST 4304 (Contemporary Issues in Humanities, Science
& Technology), Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University.
Spring 1996.
92. Christopher Shea, “Grade inflation’s consequences – students are
said to desert the sciences in favor of easy grades in the humanities”,
Chronicle of Higher Education, 5 January 1994, pp. A45-46.
93. “Fighting grade inflation”, Science, 264 (27 May 1994)
1255.
94. Stephen L. Carter, Integrity, New York: Basic Books, 1995.
95. Richard Brookhiser, “Why virtue is in short supply”, New York
Times Book Review, 3 March 1996, p. 12.
96. Julie L. Nicklin, “Teaching teachers to protect themselves and
their students”, Chronicle of Higher Education, 26 April 1996, p.
A18.
97. Joel Turner, “Recent school bus hijacking only adds to drivers’
stress”, Roanoke Times, 27 January 1996, pp. C1,5; citing bus driver
Bonnie Ratcliffe.
98. Joel Turner, “White: let them play, not quit”, Roanoke Times,
10 May 1996, p. C1.
99. Chester E. Finn Jr. & Bruno V. Manno, “American higher education:
behind the Emerald City’s curtain”, Hudson Briefing Paper, #188,
April 1996 (Hudson Institute, P. O. Box 26-919, Indianapolis IN 46226).
100. p. 166 in (6).
101. K. S. M., “Cost of remediation rises sharply in Texas”, Chronicle
of Higher Education, 2 August 1996, p. A23.
102. C. Leonard Himes, “Bad attitudes – who’s to blame?”, Chemical
& Engineering News, 25 September 1995, p. 82.
103. “Self-Esteem – No praise, please, for mediocrity” (editorial),
Roanoke Times, 9 August 1993, p. A4.
104. Dale Arrington, personal communication, 5 March 1996.
105. Beth Thompson, “How I learned the hard way”, Roanoke Times,
24 August 1993 & NRV/Express Line, 26 August 1993, p. WS/NRV6.
106. Survey of CHEM 1015 students, VPI&SU, Henry H. Bauer, Fall
1993.
107. Yet my university is highly selective: in the last ten years our
incoming freshmen averaged in the 20-25th percentile of high-school graduates
with average SAT scores between 1065 and 1100.
108. Daniel J. Singal, “The other crisis in American education”, Atlantic
Monthly, November 1991, pp. 59-74.
109. Madelyn Rosenberg, “14% of freshmen in remedial classes”, Roanoke
Times, 12 August 1992, p. B1.
110. Michael Medved, “Protecting our children from a plague of pessimism”,
Imprimis (Hillsdale College), 24 #12, December 1995; citing an April
1995 study by the University of Chicago.
111. Patrick Welsh, “Classroom potatoes”, Washington Post, 29
May 1992, pp. C1,2.
112. K. M. Reese, “NEWSCRIPTS – Survey covers academics’ feelings about
their work”, Chemical & Engineering News, 10 July 1995, p. 64.
113. Peter Ofner, e-mail, 4 June 1996.
114. Constance Holden, “Random Samples — Industry down on science education”,
Science, 272 (10 May 1996) 819.
115. Kenneth C. Green, “A profile of undergraduates in the sciences”,
American Scientist, 77 (September-October 1989) 475-80.
116. Rick Muirragui & Sean Tubbs, “Virginia Tech turns 121”, Preston
Journal (VPI&SU), 5-11 April 1993, p. 2.
117. Colman McCarthy, “Firing the messenger”, Washington Post,
3 July 1993, p. A23.
118. Denise K. Magner, “Mid-semester removal of professor roils University
of Montana”, Chronicle of Higher Education 19 May 1995, p. A25.
119. Albert Shanker, “Where we stand – students as customers”, New
York Times, 8 August 1993, p. E7.
120. Allan Tucker, Chairing the Academic Department – Leadership
Among Peers, 3rd ed., American Council on Education & Macmillan
1992/Oryx Press 1993. I wager that any department chair who follows the
precepts in this book will have an unhappy faculty. For contrasting good
advice given more concisely and in better prose, see Josef Martin (pen-name
of Henry H. Bauer), To Rise Above Principle: The Memoirs of an Unreconstructed
Dean, University of Illinois Press 1988.
121. Paul Brozovsky & Allan M. Bloom, “Freshman chemistry grades
– descriptive report”, IRPA (VPI&SU), 93-94, no. xx, 7 October 1993.
122. Patricia Amateis, Henry Bauer, Jim Glanville, & Jimmy Viers
to Rich Gandour, 20 October 1993, Chemistry Department, VPI&SU.
123. Joyce A. Huesemann, personal communication, 16 August 1995.
124. p. 7 in (72).
125. William Willimon & Thomas Naylor, The Abandoned Generation,
Eerdmans, 1995 (from review by Mark Rowh, “‘Generation’ tells how to save
higher education”, Roanoke Times, 25 August 1996, HORIZON p. 4.
126. National Association of Scholars, The Dissolution of General
Education: 1914-1993, NAS (575 Ewing St., Princeton NJ 08540), 1996.
127. Timothy Reed, assistant director for university unions and student
activities, quoted in Elizabeth Keen, “Program gets reflective name”, Collegiate
Times (VPI&SU), 3 November 1992, p. A1.
128. Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse
in the Age of Show Business, Penguin, 1986 (Viking Penguin 1985); The
Disappearance of Childhood, Vintage, 1994 (1st ed. Delacorte, 1982) ; Technopoly:
The Surrender of Culture to Technology, Vintage, 1993 (Alfred A. Knopf,
1992).
129. “Tech video captures gold medal”, Spectrum (VPI&SU),
27 August 1992, p. 3.
130. Myra Serrano, “Living an alternative lifestyle”, Collegiate
Times (VPI&SU), 23 March 1993, pp. A1,10.
131. Denise K. Magner, “Faculty Notes”, Chronicle of Higher Education,
2 February 1994, p. A16.
132. In a segment of 60 Minutes broadcast on Sunday, 22 September
1996, a Harlem public school was featured whose Principal confidently expected
all her students to go on to a superior college. It reminded me of a similar
story, perhaps a decade ago, from Chicago, where another black woman had
accomplished similar “miracles” through conviction and dedication.
133. Distressed Old Prof in New Orleans, “Higher education is flunking
out” (letter), Roanoke Times, 4 September 1955, EXTRA p. 4; “Caveat
emptor” (letters from Bill Church & Nenad M. Kostic), Chemical &
Engineering News, 12 July 1993, p. 3.
134. Katherine S. Mangan, Chronicle of Higher Education, 2 March
1994, p. A19.
135. Neil Postman, The End of Education: Redefining the Value of
School, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995.
136. Jacques Barzun, Teacher in America, Garden City (NY): Doubleday
Anchor Books, 1954 (1st ed. 1945, Little, Brown), p. 17.
137. Michael Oakeshott, “A Place of Learning”, in The Voice of Liberal
Learning: Michael Oakeshott on Education, ed. Timothy Fuller, Yale
University Press, 1989, p. 21.
138. Jane M. Healy, Endangered Minds: Why Children Don’t Think and
What We Can Do About It, Simon & Schuster, 1991.
139. Christopher Lasch, “Young people have lost their belief in a future”,
St. Petersburg Times, 1 January 1990, p. 16A.
Students
Who Don't Study
Society
for a Return to Academic Standards
Last updated: 1 October 1997