Cornell Insider

a blog by the writers of the Cornell Review

Archive for February 9th, 2010

Education Socialism

Posted by Dennis Shiraev on February 9, 2010

Former Cornell Professor Thomas Sowell writes about an absurd proposal at Berkeley that would cut several science positions in order to save money for programs that help underachievers. Here’s a short excerpt:

The point is to close educational gaps among groups, or at least go on record as trying. As with most equalization crusades, whether in education or in the economy, it is about equalizing downward, by lowering those at the top. “Fairness” strikes again!

This is not just a crazy idea by one principal in Berkeley. It is a crazy idea taught in schools of education across the country. A professor of education at the University of San Francisco has weighed in on the controversy at Berkeley, supporting the idea of “projects designed to narrow the achievement gap.”

He goes on to discuss how liberals have utilized the the term “privilege”- equating it with success in every arena of life- to evade “the question [of] whether individuals’ own priorities and efforts affect outcomes, whether in education or in other endeavors.”

This particular proposal has received some national attention, but perhaps it is only an isolated incident. I would be interested to know how other schools have redirected funding away from or towards these special programs during the inevitable budget reviews of the past two years.

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More Basketball.

Posted by Dennis Shiraev on February 9, 2010

Yes, you heard it right- all of you who said Cornell should be grateful for getting a #25 ranking in the ESPN/USA Today poll and shouldn’t expect to move any higher- we’re now up to #22! We’re also a few votes away from cracking the top 25 in the AP poll.

On a related note, check out this interesting article from The Dartmouth on Ivy basketball and the possibility of an end of the year Ivy League basketball tournament. I like the author’s idea, but I do disagree with this part:

If Cornell were to stumble in an Ivy League tournament, maybe with a fluke loss to Columbia or even Princeton, and lose the automatic berth, the selection committee probably wouldn’t jump at the chance to use up an at-large bid on a second Ivy League school at the expense of a big-name program. Instead of sending a potential nine-seed (or higher) with a ton of upset potential, the Ivy League would be left with a high-teens seed waiting to get steamrolled, as usual.

While I would be legitimately concerned about a deserving team not making it to the NCAA Tournament because of an upset in an Ivy tournament, I doubt this would be a problem for a team as strong as this year’s Big Red. I simply can’t envision the selection committee not giving an at-large bid to a team ranked #22 in the nation (or higher), Ivy or not.

Posted in Campus Insiders | Tagged: | 2 Comments »

 
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