Jameela Lares wrote:

---

The last paragraph quoted above would seem to be at odds with the claim on another thread that the Wall Street Journal reporled heavy public spending on education. JL

---

Public spending on the K-12 education sector (which tends to produce mediocre results) is up; public spending on higher education (which is still the best such system in the world) is down.  Go figure!

Cossack wrote:

---

Just an opinion wrote,


Public spending on the K-12 education sector (which tends to produce mediocre results) is up; public spending on higher education (which is still the best such system in the world) is down. Go figure!

I tend to believe that the mediocre results are getting worse. As I grade tests today, I am convinced that the average quality of USM students has declined. The percentage of students who write (badly) a five-line paragraph to answer a discussion question that should take two pages in the Blue Book has increased. The percentage of absences in classes has increased. A large component of our students come from Community Colleges. Hence, these students only attend a “University” for two years of which one semester (or more) is spent trying to handle the faster pace. I do not know if faculty in other colleges are experiencing the same situation, but I suspect this decline is University wide.

---

Cossack,

Your post seems to suggest that students should be held accountable for their inability to budget their own time. How preposterous! We all know that more funding for higher education would solve all these problems.

Seriously, though, USM has built itself on the premise that a student should be able to work full-time and go to school full-time without losing anything. As I grade my exams today, I had one student who wrote "This is not enough time for an exam" on her paper. It is odd that the 20% of my class that made natural As on that exam had enough time to complete the exam. My example is just one more data point: USM students do not put in the requisite time for study, they do work at their jobs too much, and when they fail, they blame the instructor. The sad thing is that some administrator somewhere would probably back the student's claim.

USM is not an institution of higher learning. It has become a repository for slackers, work-shirkers, and trustees of modern chemistry. Our job in the eyes of our administrators and the community at large is simply to hand out degrees to those who pay their tuition.

stinky cheese man wrote:

---

grading fool--although i agree with your comments about students working too much, i wonder how you subjugate yourself to teaching at usm. your last paragraph paints with a broad brush--too broad. in fact, it's rather insulting to those students who do not fit the stereotype--including one of my own. i read posts like yours and chalk them up to frustration (and no doubt there's plenty of reason to be frustrated) but i also believe that if you go into the classroom with your attitude that students will live up to your expectations.

---

When I had higher expectations, I was disappointed 98% of the time by those who choose work, hanging out, the frat house, TV, band practice, etc., over my class. Perhaps your child is not one of these, but he or she is drowning in a sea of slackers who constantly expect a handout. I simply cannot teach the same level course that I could teach when I first came to USM, and I blame that on stupidity of administration in establishing "customer service call centers" and other nonsense that emboldened USM students to believe that they should expect to be able to do it all and do it all very well.

You are correct that I paint with a broad brush, and you are correct that it is too broad. However, the fraction of students who are unfairly painted with that brush is small and growing smaller. It seems that I cannot find an exam that is easy enough for our 009ers to pass. As one of my colleagues says, "USM is a great place to get a good highs school education."

stinky cheese man wrote:

---

i've been here a quarter of a century. are students worse now than when i came? don't think so. a thread like this gets traction at the end of a semester, when faculty have the end of the semester frustrations. and i grumble and growl as well. but i grade them with the same expectations i had years ago.

---

So USM has been admitting the "009" crowd for a quarter of a century? This is news to me! There has been a noticeable slide in student quality since Thames took over, partly because of his poor management and the neagtive publicity that has accompanied it and partly because of his push for more students.

Perhaps things are better in your area than in mine.

stinky cheese man wrote:

---

i've been here a quarter of a century. are students worse now than when i came? don't think so. ...

---

Well, Stinky, I kept my old exams over the years and there is no way my students last year could pass my test from even 15 years ago.  One can see from the decline in my exams over 20 years how the students abilities declined.  Of course, we have some excellent students, but the vast majority have declined in abilities or the time they are willing/able to put into the course.  Most depressing is seeing excellent students with good study habits decay over 4 years as they learn they can get As without much effort.  

stinky cheese man wrote:

---

left--i've kept my tests as well. but i guess you lowered your expectations. at least you left. i worry about people who post here and are ostensibly faculty members going into the classroom with the attitudes they express here. my child going to school here tells me that he/she thinks faculty are too easy on them. (of course, my child reads the chronicle as well--i'm worried). bright students find ways to challenge themselves--i don't worry about them.

---

Stinky, I maintain standards, but the student's abilities were dropping faster than I could make my exams easier. They were easier only in that less material was covered. In the last few years, over 50% of the class in a service course for none majors were getting Ds and Fs.  This didn't sit well with the dean who asked the chair to change instructors, but the same result occurred even though less material was covered under the new instructor. 

stinky cheese man wrote:

---

in my shop we've resisted the temptation to lower standards.

---

Your dean didn't put pressure on your chair?  Does a weakness in math affect students taking your course or is math not involved? 

stinky cheese man wrote:

---

our students have to take math.

---

Yes, but I meant to ask if they need to use and be good in math for the courses in your subject.

stinky cheese man wrote:

---

depends on the student. but i gather you teach math. i'd rather my students take statistics. however, my take on the state is that our students don't have very good math skills coming out of hs.

---

No, I don't teach math, but students needed to use math in my subject.  (I guess I did end up teaching them math because they didn't know enough to pass.  )  From what I hear from people in Liberal Arts, the students don't have good reading and writing skills either.  Again we have some excellent students, but the majority are weak or too busy to study.

left--again, the majority? i don't know. every semester i deal with the students i'm dealt. above, below, or about average? i don't know. i just each and expect them to meet my standards. i don't dwell on it much.

cossack--i teach all levels. i'm not going to say that our students are the greatest shakes in the world, but we are only a public university with a compass direction in our name. i know folks at such places as youngstown state, missouri state, and the like. but i have my standards. at the same time, however, we have bright ones. as i said to someone downthread, i hope we don't take our attitudes into the classroom, because there's too much research showing that students rise to our expectations--if they're low, then students rise to those low levels. my child going here thinks in some classes the students are babied--but again my child reads the chronicle as an undergraduate.