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Is Education Research "Claptrap"?
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Dom
May 14, 2012, 1:31:55 PM5/14/12
to
Based on my experiences, "claptrap" would also be a suitable
description for much of education research, in particular for research
in mathematics education.
The fate of Naomi Schaefer Riley has been covered in many
publications, including:
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/education-blogger-fired-calling-black-studies-dissertation-topics-left-wing-victimization-claptrap-article-1.1075392
==================
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304363104577391842133259230.html
Naomi Schaefer Riley: The Academic Mob Rules
Instead of encouraging wide discussion, the Chronicle of Higher
Education fires a blogger
By NAOMI SCHAEFER RILEY
Recently, the Chronicle of Higher Education published a cover story
called "Black Studies: 'Swaggering Into the Future,'" in which the
reporter described how "young black-studies scholars . . . are less
consumed than their predecessors with the need to validate the field
or explain why they are pursuing doctorates in their discipline." The
"5 Up-and-Coming Ph.D. Candidates" described in the piece's sidebar
"are rewriting the history of race." While the article suggested some
are skeptical of black studies as a discipline, the reporter neglected
to quote anyone who is.
Like me. So last week, on the Chronicle's "Brainstorm" blog (where I
was paid to be a regular contributor), I suggested that the
dissertation topics of the graduate students mentioned were obscure at
best and "a collection of left-wing victimization claptrap," at
worst.
For instance, the author of a dissertation on the history of black
midwifery began her research, she told the Chronicle, because she
"noticed that nonwhite women's experiences were largely absent from
natural-birth literature." Another graduate student blamed the housing
crisis in America on institutional racism. And a third argued that
conservatives like Thomas Sowell, Clarence Thomas and John McWhorter
have "played one of the most-significant roles in the assault on the
civil-rights legacy that benefited them."
The reaction to my blog post ranged from puerile to vitriolic. The
graduate students I mentioned and the senior faculty who advise them
at Northwestern University accused me (in guest blogs posted by the
Chronicle editors) of bigotry and cowardice. The former wrote that "in
a bid to not be 'out-niggered' [their word] by her right-wing cohort,
Riley found some black women graduate students to beat up on." (I
confess I don't actually know what that means.) One fellow blogger
(and hundreds of commenters) called my post "racist."
Gina Barreca, a teacher of English and feminist theory at the
University of Connecticut, composed a poem mocking me. (It begins "A
certain white chick-Schaefer Riley/ decided to do something wily.")
MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry spewed a four-minute rant about my
post, invoking the memory of Trayvon Martin and accusing me of "small-
mindedness."
Scores of critics on the site complained that I had not read the
dissertations in full before daring to write about them-an absurd
standard for a 500-word blog post. A number of the dissertations
aren't even available. Which didn't seem to stop the Chronicle
reporter, though. And 6,500 academics signed a petition online
demanding that I be fired.
At first, the Chronicle stood its ground, suggesting that my post was
an "invitation to debate." But that stance lasted for little more than
a weekend. In a note that reads like a confession at a re-education
camp, the Chronicle's editor, Liz McMillen announced her decision on
Monday to fire me: "We've heard you," she tells my critics. "And we
have taken to heart what you said. We now agree that Ms. Riley's blog
posting did not meet The Chronicle's basic editorial standards for
reporting and fairness in opinion articles."
When I asked Ms. McMillen whether the poem by fellow blogger Ms.
Barreca, for instance, lived up to such standards, she said they were
"reviewing" the other content on the site. So far, however, that
blogger has not been fired. Other ad hominem attacks against me seem
to have passed editorial muster as well.
In her Monday mea culpa, Ms. McMillen wrote that her previous
"editor's note last week inviting [readers] to debate the posting also
seemed to elevate it to the level of informed opinion, which it was
not." I have been a journalist writing about higher education for
close to 15 years now, having visited dozens of colleges and
universities and interviewed hundreds of faculty, students and
administrators. My work has been published in every major newspaper in
the country, most often this one, and I have written two widely
reviewed books on higher education as well.
As I wrote in the book I published shortly before the Chronicle hired
me, "It is not merely that [many] departments approach African-
American studies from a particular perspective-an Africa-centered one
in which blacks residing in America today are still deeply hobbled by
the legacy of slavery. It's that course and department descriptions
often appear to be a series of axes that faculty members would like to
grind."
But why take my word for it? Scholars more learned than I have been
saying the same thing for decades. In 1974, Thomas Sowell wrote that
from the beginnings of the discipline, "the demands for black studies
differed from demands for other forms of new academic studies in that
they . . . restricted the philosophical and political positions
acceptable, even from black scholars in such programs."
Thirty-five years later in a piece for the Minding the Campus website,
former Berkeley Prof. John McWhorter noted that little had changed:
"Too often the curriculum of African-American Studies departments
gives the impression that racism and disadvantage are the most
important things to note and study about being black."
My critics have suggested that I do not believe the black experience
in America is worthy of study. That is not true. It's just that the
best of this work rarely comes out of black studies departments.
Scholars like Roland Fryer in Harvard's economics department have done
pathbreaking research on the causes of economic disparities between
blacks and whites. And Eugene Genovese's work on slavery and the role
of religion in black American history retains its seminal role in the
field decades after its publication.
But a substantive critique about the content of academic disciplines
is simply impossible in the closed bubble of higher education. If you
want to know why almost all of the responses to my original post
consist of personal attacks on me, along with irrelevant mentions of
Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and
George Zimmerman, it is because black studies is a cause, not a course
of study. By doubting the academic worthiness of black studies, my
critics conclude, I am opposed to racial justice-and therefore a
racist.
As Ellen Schrecker, a Yeshiva University historian, writes in her book
"The Lost Soul of Higher Education," political ends were the goals of
the founders of black studies. Ms. Schrecker-who is, by the way,
sympathetic to these political goals-explains that the discipline's
proponents "viewed these programs as contributions to the continuing
struggle for racial justice, not as conventional academic courses of
study."
My longtime familiarity with the absurdities of higher education did
not, I confess, prepare me for this most absurd of results. The
content of my post, after all, is hardly shocking; the same thing
could have been written 30 years ago. And perhaps that's the most
depressing part of all this. Despite the real social and economic
advancement that has been made by blacks in this country, the American
faculty is still stuck in the 1960s.
Ms. Riley, a former Journal editor, is author of "The Faculty Lounges:
And Other Reasons Why You Won't Get the College Education You Pay
For" (Ivan, R. Dee, 2011) and "God on the Quad: How Religious Colleges
and the Missionary Generation Are Changing America" (St. Martin's,
2005).
A version of this article appeared May 9, 2012, on page A13 in some
U.S. editions of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: The
Academic Mob Rules.
description for much of education research, in particular for research
in mathematics education.
The fate of Naomi Schaefer Riley has been covered in many
publications, including:
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/education-blogger-fired-calling-black-studies-dissertation-topics-left-wing-victimization-claptrap-article-1.1075392
==================
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304363104577391842133259230.html
Naomi Schaefer Riley: The Academic Mob Rules
Instead of encouraging wide discussion, the Chronicle of Higher
Education fires a blogger
By NAOMI SCHAEFER RILEY
Recently, the Chronicle of Higher Education published a cover story
called "Black Studies: 'Swaggering Into the Future,'" in which the
reporter described how "young black-studies scholars . . . are less
consumed than their predecessors with the need to validate the field
or explain why they are pursuing doctorates in their discipline." The
"5 Up-and-Coming Ph.D. Candidates" described in the piece's sidebar
"are rewriting the history of race." While the article suggested some
are skeptical of black studies as a discipline, the reporter neglected
to quote anyone who is.
Like me. So last week, on the Chronicle's "Brainstorm" blog (where I
was paid to be a regular contributor), I suggested that the
dissertation topics of the graduate students mentioned were obscure at
best and "a collection of left-wing victimization claptrap," at
worst.
For instance, the author of a dissertation on the history of black
midwifery began her research, she told the Chronicle, because she
"noticed that nonwhite women's experiences were largely absent from
natural-birth literature." Another graduate student blamed the housing
crisis in America on institutional racism. And a third argued that
conservatives like Thomas Sowell, Clarence Thomas and John McWhorter
have "played one of the most-significant roles in the assault on the
civil-rights legacy that benefited them."
The reaction to my blog post ranged from puerile to vitriolic. The
graduate students I mentioned and the senior faculty who advise them
at Northwestern University accused me (in guest blogs posted by the
Chronicle editors) of bigotry and cowardice. The former wrote that "in
a bid to not be 'out-niggered' [their word] by her right-wing cohort,
Riley found some black women graduate students to beat up on." (I
confess I don't actually know what that means.) One fellow blogger
(and hundreds of commenters) called my post "racist."
Gina Barreca, a teacher of English and feminist theory at the
University of Connecticut, composed a poem mocking me. (It begins "A
certain white chick-Schaefer Riley/ decided to do something wily.")
MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry spewed a four-minute rant about my
post, invoking the memory of Trayvon Martin and accusing me of "small-
mindedness."
Scores of critics on the site complained that I had not read the
dissertations in full before daring to write about them-an absurd
standard for a 500-word blog post. A number of the dissertations
aren't even available. Which didn't seem to stop the Chronicle
reporter, though. And 6,500 academics signed a petition online
demanding that I be fired.
At first, the Chronicle stood its ground, suggesting that my post was
an "invitation to debate." But that stance lasted for little more than
a weekend. In a note that reads like a confession at a re-education
camp, the Chronicle's editor, Liz McMillen announced her decision on
Monday to fire me: "We've heard you," she tells my critics. "And we
have taken to heart what you said. We now agree that Ms. Riley's blog
posting did not meet The Chronicle's basic editorial standards for
reporting and fairness in opinion articles."
When I asked Ms. McMillen whether the poem by fellow blogger Ms.
Barreca, for instance, lived up to such standards, she said they were
"reviewing" the other content on the site. So far, however, that
blogger has not been fired. Other ad hominem attacks against me seem
to have passed editorial muster as well.
In her Monday mea culpa, Ms. McMillen wrote that her previous
"editor's note last week inviting [readers] to debate the posting also
seemed to elevate it to the level of informed opinion, which it was
not." I have been a journalist writing about higher education for
close to 15 years now, having visited dozens of colleges and
universities and interviewed hundreds of faculty, students and
administrators. My work has been published in every major newspaper in
the country, most often this one, and I have written two widely
reviewed books on higher education as well.
As I wrote in the book I published shortly before the Chronicle hired
me, "It is not merely that [many] departments approach African-
American studies from a particular perspective-an Africa-centered one
in which blacks residing in America today are still deeply hobbled by
the legacy of slavery. It's that course and department descriptions
often appear to be a series of axes that faculty members would like to
grind."
But why take my word for it? Scholars more learned than I have been
saying the same thing for decades. In 1974, Thomas Sowell wrote that
from the beginnings of the discipline, "the demands for black studies
differed from demands for other forms of new academic studies in that
they . . . restricted the philosophical and political positions
acceptable, even from black scholars in such programs."
Thirty-five years later in a piece for the Minding the Campus website,
former Berkeley Prof. John McWhorter noted that little had changed:
"Too often the curriculum of African-American Studies departments
gives the impression that racism and disadvantage are the most
important things to note and study about being black."
My critics have suggested that I do not believe the black experience
in America is worthy of study. That is not true. It's just that the
best of this work rarely comes out of black studies departments.
Scholars like Roland Fryer in Harvard's economics department have done
pathbreaking research on the causes of economic disparities between
blacks and whites. And Eugene Genovese's work on slavery and the role
of religion in black American history retains its seminal role in the
field decades after its publication.
But a substantive critique about the content of academic disciplines
is simply impossible in the closed bubble of higher education. If you
want to know why almost all of the responses to my original post
consist of personal attacks on me, along with irrelevant mentions of
Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and
George Zimmerman, it is because black studies is a cause, not a course
of study. By doubting the academic worthiness of black studies, my
critics conclude, I am opposed to racial justice-and therefore a
racist.
As Ellen Schrecker, a Yeshiva University historian, writes in her book
"The Lost Soul of Higher Education," political ends were the goals of
the founders of black studies. Ms. Schrecker-who is, by the way,
sympathetic to these political goals-explains that the discipline's
proponents "viewed these programs as contributions to the continuing
struggle for racial justice, not as conventional academic courses of
study."
My longtime familiarity with the absurdities of higher education did
not, I confess, prepare me for this most absurd of results. The
content of my post, after all, is hardly shocking; the same thing
could have been written 30 years ago. And perhaps that's the most
depressing part of all this. Despite the real social and economic
advancement that has been made by blacks in this country, the American
faculty is still stuck in the 1960s.
Ms. Riley, a former Journal editor, is author of "The Faculty Lounges:
And Other Reasons Why You Won't Get the College Education You Pay
For" (Ivan, R. Dee, 2011) and "God on the Quad: How Religious Colleges
and the Missionary Generation Are Changing America" (St. Martin's,
2005).
A version of this article appeared May 9, 2012, on page A13 in some
U.S. editions of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: The
Academic Mob Rules.
Herman Rubin
May 16, 2012, 3:06:51 PM5/16/12
to
On 2012-05-14, Dom <DR...@teikyopost.edu> wrote:
> Based on my experiences, "claptrap" would also be a suitable
> description for much of education research, in particular for research
> in mathematics education.
I have left out part of the article; those interested in those
> Based on my experiences, "claptrap" would also be a suitable
> description for much of education research, in particular for research
> in mathematics education.
details can read the referred posting or the web sites cited.
To you youngsters (I grew up in the Depression) none of this
is new to me. About then, a group of educational philosophers
essentially took over, claiming, as philosophers are wont to do,
that they had THE answers.
Their immediate approach was to emphasize keeping children with
their age group and emphasize peer group cooperation rather than
academic progress, and they even took the position that only the
rich would go to college, so the schools should prepare the boys
for work in the rust belt industries, and the girls for marriage.
They took the position that mental abilities were sufficiently
comparable that no damage would be done by keeping children with
their age group and reducing the curriculum if this made it
necessary. We all know what happened; there were few reversals.
This did not make it to the high schools until after WWII.
BTW, here is a quote to the contrary:
Leta Hollingworth's "Children above 180 IQ".
"compulsory education, with heterogeneous classes, forces upon
gifted children situations that would be analagous to those arising
if teachers and superintendents were compelled to consort daily,
unprotected, with giant thugs and gangsters" (p. 272)
I was able to do some advancing, at a much slower pace than I
could, with opposition. I moved faster after getting into high
school, and went to college, paying little for my whole period
there. I also found out that it was easy for a competent student
to get support if needed, at that time.
The educationist have had a few reversals, with books on phonics
enabling even not too literate parents to teach their children
to read by translating letter sequences into sounds, and
learning exceptions, rather than memorizing each sequence,
and as a result of Sputnik, allowing and even encouraging
children to discuss with their parents.
The curriculum has continued to decrease, with many not even
being able to get a reasonable mathematics course, weakened
science courses, and elimination of the language requirement.
The old language courses required grammar, as did grammar
school before the educationists took over.
Instead of helping our bright students to learn more meaningful
material, we have the "No Child Left Behind" policy, which is
logically equivalent to "No Child Gets Ahead", so we have
college students who are not bright enough to manage a decent
elementary school curriculum.
Also, much of the educationsts' "results" are obtained by
wrong use of statistics. I will not go into details here,
but my credentials are open source.
> The fate of Naomi Schaefer Riley has been covered in many
> publications, including:
> http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/education-blogger-fired-calling
>-black-studies-dissertation-topics-left-wing-victimization-claptrap-article
>-1.1075392
> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304363104577391842133259230.html
> Naomi Schaefer Riley: The Academic Mob Rules
> Instead of encouraging wide discussion, the Chronicle of Higher
> Education fires a blogger
> By NAOMI SCHAEFER RILEY
.....................
> Naomi Schaefer Riley: The Academic Mob Rules
> Instead of encouraging wide discussion, the Chronicle of Higher
> Education fires a blogger
> By NAOMI SCHAEFER RILEY
> Ms. Riley, a former Journal editor, is author of "The Faculty Lounges:
> And Other Reasons Why You Won't Get the College Education You Pay
> For" (Ivan, R. Dee, 2011) and "God on the Quad: How Religious Colleges
> and the Missionary Generation Are Changing America" (St. Martin's,
> 2005).
> A version of this article appeared May 9, 2012, on page A13 in some
> U.S. editions of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: The
> Academic Mob Rules.
This address is for information only. I do not claim that these views
are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University.
Herman Rubin, Department of Statistics, Purdue University
hru...@stat.purdue.edu Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558
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