21 thoughts on “What a Snob!”

  1. The trouble is, those jobs are not coming back.
    If manufacturing returns, it will be automated. There will be a need for a few skilled technicians. There will not be a need for 1950s-era mechanics. There will be huge demand for programmers and software debuggers. It will far outstrip our current supply of people who understand code.
    Lights out manufacturing is already here: http://www.northernmfg.com/SheetMetalInnovations/lightsout.htm
    lights out = no humans involved, thus no need for light.
    Automated warehousing: http://www.unitronics.com/Content.aspx?page=AutomaticWarehouse
    The jobs of the future demand more education. This isn’t an issue of snobbery, and the education may not be a college degree. It’s the consequence of the computer and robotic revolution.
    It remains to be seen whether we can teach people who don’t like math to debug code.

    Like

  2. To be more than fair to Santorum, since this isn’t what he actually said, I do think the pushing more people into post-secondary education is pretty much equivalent to a national admission that we can’t are the suck at secondary education.

    Like

  3. “It remains to be seen whether we can teach people who don’t like math to debug code.”
    I’m thinking no.
    There’s an interesting post here
    http://www.joannejacobs.com/2012/02/30-of-u-s-adults-have-bachelors-degree/#comments
    that links to this post:
    http://www.nas.org/articles/supersizing_obamas_higher_education_agenda_part_1_of_8
    Obama wants 55% of young Americans to be college graduates, which would require immediate doubling of college enrollment.
    Getting everybody to go back to school is one way of pushing unemployment down, but not a long-term solution. There are already so many broke and struggling people out there with college loans for unfinished degrees that it seems very unwise to be jumping on the college-for-all bandwagon.
    Encouraging more part-time community college enrollment is quite a different thing–the CCs are a low-stakes environment that allow students to make mistakes inexpensively.

    Like

  4. “To be more than fair to Santorum, since this isn’t what he actually said, I do think the pushing more people into post-secondary education is pretty much equivalent to a national admission that we can’t are the suck at secondary education.”
    My sister went to a German business school. Anyway, for graduation eligibility, they deemed a German high school diploma to be equivalent to an American high school diploma plus two years of American college. That’s of course an over-generalization on the part of the Germans, because there are some American high schools that are really hot stuff, but I do see where they’re coming from.
    As you can see from Diane Ravitch’s Left Back, an American high school diploma was a very big deal at the beginning of the 20th century. Today’s US high school diploma is much more a certificate of attendance.

    Like

  5. Remember the finding that “Christ, what an asshole” could serve as the caption for pretty much any New Yorker cartoon? Well pretty much everything I read about Santorum makes me think of that phrase.

    Like

  6. Is the biggest insult here really calling Obama a snob?
    Remembering my Genesis 1:27, in which the Lord “created man in His image,” it sounds like Santorum is criticizing Obama for attempting to deify himself.
    Then, after implying that Obama has delusions of grandeur, he gives the game away by saying that parents should have the godlike powers to be able to re-create their children in their own image.
    I often find myself agreeing with Republicans when they say the federal government has too much power, but then immediately turn off when I realize who they want to have the power instead.

    Like

  7. I actually think the criticism of Obama’s plan is on target, however. If the average IQ in America is 100, then this means that 50 percent of Americans are clearly NOT college material. This is simply the cold, hard truth. Saying that everyone should go to college is a bit like saying that everyone should be a professional athlete, or that everyone should be six feet tall. Personally, I”m neither of those things and it would be preposterous for anyone to try to force me to be so.

    Like

  8. Here’s a quote from my blog from last week:
    “I was listening to Wednesday’s Dave Ramsey show while doing some housework and I just listened to a call from a young woman with $80k in private student loans. She did not complete her degree in journalism and now does data entry for $30k a year, the most she’s ever made. Her husband is unemployed.”
    We already have lots of very marginal people flailing at 4-year schools. Let’s not throw more money and marginal students into a Red Queen Race that they are going to lose.

    Like

  10. I actually think the criticism of Obama’s plan is on target, however. If the average IQ in America is 100, then this means that 50 percent of Americans are clearly NOT college material. This is simply the cold, hard truth.
    That’s cold, hard crap. A mathematically defined midpoint should be treated as an unchangeable physical characteristic? Even assuming that IQ is “real” (which I don’t agree with), not even IQ-true-believers claim that an IQ of 90 means “mentally incapable of obtaining an college degree.” It just means one standard deviation below average. You could have made the same argument in 1900 to show the “cold hard truth” that half of the people just aren’t cut out for high school.
    In the great nation of New Jersey, about 43% of us have at least an Associate’s Degree, and another 18% have “some college,” but no degree. That makes a 55% target seem pretty easily reachable, even if no one new ever signed up for a college class.
    And, unless you concede that New Jersey is an East Coast Lake Woebegone, where all the children are above average, it seems like it should be applicable in the benighted parts of America too.

    Like

  11. New Jersey hold the suburbs for one major city and one sort-of major city. It is a funny state, demographically speaking.

    Like

  12. Yup, a 100 on IQ tests means nothing other than the defined mean of the norming sample. In fact, measured IQ has been steadily drifting upward (“Flynn” effect) (and norms have to be recalculated — one of the reasons why old IQ tests don’t give meaningful IQs with modern samples).
    So, if IQ was a meaningful term, people are getting smarter. The real reason for the Flynn effect is more complicated (and less understood), but, there is no reason to presume that an IQ of 100 or 90 or 80 means something specific about the ability to do college level work.

    Like

  13. “You could have made the same argument in 1900 to show the “cold hard truth” that half of the people just aren’t cut out for high school.”
    And that would have been true–of the circa 1900 high school curriculum, which was a pretty rarified thing. (If I hadn’t given away my copy of Diane Ravitch’s Left Back, I’d be giving you chapter and verse on this.) The high school of 1900 and the high school of 1955 were totally different places, with the latter having far more attention to vocational courses and “life adjustment” curriculum. It was not true that curriculum stayed static while the population broadened–both curriculum and population changed.

    Like

  14. I have never been prouder to have a daughter from New Jersey. It’s reassuring to know that she is by definition above average. I guess I can let her watch Spongebob as much as she wants now without worrying about IQ diminishment.
    Joking aside, didn’t Santorum go on to say that his concern was that sending folks to college threatened to undermine conservative values, since all the professors seek to indoctrinate their students against religion (Catholicism, one presumes)?
    At any rate, Obama’s goal is to have at least one year of some form of higher ed — including vocational and technical school. He’s not advocating Aristotle for everyone. It could be paralegal training, medical equipment, electrical or plumbing training — something above high school.

    Like

  15. In the past, didn’t electricians and plumbers get paid for training on the job? I suppose that ship has sailed.

    Like

  16. In our state, standards for electricians have been raised. Our electrician hails from a family of electricians, and the younger members have a much longer path to their license.
    New Jersey isn’t typical. It’s very affluent, and the citizens may well have moved to New Jersey at some point in the past.
    Fun map! We even segregate ourselves by our willingness to move! Compare midwest counties to coastal counties: http://www.forbes.com/special-report/2011/migration.html

    Like

  17. “At any rate, Obama’s goal is to have at least one year of some form of higher ed — including vocational and technical school. He’s not advocating Aristotle for everyone. It could be paralegal training, medical equipment, electrical or plumbing training — something above high school.”
    It would be best if there were high school courses to give a taste of those subjects, so students don’t waste money on a subject that they discover (thousands of dollars later) they don’t like, aren’t good at, or they don’t know enough math for.
    High school (and K-12 generally) needs to be a lot better, or any additional money spent on higher education will be wasted. Vast numbers of high school graduates struggle in remedial college classes and never make it to actual college-level material. For students who are not high performers, there is very poor articulation between high school and college.

    Like

  18. sending folks to college threatened to undermine conservative values, since all the professors seek to indoctrinate their students against religion (Catholicism, one presumes)
    Boy, won’t those Jesuits be surprised!

    Like

  19. Doug,
    I take it you are unfamiliar with the perennial tussles over Catholic identity at historically Catholic universities, schools, etc.
    Knowing the milieu as well as I do, I guarantee that the Santorums would think once or twice before sending kids to Georgetown. I’m not saying that they wouldn’t or shouldn’t do it, but it’s a mixed bag, mostly a sort of white collar vocational school.

    Like

  20. Also, for the record, Santorum isn’t much of an economic conservative. You could easily make a case that bj is to his right economically.
    Santorum’s campaign has been robocalling Michigan with accusations that Romney opposed the auto bailout. I don’t think that’s cynicism–I think Santorum just isn’t a free market-loving guy.

    Like

  21. My MA is from there, and my BA is from an Episcopalian-owned institution, so I know a thing or two about the tussles involved. It may be that my tongue was in my cheek.

    Like

Comments are closed.