"Wizard of Oz Diplomas"

Arnold Kling talks about educational entrepeneurship in a recent column at TCS. The piece discusses several different items, including the need for removing entry barriers for new ideas in education. While all of that is pretty good reading, one passage captured my attention and leads to the biggest criticism of Mr. Kling and many teachers.

Toward the start of his article, Kling writes:

One politically popular idea is to try to send more young adults to college. This may seem appealing, but in reality we already have too many students in college who lack sufficient basic skills.


In November, after grading a batch of papers, I posted the following notice to the web site for an economics course that I teach at George Mason University:

Many students did poorly with writing quality. If it were up to me, a lot of you would be taking remedial English classes. I would advise everyone to think twice about using the word "on." For example, it is wrong to say, "The book discusses on economic growth" when the proper sentence is "The book discusses economic growth."

My recollection from my career in government and business is that written communication skills still matter. Out of over 100 students in my class at George Mason, no more than a handful could function in any capacity in a job that required writing a memorandum. Over half of the students are utterly incompetent when it comes to grammar and syntax. They have no ability to communicate complex ideas. Yet I do not fail these students. I feel that I must reserve my F's for the students who do not turn in papers at all.(emphasis added)

If one of the purposes of a college education is to provide students with the ability to adequately communicate their thoughts in a written medium, why then pass the student who cannot achieve that goal?

Here is my logic for failing a student who, while turning in a paper, turns in a paper of such poor quality as to be indecipherable. If not turning in a paper is considered non-responsive to the question presented, a paper that does not adequately address the question in language that can be understood should likewise fail for being non-responsive. If a foriegn born student turned in a paper in their native language, they would receive a failing grade if they refused to translate it into English. If an American student fails to turn in a paper that does not answer the question in understandable English, why then should they get a passing grade, even if it is a "D" paper.

Educational reformers often decry the practice of social promotion among grade schoolers. Similarly, critics of the current state of higher education blast the relative worthlessness of a college degree because many graduate lack basic communication skills. Kling himself notes the problem

I fear that many of the students who pass will go on to earn Wizard-of-Oz diplomas, which signify nothing. Students will claim to be educated, but employers will know otherwise. The phenomenon of the Wizard-of-Oz diploma has discredited the college degree.

Yet, Kling fails to grasp or simply overlooks that he is partially responsible for the lack of real skills and knowledge of his students.

The problem lies not in our failure to recognize that we as a nation have a problem with social promotion and "Wizard of Oz" diplomas; for nearly everyone knows of the problem. Our national problem is that no one seems to recognize the individual failures of each teacher at each level. When a child is "socially promoted," usually more than one adult is responsible for the education of that child and not one of them appears to stand up and say--"No, this child should not be promoted." No professor, like Professor Kling, stands up and fails a student for not being able to communicate in the written form. Advancing a student, whether in grade school or in college, when they shouldn't be advanced requires, at a minimum, a tacit approval by everyone involved, and an explicit rejection of responsibility by everyone involved.

All professors and teacher, acting in a fashion like Prof. Kling, figures, "well teaching adequate communication skills is not my problem, so I won't fail students who can't write." Such a mindset simply passes the buck and eventually it is the student who gets cashiered later--never his/her instructors who failed to point out their problem sooner.

Of course, I could blame the "self-esteem" era of concern, but that lets far too many people off the hook. If we as a nation are truly serious about making our high school diplomas and our college degrees mean something, we must stop thinking that social promotion and hollow degrees are someone else's fault. We must hold teachers, professors, administrators and everyone else accountable, each and every person.