THE MORNING RANT: Interesting News On The Education Front (Some Of It Actually Good!)

Rutgers Allegedly Hiring Its Own Grads Through Temp Agency to Goose MBA Rankings

The website for Rutgers Business School proudly lists its prominent rankings – Bloomberg’s #1 Public Business School in the Northeast for 2022. Fortune’s #1 Public Business School in the Northeast in 2021.

If you want a great job, a Rutgers MBA will take you places, right? In its silly ranking of schools, U.S. News & World Report rated Rutgers’ MBA program as a top-10 school for “Best Overall Employment Outcomes.”

Well, yeah, because if you’re an unemployed graduate of Rutgers’ MBA program, the school will allegedly “hire” you through third parties and back channels, so as to report that you are employed.

Rutgers created fake jobs for graduates to boost MBA program rankings, lawsuit charges [NJ.com – 4/08/2022]

The lawsuit by Deidre White, the business school’s human resources manager, alleged the program used a temp agency to hire unemployed MBA students, placing them into sham positions at the university itself — for no other reason than to make it appear like a greater number of graduates were getting full-time jobs after getting their Rutgers diplomas.

For these rankings, schools are not allowed to count students that get hired by the school itself upon graduation, or else schools would be incentivized to put unemployed graduates on their payrolls for the purpose of goosing the results.

So Rutgers just added a middle-man.

By going through an outside temp agency, White’s lawsuit claimed the university was able to circumvent restrictions in the ranking systems that do not allow universities to count internal hires for purposes of their employment statistics.

None of this is surprising. There is such an awful rot throughout most of higher education. The “MBA Industrial Complex” has become just as odious as all the Grievance Studies programs that have taken over the soft sciences.

In A Humane Move For Unqualified Applicants, MIT Is Reinstating SAT/ACT Requirement

To MIT’s credit, it is not possible to get an MIT degree simply by writing about your feelings or engaging in class discussions about your traumas and victim status.

To MIT’s discredit, they used Covid as an excuse to ditch the requirement for standardized admissions tests.

Removing the SAT/ACT requirement opened the door for unqualified applicants to be admitted, and unsurprisingly, they couldn’t handle the rigorous academic expectations.

So now MIT is having to bring back standardized admissions testing.

We are reinstating our SAT/ACT requirement for future admissions cycles [MIT Admissions – 3/28/2022]

After careful consideration, we have decided to reinstate our SAT/ACT requirement for future admissions cycles.

All MIT students, regardless of intended major, must pass two semesters of calculus, plus two semesters of calculus-based physics, as part of our General Institute Requirements.⁠

Admitting students unqualified to handle advanced math is not just an effort in futility, it’s actually cruel to those unqualified students who were admitted.

In other words, there is no path through MIT that does not rest on a rigorous foundation in mathematics, and we need to be sure our students are ready for that as soon as they arrive.⁠

MIT is one of the very few remaining universities for which a degree means the graduate is academically accomplished and could not find an easy path to obtain a degree.

As I have previously documented, you can obtain a degree from the “prestigious” University of Texas School of Journalism without having to take a single course in math or science. It is regrettable for those who work to obtain degrees in the hard sciences at schools like Texas, that at the very same time, their universities are behaving like diploma mills for those who can’t even pass freshman science or math.

I’ve no doubt that MIT will ultimately surrender its standards to please the Critical Race Theory agitators, but for now, MIT bringing back standardized tests is a bold and welcome action.

Tennessee Governor Bringing In Hillsdale College To Operate 50 Charter Schools

Gov. Bill Lee of Tennessee is a Christian who absolutely lets his faith and patriotism guide how he governs. Without drawing much attention outside the state (until this week), he has been working to set up 50 charter schools in Tennessee to be run by the conservative Christian college, Hillsdale College.

Hillsdale College is legendary in conservative circles for maintaining a classical liberal arts education that unapologetically introduces students to western literature and philosophy. It has kept out federal intrusion by refusing any federal funding or aid.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee seeks to partner with Hillsdale College on charter schools [Washington Times – 4/11/2022]

“For decades, Hillsdale College has been a standard-bearer in quality curriculum and in the responsibility of preserving American liberty,” Mr. Lee said. “I believe their efforts are a good fit for Tennessee. We are formalizing a partnership with Hillsdale to expand their approach to civics education and K-12 education in Tennessee.”

Bringing in Hillsdale isn’t just about providing an excellent education. It’s about ensuring that Anti-American wokeness won’t creep into the education.

Tennessee governor invites private conservative college to open 50 charter schools whose anti-woke curriculum will teach students that America is 'an exceptionally good country' [Daily Mail – 4/12/2022]

Hillsdale College plans to add at least 50 public charter schools, which focus on the centrality of the Western tradition.

Gov. Bill Lee of Tennessee is allowing the college to start the schools, using public funds, including $32 million set aside for charter facilities.

Hillsdale's network currently includes 24 schools in 13 states.

The college developed the '1776 Curriculum,' which sets out to portray America as an exceptionally good country. Set-up in direct response to the New York Times' 1619 Project, which argues that US progress was all made thanks to slavery.

This is so important. The administration of schools must assertively be patriotic and anti-woke. Which is the only way to fight the woke agenda. Being passive or neutral while the left infiltrates every institution ensures the loss of our institutions. Not pushing back is surrendering.

Democrats and the media (but I repeat myself) in Tennessee are handling this about as well as you would expect:

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee's partnership with Hillsdale College deserves public scrutiny [The Tennessean]

Lee’s partnership with Hillsdale aimed at creating a religious state [Tennessee Lookout]

Public education across the country has descended into a morass of anti-Americanism, wrapped in a rainbow flag, and staffed by an army of teachers who want to get paid not to teach. At the same time, parents across the country have effectively had to home school their children the past two years due to Covid. With the old public education structure thoroughly destabilized, this is an excellent time to roll-out Hillsdale-type charter schools across the country.

Good job Governor Lee. We need more of this across the country.

(buck.throckmorton at protonmail dot com)

posted by Buck Throckmorton at 11:00 AM

| Access Comments