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Posted on 10/22/2011 2:17:18 PM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Tampa, Florida - If you're a student trying to earn a degree in anthropology, or even journalism, Governor Rick Scott says don't bother.
He says if the state is to compete for the best jobs, he wants students focusing on science, engineering, and math. Governor Scott says Florida needs more graduates in high tech fields so companies will consider relocating to the Sunshine State. But he's being criticized for his idea to shift tax dollars away from liberal arts majors like anthropology and journalism.
Natalie Odom is majoring in mass communications at the University of South Florida. She says, "I think it's awful because not everyone has an interest in math and science and if he cuts out areas that people have an interest in, that is just going to make for less students enrolled in college because they may not want to study a field that they have no desire or passion to study."
It's not clear what evidence Governor Scott has that graduates have less job prospects in the anthropology and journalism fields. According to the Miami Herald, liberal arts majors represent a small slice of all Florida undergraduate degrees: 4.7 percent. According to the American Anthropology Association, about 64 percent of those with a graduate degree in anthropology find a job within 12 months of graduating.
Staff members from USF'S Department of Anthropology say it's considered one of the best in the country and has been a consistent job creator for Tampa and the state of Florida. Brent Weisman, Ph.D. is the chair of the department and says the governor's statement is "completely uninformed. That's a statement made without any basis in fact."
Weisman adds, "I think it's an impressionist, anecdotal statement based on perhaps the stereotype of anthropology as a discipline that studies underwater basket weaving or something like that. It bears no relation to reality."
USF also has a career center that is free and open to all students regardless of what they're studying. Counselors are on hand to give students the tools they need to land a job whether it's how to dress for an interview or put together a resume. They put on job fairs and many employers visit the center to conduct interviews with students.
Dan Van Hoose is the assistant director of The Career Center and says, "They're exploring. They're learning. They're growing. They just know they have an interest in that academic topic. That doesn't necessarily define their skill set for life at that point in time."
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bttt
This will likely result in a barista shortage at Starbucks.
Illegals who rent or who own thier home pay state property taxes and state sales taxes. We don’t have an income tax so they are carrying the full load for education.
Bad argument.
This will likely result in a barista shortage at Starbucks.
Yeah! And besides, without mass communications majors where would Starbucks get its barristas?
” You’d think a “journalism” major would know the proper usage of “less” and “fewer”. “ <<<<
Basic literacy is nowhere in sight. The distinction between “less” and “fewer” is obliterated, never used correctly, and it is very irritating.
That is a good idea. Why should we subsidize a future bum?
The ones paying the full load are the property owners who have NO KIDS.
Illegals are illegal, they should get nothing from the state. No K-12, no college, no ER, no food stamps. What part of illegal do you not understand?
It would just be nice if Universities were run as halls of higher learning and not political hotbeds of Communism.
But then most students would flunk out today, having graduated from government high schools.
7 families to a house. Yeah, full load. lol.
Most states spend close to 50% of their state budgets on “education” and then there is Federal money (again our money) given back to us with strings attached.
Gov. Perry sued the feds — saying our money should be spent the way Texas wanted to spend Texas money — and won. (Post #4)
Meet Barbara Cargill, the SBOE's Latest Chief ……..>>>Her supporters say the Baylor University graduate is a mild-tempered, fair leader who is well suited to lead the 15-member board. Her critics say she is a dangerous culture warrior who injects her religious and political agenda into the classrooms of the country’s second largest public school system. But for those who follow the board’s every movement, there’s agreement on one point: For better or worse, Cargill’s tenure will likely bring more of the same.
Cargill’s immediate predecessors in the chair were, like her, a part of the majority-Republican board’s tightly knit gang of six social conservatives.
Because of that, her appointment “doesn’t change a lot,” said Dan Quinn, the spokesman for the Texas Freedom Network, a liberal watchdog of the board and fierce opponent of its social conservatives.
“She has voted in lockstep with Gail Lowe and Don McLeroy in the past," he said. "There's no real space between them."
McLeroy held the chairmanship from 2007 to 2009 and said Lowe and Cargill share many qualities. “She is so similar to Gail with her complete integrity and honesty," he said. "Those two ladies are some of the finest I ever met."
McLeroy suffered the same fate as Lowe during the 2009 legislative session. The Bryan dentist, who lost to current member Thomas Ratliff in the 2010 Republican primary, describes Cargill and Lowe as some of his best friends. He said Cargill was “the scientist on the board” and that she was known for independently investigating all the issues that came before it.
The board’s longest-serving current member, David Bradley, echoed McLeroy. “She does her homework,” said Bradley, who consistently votes with Cargill. “Sometimes she would make light of the fact that when I get to the meeting I'm just opening my agenda for the first time.”
He also praised her modesty, a quality he said would serve her well as chairwoman. “I don't think you'll ever find her using the word 'I,'” he said. “She blushes at the drop of a hat, quicker than Gail Lowe. So the guys on the board have to be very careful.”
Cargill’s critics point to her role in the rewrite of science curriculum as evidence that she has used her position on the board to promote her own political and religious beliefs. She was instrumental in pushing the new science standards that students "analyze, evaluate, and critique" evidence for scientific explanations for theories like evolution — a move praised by the Discovery Institute, which supports research challenging what its website refers to as "neo-Darwinian theory." During the debate on science curriculum, she also passed an amendment that added the discussion of different scientific estimates on the age of the universe to the standards. <<<<………………
May 2008: Plan to rewrite English standards prompts criticism…………….>>>AUSTIN — Don McLeroy "has created havoc" as chairman of the State Board of Education and should be replaced, the senior member of the board said in a letter to Gov. Rick Perry.
"It is such a shame that after all these years of trying to improve public education in Texas, we are taking steps backwards because of Don McElroy," Mary Helen Berlanga of Corpus Christi said in her letter to Perry, misspelling McLeroy's name.
Berlanga, who has been on the 15-member board since 1984, said McLeroy's leadership has been a disaster and asked Perry to replace him with "a moderate conservative who can work with all members of the State Board of Education and the citizens of this state."
Berlanga faults McLeroy for the way he has engineered the rewriting of the state's English language arts and reading curriculum, which will go to the board for a final vote on Thursday.
[snip]
She said McLeroy has ignored board instructions to Texas Education Agency staff by issuing separate dictates and deceived public school teachers, ignoring their recommendations in favor of out-of-state teachers in the development of new English language arts and reading standards.
And she renewed earlier criticisms of McLeroy for inviting experts in topics ranging from special education and dyslexia, but not including Hispanic experts in the development of English standards. "Any intelligent, logical person would have named an expert who had dealt with Hispanic children and language minority children since more than (47 percent) of the 4.5 million students in our public schools are Hispanic," Berlanga wrote.
[snip]
She does not expect Perry to accede to her request, but the governor should, at least, speak to McLeroy about her complaints, she said.
"He can certainly encourage him to change his behavior ... (and) tell him that he can't behave this way anymore," Berlanga said Tuesday. "His tactics, I don't think anyone can change, but he's got to let the teachers speak and don't yell at them and don't be rude."
Berlanga should take her objections to the full board, Perry said, "and the board will appropriately make the right decision."
"I would suggest focusing on the issues that are important to the people of the state of Texas, not
Have any Perryheirs red “This is Herman Cain’, by Herman Cain? It spells out his positions on about every question one could have, including education. Besides being very informative, and written as though he was sitting across the coffee table from the reader, it is written by a very wise and even tempered man.
I forgot to add that Ithijk Perry has his good poi9nts. :o)
Let us take one of those posted 99% who has a student loan debt of $60k and an MA in Art History. That lack of $2,500 deduction will hurt and the odds of getting a job that will make up for that lack are slim unless you have made yourself one of the elite in that field.
What Gov. Scott is pointing out is that taking on loads of student debt is an unwise move if you don't have a real potential for a well-paying job after college. This is real life and there are very real consequences to poor decision making. Correspondingly, the student aid offices in all of these colleges appear to be more interested in keeping seats filled in classes than in student's welfare after graduation!
Gov. Perry wants to separate out the research side from the classes side so it is easier to see who is working and how the students are learning.
Higher education has become a hotbed of communism indoctrination and a tenure safe house for those who hate a strong America and free-market capitalism.
Needless to say they aren’t happy about this. The Texas University system is up in arms and Karen Hughes, no less, is helping push back on Perry’s plan to correct this. She’s employed by a group that is tasked with getting out the word to stop this.
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