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Students Failing Because of Poor Grammar
innocent_white_lamb writes "30% of freshman university students fail a 'simple English test' at Waterloo University (up from 25% a few years ago. Academic papers are riddled with 'cuz' (in place of 'because') and even include little emoticon faces. One professor says that students 'think commas are sort of like parmesan cheese that you sprinkle on your words.' At Simon Fraser University, 10% of students are not qualified to take the mandatory writing courses."
'cuz the rant starts NOW.
Now let's see, it's one thing to write incoherently, another thing is to write wrongly (that is not obeying proper grammar and spelling).
This is the way language evolves, this is why no one writes 'perchance', or uses ð anymore (well, except for Bjork :P)
And even though Englysh language scholars are much less picky (or rather, are not a total pain in the behind like let's say, French language scholars) my opinion of both (that is, those exclusively dealing with their mother tongue) is similar: those who can't do, teach. (yes, this is very biased and certainly doesn't apply for several professors, but still, for them, especially)
how long until
That post wasn't arguing that education is worthless.
Just that American Colleges have become little better than online degree mills.
All a degree says for at least 70% of people now is that they may be suitably qualified for some sort of middle class, white collar office job that involves pushing paper around, going to meetings and being stereotypically ironic and "witty" on facebook, bebo, etc.
Nothing more, nothing less.
Out of the other 30% maybe 10% become doctors, 10% become (surplus and now unwanted) engineers and 10% actually push things forward via research.
The 70% lives on the backs of the 30%, farmers, blue collar workers and small business men.
This will of course go down very well here, in a place absolutely full to the brim of the 70%.
Much of the blame can rest squarely on standardized testing (which, in turn, can primarily be blamed on No Child Left Behind.)
Right. Because standardized testing didn't exist before NCLB... I remember growing up in Michigan and having to take the MEAP (a standardized test) every few years and that was WELL before NCLB. But sure, feel free to hoist all the blame where it doesn't belong.
There's a whole political party dedicated to proving that no government run program, including education, can work. And they are doing everything in their power to prove it. Because of this, we don't hire the brightest teachers for our public schools.
On the other hand, private schools can be quite excellent.
I would say that it would be more likely that proper English would be taught in the same way that cursive is: cool to know and useful in rare circumstances but not relevant most of the time.
while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
Kid Rock is the symptom, but Republicans are the disease.
You're very close, but that's not quite the root of the problem. Nobody likes to talk about the root of the problem, though, because nobody in a position of power wants to look bad for directly taking them on. The issue is that we have a village idiot in this country, and it's called Fundamentalist Christianity.
Karma: Terrifying (mostly affected by atrocities you've committed)