Sam Blumenfeld notes how worthless the pieces of paper have become:
Stunned, shocked and appalled are American educators as they study the recent report from the National Center of Education Statistics, which reveals that only 31 percent of college graduates can read a complex book and extrapolate from it. “It’s really astounding,” said Michael Gorman, president of the American Library Association. “That’s not saying much for the remainder,” he added, meaning that 69 percent of our college graduates cannot read at or above a “proficient” level.
Absolutely appalled by the results of the survey was Mark S. Schneider, commissioner of education statistics, who remarked, “The declining impact of education on our adult population was the biggest surprise for us, and we just don’t have a good explanation. What’s disturbing is that the assessment is not designed to test your understanding of Proust, but to test your ability to read labels.”
The Boston Globe (Dec. 26, 2005) explained that the test measured how well adults handled basic reading tasks – such as figuring out costs per ounce of food items, comparing viewpoints on two editorials, and reading prescription labels. Of graduate students tested in 2003, 41 percent were classified as “proficient” in prose – able to read and understand information in short texts – down 10 percent since 1992. As for college graduates, only 31 percent were classified as proficient – compared with 40 percent in 1992.
I think it makes a tremendous amount of sense to go into debt in order to attend a place that will give you a degree that doesn’t even guarantee you can read. At this point, not going to college is a sign of intelligence… and no, that’s not sour grapes, I have a degree from a university that is supposedly better than most. I’ve yet to see any real value from it, although my admittedly snazzy ring has led some to mistakenly believe that I’ve actually won a fantasy football championship, so I’ve got that going for me. (Yes, the alumni-hitter-uppers just LOVE talking to me… they haven’t even bothered sending me a letter, much less giving me a call, in years now.)
Men might as well let women have the universities, they’re going to be completely useless in another twenty years. Are they going to be pissed when they learn how little good it will do them, or what?
“Why don’t you want to take me out?”
“I don’t know, probably your appeal rates around the level of a decomposing rhinocerous carcass. No offense.”
“But I have three doctoral degrees!”
“Yes, and I have more than three pieces of paper in this book right here! Perhaps with all those degrees you can tell me if any man in the recorded history of Man has ever thought ‘She’s nice and she’s beautiful, but if only she was a surgeon, she’d be perfect’?”
“You’re just afraid of a strong, independent woman!”
“You know, I suspect I may have overrated your appeal.”
Any four-year old child who is not mentally retarded can learn how to read in a matter of months. This destructive transformation of education into maleducation is not mere happenstance.