Education security

Universities Breed Anger, Ignorance, and Ingratitude

What do widely diverse crises such declining demography, increasing indebtedness, Generation Z’s indifference to religion and patriotism, static rates of home ownership, and a national epidemic of ignorance about American history and traditions all have in common?

In a word, 21st-century higher education.

A pernicious cycle begins even before a student enrolls. A typical college-admission application is loaded with questions to the high-school applicant about gender, equality, and bias rather than about math, language, or science achievements. How have you suffered rather than what you know and wish to learn seems more important for admission. The therapeutic mindset preps the student to consider himself a victim of cosmic forces, past and present, despite belonging to the richest, most leisured, and most technologically advanced generation in history. Without a shred of gratitude, the young student learns to blame his ancestors for what he is told is wrong in his life, without noticing how the dead made sure that almost everything around him would be an improvement over 2,500 years of Western history.

Education security

Pedagogical Terrorism and Hope in the age of Fascist Politics

The dark times that haunt the current age are epitomized by the barbarians who echo the politics of a fascist past and have come to rule the United States, Hungary, Turkey, Poland, Brazil, the Philippines, and elsewhere. [1] The designers of a new breed of fascism increasingly dominate major political formations and other commanding political and economic institutions across the globe. Their nightmarish reign of misery, violence, and disposability is legitimated, in part, in their control of a diverse number of cultural apparatuses that produce a vast machinery of manufactured consent. This reactionary educational formation includes the mainstream broadcast media, digital platforms, the Internet and print culture, all of which participate in an ongoing spectacle of violence, the aestheticization of politics, the legitimation of opinions over facts, and an embrace of a culture of ignorance. Under the reign of this normalized architecture of neoliberal ideology, critical education is now regarded with disdain, words are reduced to data, and science is confused with pseudo-science.

Education security

European Court Wants Everyone Into the Pool

Muslim girls can be required to participate in swimming classes alongside boys despite their parents’ religious objections, according to the European Court of Human Rights. The outcome would have been the opposite in most U.S. jurisdictions, which have emphasized students’ rights ever since Jehovah’s Witnesses were exempted from the Pledge of Allegiance during World War II. The decision made this week marks the very different situation in contemporary Europe, where children’s interests are contrasted with their parents’ rights, and the schools’ goal of “integration” is getting special weight amid a wave of Muslim immigration.

Education security

We Should Think of American Education as a National Security Issue

Recently, Trump’s team updated its education platform with a more substantiated focus on helping students attend the school of their choice. He proposes $20 billion of existing federal funds for this measure, and supports vouchers for families hoping to attend particular private or public schools. It’s a first step towards a broader policy, though some critics regard this move as a slippery slope toward privatization of US public education.

The future of American education is uncertain, and by extension, so is the nation’s security and standing in the world. Perhaps framing America’s school troubles in this light might spark investment and reform to reverse some of the damage. After all, publicly funded social programs are often considered to be drains on the country’s resources, where upholding the safety of our autonomy or the competitiveness of our industries is prioritized.

As the 2012 task force concluded, “military might is no longer sufficient to guarantee security.”

“Rather, national security today is closely linked with human capital, and the human capital of a nation is as strong or as weak as its public schools.”

Education security

France To Deploy 3,000 Troops To Schools: "The Threat Is Real" Education Minister Says

Two weeks ago we reported that as part of its proactive effort to tackle future terrorist attacks, the French government announced that starting in September, French 14-year-olds would receive lessons how to survive a terrorist attack on their schools, following a spate of Islamist killings in recent months. It appears that was not enough, because earlier today the France interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve announced France would deploy about 3,000 reserve troops, train school authorities and ramp up school anti-terror drills in case of attacks, its education and security ministers announced on Wednesday, a week before the start of a new academic year.

Education security

Public schools are a threat to national security

Judging by columns that appear occasionally in our newspapers, the Defense Department is not happy with the quality of students coming out of our K-12 system.

The young are not in good physical shape; they don't have constructive personal values; and they are uninformed about history and the world. In short, they are badly educated and often unfit for service in the military.

The problem, according to one advocacy group, is that "more than 70 percent of 17- to 24-year olds in the U.S. cannot serve in the military, primarily because they are too poorly educated, too overweight, or have a serious criminal record."

So, here's the obvious question. Why doesn't the Pentagon do something about this glaring problem? This is where things get interesting.

Education security

Students are using ‘smart’ spy technology to cheat in exams

Globally, educational institutions abhor the erosion of academic integrity and want students who are smart with gadgetry – not smart-cheaters. The dilemma facing exam administrators is deciding which devices to ban and how.

Similar to the ban on mobile phones in exams, any devices capable of storing, transmitting, receiving and displaying digital information should also be banned.

So, as a starting point, a ban on watches – traditional and smart – for now is the way forward.

In order to eliminate the problem of differentiating between watches in an exam environment, some Australian universities have already implemented bans on all wristwatches. Others across Australia and the world should follow suit.

Education security

What's Wrong with America's Schools?

When Jay Leno still hosted The Tonight Show, he had a frequent segment called "Jaywalking." He would go out onto the streets of New York City, and ask random young people questions, such as, "Who won the Revolutionary War?" or "Who fought in the Civil War?" The answers were appallingly ignorant.

Politicians and educators argue about what has gone wrong with our educational system, but the fact that the supposed most powerful nation in the world ranks 14^thin education and 24^thin reading literacy means that we are failing our kids. And even though our dropout rate is falling, over three million kids drop out of high school every year. And it is worse in the realm of higher education. Over 40% of students who enter college drop out without earning a degree, in both two-year and four-year institutions.

Education security

CHEATING AND TECHNOLOGY – UNETHICAL INDIFFERENCE

Academic dishonesty is nothing new. As long as there have been homework assignments and tests, there have been cheaters. The way that cheating looks has changed over time though, particularly now that technology has made it easier than ever. Perhaps the most interesting caveat of modern-day cheating in U.S. classrooms is that students often do not think that what they are doing is wrong.

A study by the Josephson Institute of Ethics interviewed 23,000 high school students and asked them a variety of questions about academic ethics. Of the teens surveyed, 51 percent said that they had knowingly cheated at some point on an exam but that they had no qualms about the behavior. A Common Sense Media survey found that 35 percent of students had cheated via cell phone, though the parents surveyed in that particular study did not believe their kids had ever cheated. In many cases, students did not realize that tactics like looking up answers on a smartphone were actually cheating at all.

Education security

Academics complain of covert boycott of higher education in Israelwitter

Israel is experiencing a “dormant boycott” by academics, Council of University Heads president Prof. Menachem Ben-Sasson said Wednesday, addressing a Knesset Education Committee meeting on academic boycotts.
“Universities are not boycotting and major researchers are here on the scene, but there is a phenomenon of a ‘dormant boycott,’ he said, and called on the government to budget funds to bring international researchers and students to Israel to increase cooperation with academia from around the world.

Education security

Undercover reporter exposes cheating in national exams

On Sunday morning, police in Nanchang, the provincial capital, detained a man in the middle of the Chinese language test after media reported he was attending the exam under another student's name.The Ministry of Education said it had asked the public security ministry to oversee the investigation and that cheating in Gaokao could amount to a punishable crime in serious cases.

Education security

The same in Russia

Inside the Belly of the Beast

When Western University president Amit Chakma’s jaw-dropping income was posted recently on the Sunshine list, it put a spotlight on the inequities and conflicts that exist in the contemporary university between the administration and faculty, contract instructors and students. The corporatization of the university means the administrators are well off, while those responsible for actual education, doing the teaching, are struggling to survive.