Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for November 22, 2015

How demeaning.

A nurse did this with me the day before I checked out of a nine-day hospital stay for emergency surgery. They needed high evaluations, maybe for negotiations with insurance companies or something.

My brother is a science professor and constantly gets low grades from any of his students who are athletes. That’s not because my brother is a bad prof. It’s because he refuses to give the athletes the test answers in advance, and insists that they actually attend lab sessions. Fortunately, other students give my bro decent grades. Otherwise, his position could be eliminated (that’s how you get rid of tenured faculty).

Someday, ball players who don’t get recruited by professional teams may be grateful to professors who require them to actually learn something. Once they leave their full ride athletic scholarships behind, they find out that future employers are more interested in whether they can learn how to do work than in how well they could block a tackle…

When I taught music appreciation, I got lots of bad evaluations from students who didn’t want to attend any concerts outside of class time, or who thought they shouldn’t have to take a class that was outside their major (aka “general ed” classes).

Higher education and healthcare must be rationed. Rationing based on ability to pay is the best and fairest way. It is basic capitalism and the key to or global success and dominance.

Cartoon of Barry Goldwater confronting a beggar – “Why don’t you get yourself some initiative and go out and inherit a department store!”

Not even close. Have you read anything of his personal history? Or do you have no idea what the bootstraps expression means? In this case, it would mean that he earned the money, somehow, to pay for his education. In truth, he paid little or nothing for it, between scholarships and his not-exactly-poor (white) Mom. In the Ivy league, where he went to school, there are no athletic scholarships, but anyone who’s not “rich” can get a need-based scholarship. The only problem is that, according to them (being good Liberals), anyone with a good job (who’s not an academic) is “rich.”

Our military spending is way over the top. We spend more (not on soldier pay), but on hardware, than the next 10 nations combined on our military. This is increasing the notion that we have to be the world’s policeman. Meanwhile, our enemies are fighting our enemies, we should be getting some popcorn and sitting out some of these battles. Step back from the boots on the ground approach. Also, the GOP is calling for more $ on this ridiculous budget glutton called the military. Take some of those dollars and spend it on some basic needs here in the US. We are a rich country. We can afford to look after our own people.

jeffiekins has succeeded in arguing against himself and lost. If Obama’s mother was rich, how did he get a needs-based scholarship? If you dislike the man just say it, save yourself the trouble of making up illogical blather. That’s what I do with Bush the Idiot Son.

I wonder how many out there assume that all college professors are wealthy? This is certainly not true.

My in-laws are from Hawaii, so I have seen the apartment where Obama grew up and it was certainly a humble looking place. The Baskin-Robbins where he had his first job is still there too, as is the Rainbow Diner, where you can get a simple Hawaiian plate lunch. They don’t seem to have a habit of regularly tearing things down on Oahu, so one can see most of the places where he used to hang out. My in-laws live in Kailua now, which is where the Obamas go over the holidays. It is very beautiful, but just because the scenery is incredible doesn’t mean that everyone who lives there is super wealthy by any means. Like Clinton, Obama had humble beginnings, and his mother and grandparents were very important to him growing up.

The ones with wealth do not nessesarily get the best, but they do get to go to school with those who have connections, which is better. The wealthy keep thier peers children wealthy and so it goes.

How do we know? All information about his college days is locked away.

The point of today’s strip has to do with the unfairness of rating your professor as a means to better compensation. The prof made a sincere effort, which was unappreciated. Meanwhile a less earnest prof received high marks because he was cute. This is a real thing, unfortunately.

They should make all teacher reviews written instead of just a number.Make it a page, minimum – that’ll throw off most students.

Unfortunately true in today’s universities.

I am not sure we need to know every piece of trivia about a US President. We know that Obama graduated from Columbia University. We know that he also graduated from Harvard Law School. We know that he was the first black to become President of Harvard Law Review. These facts speak for themselves, especially since not every student coming from a less advantaged family background will achieve these things.

I’m glad Alex has a cool friend.

“We don’t have one continental school system. Instead a mixed bag different not only in every state, but within the state, depending more on who has the wealth gets the best and then some. The rest must scramble to get the funds to operate. A poor system.”.It’s worse than that.Since every teacher and student is an individual, every class is different.Individuality, the enemy of uniformity and conformity!.To make matters worse, teachers are free to choose which school to work at, among those wanting them.This means they are free to avoid schools where they are unappreciated, unsafe, and/or facing uncooperative students..This means, no matter how much money you throw at the problem, there will always be schools whose graduates are more competent and sought after than others..Even if we crushed the teacher’s freedom to choose, there would still be winners and losers.Nor should we forget that we can’t FORCE people to become or remain teachers..Freedom keeps foiling our solutions..Oh well, we can at least keep throwing money and lives away as we ignore reality.

One interesting thing here.

Those Professor evaluations Used to be Anonymous.

Is Sam’s writing style so Distinctive that her professor recognized her comments?

Or did someone “Leak” the Student IDs to the professors.

No one is suggesting nothing should be spent on weapons, but that too much is spent on weapons. Also, no one is suggesting that everyone get a Ph.D. Only that everyone be given a chance at higher Ed. Health care is needed by everyone and all other modern countries provide universal healthcare.

“What we need are the teachers running the entire school system. Not govt not local, teachers.”.Some teachers can’t teach.Some teachers won’t teach.Some students can’t learn.Some students won’t learn.Some students won’t let other students learn..We really could use some system of verifying effective teaching is happening and if not, why not..Why do you want government interference in everything else but realize it might be harmful in education?Why would you want to shut the parents and other citizens out?

“One can keep ones individuality and still be taught the same way that works.”.Not according to the educators.They maintain we all learn differently and that what works for one often doesn’t work well for others.Don’t you trust teachers?You can’t teach all the same way and many teaching methods are a complete waste of time for all but the ones for whom they are the only methods which work.

One’s