EDUCATION REDEFINED

For years your Commander has had a burr under his saddle relative to the inefficiency and ineffectiveness of our educational system. We keep pouring money into the problem, but see little or no improvement in the end product.

I have rarely praised the New York Times, because they are so very liberal in their opinions, but here is one exception. Today I was scanning the NYT website and came across a wonderful Op-Ed piece by Mark C. Taylor who is Chairman of the Religion Department at Columbia University. Let me suggest that you read the full article by going to your computer and entering:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/27/opinion/27taylor.html?

Your Commander has long been a critic of tenure, lack of budget integrity, and specialization in the curriculum. Let me give you an example on one of these issues that I experienced first-hand.

Back in the early 1990’s I was Vice-President of Corporate Sales for Beam Communications and attended the National Association of Radio and Television News Directors annual meeting at Disney World in Orlando. During one of the sessions a Professor of Journalism from the renowned University of Missouri School of Journalism asked noted ABC Nightline Anchor, Ted Koppel, “We teach hundreds of wonderful bright students to be Journalists and after graduation they cannot get jobs with your organization. Why?”

Let me tell you that Koppel’s response hit the Professor right in the gut when he said, “Professor, please take my comments to be meant in a constructive manner, but you send us journalism specialists who cannot write or even spell. They know how to operate a camera or video board, but they cannot write, and we do not have time in the competitive real world to become their elementary skill development teacher.” The Professor quietly vanished into the evening shadows, not to be seen again.

Enjoy the article, and I hope Taylor’s comments start a dialog that will attain real educational improvements.

COMMANDER GRANGER