I’m sure Rick Perry doesn’t directly have much to do with the Texas educational system, but when the governor brags about the number of jobs created in his state without indication that they’re minimum wage jobs, and then I read about Texas universities cutting undergraduate Physics programs…It’s a George Carlin rant unfolding before our very eyes. Sustain the American Dream; you too can be rich if you just work hard enough. However, they aren’t going to put money into education because they only want people smart enough to operate the machines.
If any proof that college is only there as a money-making business look no further. the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, which oversees 24 public universities is taking the axe to the physics programs of seven of their universities due to low numbers of graduates. I guess it’s just easier to throw in the towel than to try to recruit students to those programs.
Physics programs at Midwestern State, Prairie View A&M, Tarleton State, Texas Southern, University of Texas-Brownsville and West Texas A&M are all losing their undergraduate physics programs. Current students can finish out their degree, while no new physics students can be accepted. Texas A&M Commerce, the University of Texas-Pan American and Texas Tech are all on two-year probation.
Odd how in the first sentence in that paragraph it states that the undergraduate physics programs of the listed colleges will be cut, but in the last line it’s stated that three of the same colleges are only on a two-year probation. Which is it?
“This is something that has been an ongoing effort at the coordinating board–to look at low producing programs,” Stephenson said. “One of the challenges is how to allocate resources and make sure that students are getting the education that they need.”
Honestly, they aren’t getting the education they need if the answer is to cut a fundamental science track for budget reasons. It’s like cutting spelling out of English classes due to lack of interest.
I’m just sayin’.
All through the article it talks about “low producing programs” and that these are money saving cuts, but then…
Daniel Marble, an assistant professor at Tarleton State University, does not think that shutting down the programs will save the state much money. Though the physics and hydrology degrees at his school are being discontinued, there are no planned layoffs associated with the shutdown.
“There’s no savings whatsoever,” Marble said. “Their job is to kill programs.”
How is that saving money?
He said also that graduation numbers alone were not indicative of the health of the program. On the one hand he said that the physics program at his school has grown over the last few years and was set to graduate at least 5 students in 2012 and 2013. In addition Tarleton participated in a consortium with five other rural Texas schools where a professor would teach a class at his or her home institution, and that lesson would be telecast to the other schools. While all the schools shared in teaching the courses, students only graduated from one of the institutions, making graduation rates seem smaller than the number of students enrolled.
So they set up these special classes, which help students and saves the institution money but they still count the progress in the same way as any other program, by number of graduates at the individual institution? What group of knuckle dragging math incapable science haters is running this board?
Heather Galloway, director of the University Honors program at Texas State University San Marcos and a member of the APS Executive Board, said that she was worried about the effect that closing the programs would have on the state. Texas passed a law requiring that all high school students to take physics classes, starting in 2005. Galloway said she was worried that there would be fewer universities to produce high school physics teachers.
Considering Texas ranks 50th in number of adults with a high school diploma I’m guessing that finding any teachers at all might be difficult.
“At a time when we should be building capacity to produce physics teachers, we are cutting programs,” Galloway said. “There is a shortage of physics teachers and it’s not going to get better.”
I think The Big Bang Theory should write an episode about all this.
The only thing that doesn’t fit is that NASA, based out of Houston, which at last check was still in Texas, is recruiting anyone with an engineer, science or math related degree. The way they wrote it up it’s like they’re looking for anyone that has at one time or another thought about college. I can envision the interviews for that now. It’s like watching trains collide in slow motion.
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