I posted a review. . . .
of Glenn Beck's book and what he said about New College on amazon.com
I'm copying it here, so I can have it for my records.
.Let me start off by saying I haven't read the entire book- I wouldn't want to waste that amount of my own (valuable) personal time. However, I go to one of the schools he writes about in this book as being an "Institution of Leftist Learning."
Having apparently done very little research on the subject, Beck mostly just seems annoyed that New College students receive narrative evaluations of our class performances (written by our professors) instead of grades. He likens these narrative evaluations to "pep talks." As someone who has received many such evaluations, I can firmly say they are hardly pep talks; Students go to their friends or academic advisers for that. No, a narrative evaluation is a completely honest and unflinching look at one did or did not accomplish over the semester. As a student, if the professor thinks you could have done better, he or she will tell you that. If the professor thinks you were unprepared, often late for class, or just barely squeaked by, he or she will tell you that also. They will also tell you if they think you did well in their class, but they will be brief and to the point in such a case. A narrative evaluation is a balanced look at how a student did in a class. As such, it is far more enlightening than seeing a simple "B" or "C" on a report card.
Beck also fails to mention that the system is entirely pass/fail. Simply, a professor will not pass a student in a class if he or she does not think that student knows the subject at the end of the semester. There is no lowest passing grade (such as a 70 "C") for New College students. In the end, you either pass a subject or you don't.
Having been featured numerous times in the Princeton Review's guide of "The Best 371 Colleges" (including the current 2010 edition), as the No. 2 "Best Value in Public Higher Education" by the same in 2009, and also having been featured in the Fiske Guide to Colleges, US News & World Report, Forbes.com, and Kiplinger's Personal Finance (how very capitalist of New College to be featured in financial magazines!), the narrative evaluation system that New College uses is obviously recognized to be one of the best. And that's not just from me- that's from publications that are paid to research such things.
And that is exactly what I just did: RESEARCH. You see, if I presented information to the public the way Beck does on his nightly "news" show, I would be kicked out of school for plagiarism. I don't see why a certain news channel does not hold its reporters and pundits to the same level of expertise that mere undergraduate students are held to. As a journalist, one must back up one's story with facts. Beck writes that "[New College] should be shut down immediately, and all former students should be made to go back and attend a real college that uses real grades." To that I say:
"Mr. Beck, simply because something is different and unique does not make it any less real, I can assure you. New College is fully accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (http://www.sacs.org/). That makes it quite the "real college." As in, narrative evaluations and all, students who graduate from New College have a Bachelor's degree and many often go on to other prestigious schools to get Master's degrees and Ph.D.s. . . . . . while you yourself, Mr. Beck, dropped out of the "non-traditional" program at Yale having taken a single religion class."
Well, that's really something to ponder isn't it? Why is all of America listening to someone who has no accreditation? Why listen to an obviously uneducated person about liberal bias in the American education system? Or why listen to him as he calls a mixed ethnic heritage president (who Graduated from Columbia University and Harvard Law School, btw) "racist"? Obviously Beck has the right to say whatever he wants, but why listen to him when he shows himself to be so poorly informed?
Poor information is really the gist of my entire argument: it may seem petty to be angry over one paragraph in a much longer book. But that paragraph happens to be both misinformed and decidedly against anything wholly unique. Perhaps if Mr. Beck had actually visited New College instead of writing about it through hearsay, he would know it is as "real" as UF, FSU, or any other state school in Florida.
But really, if he's wrong about such a small thing as this, one has to wonder. . . . . What else is Glenn Beck telling us is fact when it is indeed not? What else is he completely misinformed about that he is presenting as truth?
I'm copying it here, so I can have it for my records.
.Let me start off by saying I haven't read the entire book- I wouldn't want to waste that amount of my own (valuable) personal time. However, I go to one of the schools he writes about in this book as being an "Institution of Leftist Learning."
Having apparently done very little research on the subject, Beck mostly just seems annoyed that New College students receive narrative evaluations of our class performances (written by our professors) instead of grades. He likens these narrative evaluations to "pep talks." As someone who has received many such evaluations, I can firmly say they are hardly pep talks; Students go to their friends or academic advisers for that. No, a narrative evaluation is a completely honest and unflinching look at one did or did not accomplish over the semester. As a student, if the professor thinks you could have done better, he or she will tell you that. If the professor thinks you were unprepared, often late for class, or just barely squeaked by, he or she will tell you that also. They will also tell you if they think you did well in their class, but they will be brief and to the point in such a case. A narrative evaluation is a balanced look at how a student did in a class. As such, it is far more enlightening than seeing a simple "B" or "C" on a report card.
Beck also fails to mention that the system is entirely pass/fail. Simply, a professor will not pass a student in a class if he or she does not think that student knows the subject at the end of the semester. There is no lowest passing grade (such as a 70 "C") for New College students. In the end, you either pass a subject or you don't.
Having been featured numerous times in the Princeton Review's guide of "The Best 371 Colleges" (including the current 2010 edition), as the No. 2 "Best Value in Public Higher Education" by the same in 2009, and also having been featured in the Fiske Guide to Colleges, US News & World Report, Forbes.com, and Kiplinger's Personal Finance (how very capitalist of New College to be featured in financial magazines!), the narrative evaluation system that New College uses is obviously recognized to be one of the best. And that's not just from me- that's from publications that are paid to research such things.
And that is exactly what I just did: RESEARCH. You see, if I presented information to the public the way Beck does on his nightly "news" show, I would be kicked out of school for plagiarism. I don't see why a certain news channel does not hold its reporters and pundits to the same level of expertise that mere undergraduate students are held to. As a journalist, one must back up one's story with facts. Beck writes that "[New College] should be shut down immediately, and all former students should be made to go back and attend a real college that uses real grades." To that I say:
"Mr. Beck, simply because something is different and unique does not make it any less real, I can assure you. New College is fully accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (http://www.sacs.org/). That makes it quite the "real college." As in, narrative evaluations and all, students who graduate from New College have a Bachelor's degree and many often go on to other prestigious schools to get Master's degrees and Ph.D.s. . . . . . while you yourself, Mr. Beck, dropped out of the "non-traditional" program at Yale having taken a single religion class."
Well, that's really something to ponder isn't it? Why is all of America listening to someone who has no accreditation? Why listen to an obviously uneducated person about liberal bias in the American education system? Or why listen to him as he calls a mixed ethnic heritage president (who Graduated from Columbia University and Harvard Law School, btw) "racist"? Obviously Beck has the right to say whatever he wants, but why listen to him when he shows himself to be so poorly informed?
Poor information is really the gist of my entire argument: it may seem petty to be angry over one paragraph in a much longer book. But that paragraph happens to be both misinformed and decidedly against anything wholly unique. Perhaps if Mr. Beck had actually visited New College instead of writing about it through hearsay, he would know it is as "real" as UF, FSU, or any other state school in Florida.
But really, if he's wrong about such a small thing as this, one has to wonder. . . . . What else is Glenn Beck telling us is fact when it is indeed not? What else is he completely misinformed about that he is presenting as truth?