http://www.careersandeducation.com/site-map/opinions-on-education-from-the-editor Comments for "Education Blog" en http://www.careersandeducation.com/colleges-keep-using-rankings-despite-calls-for-change#comment-270 I’m sick of the rankings undermining American competitiveness by incentivizing institutional behavior that privileges the privileged, undermines equality and fairness, and diverts schools’ priorities from educating students to fudging figures. Am I just ranting here? Maybe. But I try to back it up with some more meat in my op-ed on the Huffington Post today: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/zach-marks/rise-up-against-the-ranki_b_60917.html Fri, 17 Aug 2007 17:14:31 -0400 Anonymous comment 270 at http://www.careersandeducation.com http://www.careersandeducation.com/virginia-tech-shooting-still-shaping-campus-security#comment-249 Let’s blame it on the privacy laws. And the mental health agency. And the cops, of course, Let’s blame it on the gun dealers and the university administration. Let’s blame somebody. If there is one commonality in American culture, it’s that knee-jerk response to fix the blame, and quickly. Hold someone responsible. Get a scapegoat. As a new school year begins, we no longer have the luxury of blame placing. I suggest we fix the problem, then later we can fix the blame. In the spring of this year, a college student in Virginia launched a take-no-prisoners, one-man assault on a vulnerable college campus and transformed it into a slaughterhouse. This madman expected no quarter, and gave none. Scores of people died. Fixing the problem does not include emergency text-messaging , air raid sirens , deputizing the faculty or arming the students . Each one of those proposals is the same as advising a university to buy body bags, because “it’s going to happen again and you need to be ready for it.” “How do we react to the next one?” is the wrong question. The right question is, “What can we do to prevent this from happening again?” While there is no prevention solution that is 100 percent certain, we can certainly tilt the odds against the next Mr. Cho and save innocent lives, too. To gain the advantage over an Insider Threat, three conventional-wisdom myths need to be eliminated. School Massacre Myth #1: School shooters are as unpredictable as earthquakes. Gavin de Becker, one of the country’s most experienced threat evaluators, wrote in his book, The Gift of Fear, that with violent acts “there is a process as observable, and often as predictable, as water coming to a boil.” School Massacre Myth #2: School shooters just “snap,” and start killing. A joint study by the Department of Education and the Secret Service concluded that “incidents of targeted violence at school are rarely sudden, impulsive acts.” School Massacre #3: School shooters are monsters. Assassins, spree killers, school shooters, psychos – whatever one chooses to name them – are all human. Not only are they human, but they are similar to each other. Similar traits. Similar MO’s. Similar obsessions. Similar behaviors. Without these three myths, school shooters are no longer haphazard, impulsive, indomitable boogey men. This is not to say they are not still very dangerous, only that they no longer have the all the advantages. Formidable opponents, yes. Unstoppable, no. University and college administrators are not hired or funded to identify those who compose and produce massacres. An ex-Special Forces sergeant who worked for me on an executive protection detail often described his mission as “Preparing for the worst and hoping for the best.” If Columbine and Virginia Tech define “the worst” for which we must prepare, then we had better be highly successful at hoping for the best. Assailants like Harris and Klebold and Cho have the upper hand in their private battles with us and whatever demons torture their souls. They have the element of surprise. They have superior firepower. The have insider advantages like knowledge of the terrain. The have detailed plans. And they do not intend to survive. Preparing for that kind of assault involves only stocking up on emergency room supplies and body bags. We need more than prevention, too. We can prevent another Virginia Tech incident by transforming universities into fortified citadels using access control, heavily-armed police, and the constant digital gaze of Big Brother. Academic freedom and a few of the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution may have to be suspended, but only in the interest of crime prevention. Of course, this is not likely to happen. Neither is controlling the flow of firearms or eliminating the celebrity status awarded homicidal maniacs by the media. We need a new mission statement. A mission statement that goes beyond the traditional prevention vs. reaction rhetoric. “Preempt the worst and hope for the best” describes a process to take away the assailant’s advantage and use it to our own without turning universities into armed camps. Mon, 30 Jul 2007 19:24:00 -0400 Anonymous comment 249 at http://www.careersandeducation.com http://www.careersandeducation.com/touro-college-fraud#comment-238 Hopefully the authorities will be able to properly track the documents that point to fraudulent transactions that took place earlier than this year. A case such as could really lead to a series crack downs on sketchy administrative actions in various academic institutions. (I would hope...) What I find extremely rattling is that such horribly corrupt practices were *openly* discussed and imposed upon fellow employees. I'm hoping your father wasn't the only Touro staffer to report them. Tue, 24 Jul 2007 11:36:40 -0400 BridgetMurphyEditor comment 238 at http://www.careersandeducation.com http://www.careersandeducation.com/touro-college-fraud#comment-236 My father worked there. He complained for more than two years to the administration about what was going on, and the administration softsoaped him - assuring him that they were aware of the problem and working on the irregularities. Then when he was actually asked to sign off on documents he knew were fraudulent and he complained to the administration and he was told to "just sign them to make everyone happy", he (in my opinion unwisely) quit and (wisely)reported them to the police. This investigation was years in the making. I believe that Baron is a fall guy, and that Touro is "cooperating" in bringing him down to prevent further digging. My father also believes that Baron may be too fearful of underworld retaliation - as he says: "I never took money from those guys so I never had to interact with those guys - Baron may have serious reasons to be scared." Mon, 23 Jul 2007 15:49:13 -0400 Anonymous comment 236 at http://www.careersandeducation.com http://www.careersandeducation.com/touro-college-fraud#comment-229 This criminal story is only visible part of the iceberg currently associated with Touro College (and perhaps not only Touro College) style of education. Everyone will be in a shock if independent and not corrupted audit could be possible. Thu, 19 Jul 2007 17:47:00 -0400 Anonymous comment 229 at http://www.careersandeducation.com