UW Gazette, December 11, 1996
     
     This letter was submitted to the October meeting of
UW's senate by Dr. Edward R. Vrscay of the applied
mathematics department. The Gazette is reprinting it in
response to a suggestion from a senate member.
     
     In response to the question raised by President Downey
at the last Senate meeting, "Why have we done so poorly in
this province in terms of government funding?", I think that
there are a couple of very simple answers which I submit for
discussion by the Senate.
     1) For about 30 years, the Ontario educational systems
- primary, secondary and postsecondary - enjoyed a very
healthy budget. In the 1960's, thanks to the Conservatives,
an enormous amount of money was spent on the creation and
growth of school boards and universities. I believe that the
Ontario secondary school system enjoyed one of the highest
levels of funding per student in the world. Compared to the
other provinces in Canada, the proportion of universities
per capita in Ontario is among the highest, perhaps second
only to Nova Scotia. It would be only natural to assume that
these luxuries would come to an end with economic re
straints.
     The real question that we must ask is, "Does Ontario
simply have more universities than it needs or is able to
support? Will vertical cutting finally be necessary?"
     During her visit to Senate, Dr. Bonnie Patterson,
President of the COU, told Senate that the Ontario
university system was a very successful one, providing "a
university education to a higher proportion of people than
any other country in the world, despite more than 20 years
of underfunding".
     Whether or not this statement is true depends on the
very definition of "education", doesn't it? If education
means handing out more and more degrees, then Ontario's
system is very successful indeed. Is this "outcomes-based"
definition of education acceptable? Nowhere is there a clear
statement by our university on this issue. I think that it
is the responsibility of the Senate, as the paramount
academic body on campus, to assert itself. (I refer you to
the University of Waterloo Act, 1972, in which the powers of
Senate are given.) The Senate should clearly indicate
whether or not the "outcomes-based" education system
currently run by the provincial primary and secondary school
systems is acceptable. This is of great importance, espe
cially at present, with the Province considering the elimina
tion of school boards. In fact, the President has told us
that the Province is planning a complete revision of the
primary and secondary school systems. Apparently the uni
versities are waiting to see the proposals for revision in
order to assess the impact on postsecondary education. I
question why we are waiting. Why aren't universities taking
the lead in establishing new guidelines for education in the
province?
     2) However, a more important factor is that Ontario
universities - and, indeed, universities in general - have
never been honest with the public regarding the declining
academic standards which have resulted from (1) reduced
budgets and, more significantly, (2) trying to be accessible
to a greater number of people. I think that universities are
primarily to be blamed here.
     When the first threats to funding came, i.e. social
pressures for "accountability" followed by the NDP's "Social
Contract", universities responded by saying that they would
tighten their belts and even do "more with less" by
continuing to do an excellent job in meeting the needs of
society. Universities never had the courage to state
honestly that it was impossible for them to perform as well
as they had in the past. This myth was continued despite the
complaints of many professors nationwide, including a number
of lone voices who have been "working in the trenches" here
at UW, teaching incoming students and working hard to
maintain academic standards, often at odds with Associate
Deans and Deans. Even more infuriating to those of us in the
trenches were the "peddlers of educationist goods" such as
TRACE, advocating "multimedia" and "Total Quality Manage
ment" methods as solutions to our woes and declaring
publicly that the lecture method may be outdated.
     From an article in last Wednesday's (Oct. 16) UW
Gazette, it appears that the University of Waterloo now
realizes, at least partly, the need to "go public" in in
forming the Provincial Advisory Panel about the negative
consequences of cuts, i.e. "loss of faculty, graduate
student enrolment and the impact on research". I would like
to commend the Senate Long-Range Planning Committee on this
decision.
     However, I submit that it has not gone far enough in
this matter. It has left out the one fundamental harm that
has been done - the continuing decrease in academic
standards. By not cutting administrative costs sufficiently
(which, I shall remind you, was the original mandate of the
Harris plan for reductions in transfer payments - the cuts
were not to affect the classroom) as well as by reducing fac
ulty (e.g through SERP) we have been forced to cut our
course offerings. This, along with a continued dilution in
course material which has been a result of decreased
academic preparation of our incoming students, implies a
great decrease in the academic quality of our programmes.
Now I'll concede that Waterloo is near the top of the list
of universities in Canada. But we have to admit that our aca
demic standards have deteriorated.
     This sounds like a terrible generalization and a blow
to the collective ego ("WATego"?) but can we honestly say
that our graduates are as well prepared as they were five or
ten years ago? I am basing this generalization on com
parisons with colleagues in a number of departments on this
campus (mostly in Mathematics, Science and Engineering, but
also a few acquaintances in Arts) as well as at other
Ontario universities.
     The damage does not end with our undergraduate
programmes. Their deterioration in turn has affected our
graduate programmes, in turn affecting the progress of
research. In fact, there is nothing new in what I am saying.
Alan Bloom wrote about this most convincingly and thoroughly
in his book The Closing of the American Mind, almost ten
years ago.
     There have been a couple of very notable cases where
universities have come forward to be honest with the public:
Cambridge and Stanford. In a New Scientist article, I
believe, Cambridge admitted that at present it could not
possibly teach the same courses that it did in the past
because of the declining standards of the "A" levels. I
understand that Stanford has recently reinstated the "F"
grade. (Up to this time, students couldn't fail a course:
The worst grade they could achieve was an "NP" - a "no
pass".)
     It is extremely disturbing, however, to see that UW may
still wish to prolong the myth that, despite the "damage"
mentioned above, our system is working.É Does this mean that
we must continue to mislead the public? If this were a
company with stocks, I could understand the temptation to do
so. However, we're talking about education. (As Richard
Mitchell so eloquently expressed in his book, Less Than
Words Can Say, public education has been the only industry
that survives, in fact, thrives, from its failures. And we
all have to invest in it! Should the desired "outcomes" not
be achieved, the system simply decides that more study is
needed - primarily from the educationists who were re
sponsible for the mess - and asks, and graciously receives,
more money from an eager public to find out why. Can you
imagine GM operating in this way?)
     Let me briefly illustrate the effects of deterioration
in the case of our own Department of Applied Mathematics. I
believe that our Department ranks second to no other Applied
Math department in Canada. Before the current fad toward
business oriented programmes, our AM programme attracted
some of the top students in our Faculty. Our graduate
programme has consistently attracted a significant
proportion of scholarship students. Our undergraduate
programme is an interdisciplinary one, necessitating that
students be fluent not only in mathematics but also in
various aspects of science and/or engineering.
     As a result, our graduates are flexible and capable of
problem solving. Understandably, they have been quite
successful in either finding employment in industry or in
pursuing academic careers. In the past, some of our best
undergraduate students have gone on to pursue graduate work
at high ranking US universities such as Princeton, Cal Tech
and Cornell.
     However, as probably with every other department on
campus, we have been forced to cut the number of courses we
offer. As well, the material covered in many of our courses
has been decreased. The result, despite our best efforts, is
that our graduates are taught significantly less than what
was taught even five years ago. Apart from a small
percentage of students who continue to perform brilliantly
(there will always be a few who pass through the system
unharmed), many currently find the programme to be
difficult. And we continue to receive criticism internally
for trying to maintain or minimize the decline in academic
standards.
     By not telling the public that our academic standards
have suffered because of a number of factors, including
cuts, universities are continuing the myth that our system
is working. This denial began with the Social Contract and
continued with the Harris government cuts. Our president
continued to state that we were suffering and, if further
cuts would be made, we would reach the breaking point.
Nevertheless, according to statements made in public and to
the Education Minister, we were still doing an excellent
job. Here is the main point, pure and simple: If you give
the government the impression that you can do a good job
with less money, what do you expect? The government will
naturally come back at you and say that you must have been
operating up to now with excess.
     The truth of the matter is that the breaking point was
reached years ago. A number of us at UW complained then, but
to no avail. In 1991, Prof. Tenti of Applied Math wrote to
the President as well as to the FAUW's periodical, the
Forum, with his assessment of the state of affairs regarding
education at UW.
     About two years ago, when the President gave a TRACE
lecture, I asked him whether universities should be expected
to shoulder the burden of decreasing academic preparedness
of incoming students. He told me that we should be careful
when we criticize the secondary school system, since we
don't understand all of the burdens that it faces. As well,
he said that students of today have a number of other
"literacies" that we didn't have when we went to school.
     As a side comment, I think that this latter myth was at
least partially shattered in a study by a York University
professor who found that students coming from "gifted
student programs" in secondary schools do not, as a whole,
perform better than other students when they get to
university.
     This researcher concluded that perhaps the public
school system is working so well that all students are
getting a reasonable education, and the differences in
ability are somehow balanced out. When I mention this to
colleagues, they honestly think that I am joking. We know
that the system doesn't work - it prepares students in the
most mediocre fashion and sends to many of them, especially
the so-called "gifted" ones, the pernicious message that
they really don't need to work hard. (Many "90-percenters"
have told me that they never had to open a book in their
final year of high school. It's not surprising that many of
them had troubles using textbooks and course notes in their
freshman year.)
     When these gifted students don't perform "to their
potential" (after all, they're "90-percenters"), our
administrators add insult to injury by suggesting that
perhaps we are not teaching them properly and not adequately
motivating them to work! (This is what Mitchell refers to as
the "Big Mac" philosophy of modern education: "Have it all
your way; We do it all for yoo-oo-oo.") It seems that many
of our students have a better understanding of the situation
than do our administrators. After being told what will be
expected from them, they do rise to meet the demands imposed
by our first year courses and subsequent programmes, however
difficult the climb. Many also begin to realize the degree
to which they were shortchanged in their secondary school
experience. And many thank us later for "kicking their
butts".
     To those faculty members who insist that all is rosy I
issue the message: "Please come back to reality! If you
don't believe us, ask the graduate students who, as Teaching
Assistants, have been in contact with incoming students,
grading assignments or serving in tutorial centres. Or,
better yet, come down into the trenches for a while and give
it a try."
     Waterloo has been consistently dubbed as a "leader"
among universities. Goodness knows that we hear enough about
this in our own propaganda. Yes, despite the problems that I
have outlined above, Waterloo has been a leader. However, it
could make a quantum leap and establish itself as an even
greater leader if it could overcome the diseases of denial
and suppression of the truth and establish itself as a new
beacon, not only for postsecondary education, but for the
entire educational establishment. Remember that with all of
the concerns and doubts about our primary and secondary
educational systems, the public will eventually be knocking
at our doors. Indeed, it already has.
     There will be no "epiphany" here, only a need for the
truth. Contrary to a little blue booklet circulated on
campus and entitled, "Get Up and Grow!", we don't grow by
not saying what we mean (essentially distorting or even
supressing the truth). We grow by honestly confronting our
problems and weaknesses. I can only hope that our dysfunc
tional educational system would eventually do the same. We
owe it to future generations.
     I conclude by emphatically stating that it is the
responsibility of Senate, and not simply the duty of the
President or the Vice-President, to address these issues and
provide a clear definition of education with which we can
then operate, both in the classroom as well as in society.
     But, for heaven's sake, let's get rid of the "Big Mac".
     
     Postscript: To anyone interested in reading about the
reasons behind the deterioration of the public education
system, I strongly recommend Richard Mitchell's book The
Graves of Academe. Mitchell focusses on the educationists -
those who engage in "education research" and "educate" the
people who teach our students.
     I conclude with a quote from this book, "It's not
surprising, therefore that the educationists respond to
public discontent by not trying to improve what they do, but
by trying to 'educate' the public into some other
'perception' of what they do."
     I'm not just writing from my experiences as a
university professor. I've witnessed the horrors at the
local public school board level, participating in
"consultation sessions" where parents are invited to assist
in the formulation of meaningless "mission statements" and
the like. I've heard board "facilitators" talk about
education as a "product" and students as its "consumers". I
sympathize with the many teachers who feel as if their hands
are tied behind their backs.
     My wife and I decided that we saw enough of the
deleterious effects of an overly permissive and "feel good"
system with its mixed messages and continually decreasing
emphasis on academics and work ethic. At considerable
financial sacrifice, we decided to send our son to a private
school in an attempt to undo the damages. Indeed, in only a
few weeks time, much progress has been made. He and his
peers rise to meet the high and uncompromising standards set
by his school. The discipline and responsible work habits re
quired to meet these standards have led to an increased
academic performance. The success of his efforts have
resulted in an increased self esteem. We now feel
comfortable that our son will be equipped with the tools to
make a future for himself.