David Brooks, "Testing the Teachers": Instead, Why Not a University of Chicago "Common Core" Curriculum?

In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Testing the Teachers" (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/20/opinion/brooks-testing-the-teachers.html?_r=1&ref=opinion#), David Brooks ponders whether parents who pay $160,000 over the course of four years to send their children to college are getting their money's worth. Citing a study which suggests "that nearly half the students showed no significant gain in critical thinking, complex reasoning and writing skills during their first two years in college," Brooks concludes his opinion piece by recommending:

"If you’ve got a student at or applying to college, ask the administrators these questions: 'How much do students here learn? How do you know?'"

More than 40 years ago, a teacher suggested that I apply to the University of Chicago at age 16 and seek admission without graduating high school. I took his advice, and in the fall I left for Chicago's embattled South Side, where whistles were sounded when a student or faculty member felt threatened. There was a football team, but no one ever went to watch them, and I don't remember them ever winning a game while I attended. In fact, if memory serves me well, during one fabled season, they scored only twice: once during the first half of their first game, and once during the second half of their second game. Social life and fraternaties? They existed, but on a lilliputian scale. You see, everyone was busy rushing off through the biting cold to the University's new library, built over the rubble of a once grand stadium. Years earlier, the stadium had served as home field to a much feared University of Chicago football team nicknamed the "Monsters of the Midway," before the appelation was adopted by the Chicago Bears.

Just short of my twentieth birthday, I graduated from the University of Chicago, having spent most of my waking hours at the College studying and working at odd jobs to pay for my books and food. I left with ambivalent feelings and with what could only be described as a mediocre grade point average. Grade inflation had never reached the University of Chicago, and even a lowly "B" was earned with sweat and anxiety. Nevertheless, I had come away from the College with an education.

Unlike most other schools, the University of Chicago demands that all of its undergraduates complete a "common core" of study demanding some 1/3 of their course time, and including humanities; natural and mathematical sciences; social sciences; a foreign language requirement; and even physical education (peculiar coming from an institution that has so downgraded its sports program). As described by the University of Chicago:

"A University of Chicago education is more than a set of skills, a rite of passage, or even the ability to think critically. It is an experience—part of a lifelong dialogue that encourages students to converse across cultures and disciplines—and is guided by 75 years of experience with a Core tradition.

This famed Core curriculum, a model for American general education, is the University of Chicago student’s introduction to the tools of inquiry used in every discipline—science, mathematics, humanities, and social sciences. The goal is not just to transfer knowledge, but to raise fundamental questions and become familiar with the powerful ideas that shape our society."

Here I am, more than 40 years later, and do I have any regrets? Yes, that I cannot spend another year at the College of the University of Chicago in order to savor a learning experience, which I was too young to appreciate at the time, but which fortunately has guided my thought processes ever since.