<p>Several academic/teacher friends have said that there’s a strong disincentive to write straightforwardly negative LORs because of risk of lawsuits from the students and/or their parents. </p>
<p>As a result, the only ways they can avoid that risk is to outright turn the student down for an LOR request if they feel THAT negatively or in a few cases, “damn with faint praise” or through a perfunctorily written lukewarm LOR which would have the same effect as a negative one without the litigation risk. </p>
<p>Educators and adcoms are familiar enough with such practices to suss out the subtle differences between truly outstanding recs and lukewarm ones whereas both types could easily be mistaken by others as laudatory recs. </p>
<p>It’s also a similar reason why many former employers being called for references, especially larger corporate ones only give dates of employment and/or whether they’d hire the former employee again.</p>
<p>^Agreed. Letter readers for grad or law schools have to learn how to distinguish between “I wholeheartedly recommend this candidate” and “I have no reservations in recommending this candidate” etc. It’s ridiculous.</p>
<p>The discussion about letters of recommendation and narrative evaluations reminded me of a book that we have, called “The Lexicon of Intentionally Ambiguous Recommendations.”</p>
<p>From the cover: “You’ll be lucky if you can get this person to work for you.”</p>
<p>And from the interior: “All of us had a rather good impression of him.” [Left unstated is: “but there was this one guy who could mimic him perfectly.”]</p>
<p>A math prof I know once received a letter of recommendation that read, “His record so far has been mediocre, but then he hasn’t taken any hard courses yet.”
[That one actually is ambiguous.]</p>
<p>Regarding the essays, the flaws of the grading system exposed by Perelman should not mean that the writing taught in high school is what the doctor ordered. </p>
<p>There are plenty of reasons for a college writer to have to UNLEARN the bad lessons of high school writing, especially when it comes to structure and punctuation. </p>
<p>All you need to see is the abysmal quality of the application essays. Especially when a poor soul relies on the advice of the local insructors.</p>
<p>^I would say it means the opposite. But the poor soul’s instructors are, these days more than ever, following mandated, and sometimes scripted, curricula.</p>
<p>Why would it say the opposite? The SAT essay is a moronic exercise. Look at my comments regarding the history how an underused test became a requirement. At it stands, it is mostly ignored by the colleges. Perelman shows that it should be trivial to score highly with a canned essay. Just as it was for tge Chyten pupils in the days of the SAT II, if you know what I refer to.</p>
<p>However, the SAT essay should also be a cinch for most high schoolers. The fact that the grading tools have to remain low speaks volume about the abysmal preparedness of your typical high schooler in the country. </p>
<p>The real story is, however, told by the absolute need for remedial classes at the college level, and by the herculean efforts needed from the writing instructors at colleges that care enough to even attempt to redress the problems created and ignored in the K-12 years.</p>
<p>All I know, as one of those college instructors, is that since the rise of the testing movement and the more scripted, proscribed curricula, freshman writing has gotten worse, especially in regards to critical thinking. Teachers didn’t spontaneously change; they are teaching what they are told to teach.</p>
<p>To measure a fever, one needs a thermometer. Testing measures learning. The tests do not create the gaps in learning, any more than the thermometer causes the fever.</p>
<p>The reality is that we have a marriage of bad testing (and the writing SAT is one of them) and deficient education. The complaining voices that decry the “teaching to the test boondoggle” should focus on eradicating the roots of the problems instead of attacking the “meter” that exposes the weaknesses. It is, however, easier to scapegoating the “system” than to make the necessary adjustments. </p>
<p>But, there is no need for me to repeat the same old theories on a Saturday afternoon. Especially since nothing will change until we won’t be able to pass the buck, and will be forced to realize how the decision to abdicate the leadership of our education system to the representatives of the service providers was the cause of the present dysfunctional system. It will not change until the last remnants of the disastrous policies of the 60s and 80s are eliminated. We will continue to rob the children of a real education and pretend that all will corrected at … the next level. Students will continue to graduate with a third world education that comes at the price of a first world country. Students will continue to graduate from a K-12 system that teach elements such as basic reasoning and critical thinking without outside self-help. </p>
<p>But all is well as long as we continue to lead the world in self-esteem. As misguided and unwarranted as that is. We have the politicians we deserve. And we have the educators we deserve because of our apathy and disinterest.</p>
<p>The article discusses the hiring of an uncredentialed programmer who was discovered by an online recruiting algorithm because of his technical contributions on GitHub.</p>
<p>Xiggi–don’t feel like debating this. But I will say, your policies won’t drive out the bad teachers. It’s the good ones, the ones who are smart and hardworking and care, like my H, who any parent would adore to have teach their kids (you’ll have to take my word on this but I’m right), who daily think, do I want to put up with the way it is now? </p>
<p>They’re the ones who’ve had it with the distrust and the putdowns and the for-profit-whatever-makes us money educational-industrial-complex, who’ll leave. The ones you think that are being protected, the bad ones, they’ll stay.</p>
<p>So, public education will be destroyed. Let’s see how that works for us.</p>
<p>Xiggi…are you a college professor? I’ve noticed you sure hate k-12 education, and take every opportunity to dwell on it. I’m guessing you don’t care much for the students you teach because they are so corrupted by their k-12 teachers and horrid curriculum. You seem bitter.</p>
<p>The testing quagmire is getting worse in texas. They introduced some new policy that says 15% of the final grade comes from odd ball standardized testing score.</p>
<p>I am not a college professor nor bitter. Only concerned about the lack of positive changes in K-12.</p>
<p>Garland, I happen to agree that the dedicated teachers have more reasons and opportunities to leave. And that the protected ones reasons to stay. And, despite what it may appear, I am not a fan of the tests everyone seems to hate. </p>
<p>I believe that the current system could and should drastically revamped, and that the focus should be on better preparing, better training, better equipping, and … better paying the teachers, who overtime should benefit from stringent restrictions to accessing the profession. Exactly the contrary that is happening now.</p>
<p>These people are cowards. I’ve been in this business a long time, and I’ve never heard of anyone being sued for writing a negative letter of recommendation. And like Vladenschlutte, I can’t imagine what the legal claim would be. I actually can’t believe a competent lawyer would ever file such a suit because it would not only be laughed out of court, but probably subject the lawyer to sanctions. I also can’t imagine a college or university that wouldn’t step forward to defend a professor who was being sued on the basis of something they said in a letter of recommendation.</p>
<p>That said, most faculty I know won’t write negative letters of recommendation. They’ll just refuse to write, telling the student as politely as they can that they’re not in a position to write a letter that would be helpful to the student, and therefore the student should look elsewhere. Generally speaking, faculty are not obligated to write letters of recommendation. I don’t think the reticence to write comes from a fear of lawsuits, but from a disinclination to to anything that might cause affirmative harm to the student, even if the student did poorly in the class (and even, for that matter, if the subpar performance was due to lack of effort on the student’s part). Most faculty I know are inclined to go out of their way to help those who do well, but to let the subpar performers fend for themselves without weighing in on it either way. And who knows, there’s always the chance they did better in someone else’s course.</p>
<p>What’s different about the Brown situation is that narrative evaluations are apparently mandatory if the student requests them. But it seems to me that puts the onus on the student: if you’re going to demand written narrative evaluations, then you’d better be prepared to take the good with the bad. But I still don’t see the basis for a lawsuit if some of them come out negative, anymore than I see the basis for a lawsuit if the student receives a less-than-stellar letter grade.</p>
<p>Oh cobrat. I know you think some of your innumerable friends and cousins with which you apparently discuss every topic under the sun have said this to you, but that’s not how the real world works. In the real world, bclintonk is exactly right: Someone (whether an academic or business reference) who doesn’t feel comfortable writing a positive LOR will just simply refuse to write a LOR. Not out of “fear of lawsuit,” but because they don’t wish to actively harm the other person.</p>
<p>Just to throw in an observation: At the local high school some years back, one student’s parents filed a lawsuit over an A-. The suit got nowhere, but it did get filed. I suspect that there are some annoyance factors connected with responding to such a lawsuit, even if the outcome is summary dismissal.</p>
<p>Some variation of malicious libel & defamation due to some unreasonable malice on part of the teacher. </p>
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<p>Bingo. Even if most of such suits are nonsensical and frivolous, there’s a substantial cost incurred from both the financial and especially the hassles involved in defending the suit along with the negative perceived reputation…however undeserved it may be. </p>
<p>Along with the adoption of the consumer-oriented model in education, most ed admins are inclined to side with the students or at least…lean on educators to avoid this situation in the first place by either refusing to write a rec altogether or to write a lukewarm perfunctory or “damn with faint praises” one which has the same effect among higher-ed adcoms and Profs without giving any grounds for such suits. </p>
<p>Incidentally, this is also a reason why many employers, especially large corporations are often advised by their attorneys to avoid similar issues by providing no information beyond confirming whether a former employee worked at a given place in a given position, dates of employment, etc. </p>