- Why the Very Bad Arguments for Intervening in Syria Matter (Ezra Klein at Wonkblog)
. - A Dissent on Syria (Jim Manzi at National Review)
. - The Real Case for Syria Strikes Makes Sense, So Why Isn’t Anyone Making It? (Max Fisher at Worldviews)
. - No, We’re Not All War Hypocrites Now (David Freddoso at Conservative Intel)
Author Danny Vinik
The Signaling Value of MOOCs
As part of his long look at the U.S. education system, Wonkblog’s Dylan Matthews dives into the world of Massively Online Open Courses (MOOCs). He notes that there haven’t been many academic studies on MOOCs and their performance compared to traditional college classes. Can an online class really provide the same level of education as one with an in-person professor? Matthews writes:
[T]he evidence shows that MOOCs have tremendous potential, especially for math and science and professional training. But it’s too soon to say if MOOCs are well-positioned to replace universities as a whole. To show that, one would need to somehow find out how to measure learning in topics as diverse as history or French language or theoretical physics, and conduct randomized comparisons of learning outcomes in all of them.
I’m sure in the coming years we’ll know more.
Matthews continues on to point out one of the common critiques of MOOCs: their signaling problem.
Signaling is the value in broadcasting your competence to potential employers and others. Graduating from college may help you get a job not just because it taught you particular skills but also because it makes employers confident that you’re the sort of person they want to hire.
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MOOCs may become as good as traditional universities at building human capital. But they have a long way to go before having the same signaling value. Taking an MIT course on edX doesn’t do as much to get you a job as actually going to MIT would.
That’s true right now, but I see no reason why it needs to be the case. The problem is that in order for employers to value MOOCs at the same level as normal courses, you need to be able to credibly signal that you’ve learned the material from the course. At traditional colleges, that signaling comes in the form of the course credit and the grade you receive. The few colleges offering MOOCs for credit require you to be enrolled in the university and take a proctored final exam. If you have to pay tuition to earn credit, that eliminates the most valuable aspect of MOOCs: their price.
The ultimate goal, then, is to offer credit to students who take just an individual online course with no enrollment in college required. Students will have to take a final exam to demonstrate proficiency in the course so that credits are not just given away, but are earned by actually learning the material. And that final exam cannot be taken at the person’s house or a coffee shop. It must be proctored to eliminate cheating. Employers aren’t going to value course credit if they know students can easily cheat on the final.
Thus, the next step is to figure out how to proctor final exams for hundreds of thousands or even millions of people. That sounds like a logistical nightmare. Except it’s eminently doable. Pearson test centers already offer a number of different exams (GMAT, GRE, etc.) at locations throughout cities all around the country. You pay a fee to take the test and Pearson offers a testing center that is extremely secure. The same system should be employed on a much larger scale for MOOCs, allowing students to receive credit for online classes. Even more, the tests could be designed like any standardized test so that every student would receive a score and percentile and employers could easily compare all applicants. Students at traditional colleges could quickly be tempted to take these exams too as a way to demonstrate their knowledge of the course material as well.
This will require a much larger infrastructure of online courses and Pearson testing centers. It’ll take some time to develop it all, but there’s no reason that MOOCs should have a problem with signaling. Let the MOOC revolution begin!
Does Obama Lack the Leadership Skills in Syria?
One of the most common criticisms of President Obama is that he doesn’t have the leadership skills to persuade legislators to support his agenda. The theory goes that if Obama were friendly to Congressmen or reached across the aisle more, Republicans would suddenly drop their obstructionism and work with him. Commentators on the left and right love to ding the President for this, but it’s almost comically untrue. Presidential leadership is a myth. The bully pulpit is vastly overrated and no matter what Obama does, Republicans are going to oppose it. No number of meetings, dinners or visits to Capitol Hill will change that.
This theory has come up yet again with the Obama Administration’s inability to convince Congressmen, particularly in the House, to support a strike in Syria. The Washington Post‘s Matt Miller articulated his six qualms about Syria today. Here’s number five:
The leadership question. In recent days, several business leaders in Los Angeles who voted for Obama twice have told me, unprompted, that the Syrian episode captures everything they can’t stand about the president. He lacks basic leadership skills, they say. Too much detailed public analysis and hemming and hawing, says one. No real engagement with his counterparts, says another, and so no reservoir of good will with either foreign leaders or with exotic species like Republicans. When Obama himself seems to lack conviction in his proposed course of action, they wonder, how will he persevere when any military step brings the inevitable complications?
Matt Lewis, of the Daily Caller, echoed a similar sentiment this morning:
Some people seem surprised the votes just aren’t there for Syrian intervention. I’m not. Call it the Vietnam syndrome redux, but after a decade of war, Americans are understandably war weary. Thus, the only way way to overcome this difficult obstacle would be to have a). an ironclad case for war, and b). a president who uses personal relationships to twist arms.
In this regard, he’s 0-for-2.
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Still, absent a “slam dunk” case for intervention, personally persuading Members of Congress to vote for bombing Syria (in this environment) would require some elbow grease. For years, Obama has been criticized for failing to develop relationships with Members of Congress. Until now, he has mostly (miraculously) skated on this. But one gets the sense that it has finally caught up with him.
So, assuming that President Obama isn’t intentionally tanking the rollout for the strike because he secretly doesn’t want to go to war, how much is a lack of presidential leadership to blame for the lack of support? There’s no doubt that President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry have done a poor job selling the war to the American people (yes, firing missiles at a country is an act of war). But, if they had explained it well, how much would public opinion be different? Likely not much. The American public adamantly is against the strike. A number of House members have reported overwhelming opposition from their constituents. This isn’t a close public opinion battle that a better White House strategy could have swayed. It’s a major uphill fight.
That doesn’t mean the President has done an acceptable job here. He hasn’t. He switched from taking unilateral action to asking for Congress’s approval at the last second . The Administration asked for an absurdly broad force authorization. Secretary Kerry fumbled questions in Congress. It’s been a mess. But once again, commentators are overstating the value of the bully pulpit. President Obama can continue to condemn the chemical weapon attack and argue that the international community must respond. But, Americans are war-weary. He can only change public opinion so much.
As for his relationships on Capitol Hill, that has been overrated too. This is a major decision and legislators are listening to their constituents on it (see Justin Amash’s twitter account for instance). If Obama can’t sway public opinion in his favor (and I don’t think he can), then twisting the arms of Congressmen is highly unlikely to work too.
The President has done a poor job leading and arguing for this Syrian strike, but even if he passionately laid out the evidence for an attack, he would’ve had trouble convincing the American people. There are rumors that the President will make a national address this week to push for the strike. For those who believe in the power of presidential leadership, this will be a test of the bully pulpit. Don’t get your hopes up of it having any major effect though.
Danny Vinik 