There is no question that the American higher ed system is the class of the world, and that especially American academic PhDs are vastly superior to the system used in Britain.
[Edited for personal attacks and name-calling. - moderator] Here are just some of your past posts suggesting that the American higher ed system might not actually be "the class of the world":
"My program is a notorious diploma mill, one that has actually had its ALA accreditation pulled within the last year."
..."professors, with one exception, really were utterly uninterested in assisting students with the job search, and did not seem to care whether they got work at all."
..."the situation was so bad that at this time there was a library school professor there who had a policy whereby she would agree to write references for ten students/ alumni at a time, and keep a waiting list for others. Whenever one of the lucky ten got work, she'd pull another name off of the list."
"...all these things make sense for a program that was for all intents and purposes a diploma mill, a cash cow for the university"
"Remember, there are at least 4k 'colleges and universities' in the USA, and every year 1-3 of them do go under, just as new ones, however legit, are founded. Sadly, there are more than a few *accredited* institutions of higher learning in this country whose education/ diplomas are not/ no longer worth the paper they are printed on, and are simply taking the money of whatever (often unqualified) students that they can attract. Such is one of the few downsides of the freedom of the US higher ed system."
"The notion that 99.99% of published articles in 'top-tier' fora are good is not true, certainly not for all fields. I have read numerous articles in such journals in my own academic discipline over the years, many of which contribute exactly nothing to 'scholarship' save being on their authors' CVs."
[This is your question (LOL!):] "What exactly is 'theory' in history, and how does/do theor(ies) influence the writing thereof?"
"The journal an article appears in is reliable evidence of either how well the article conforms to the standards of the profession now and/or the prestige of the author. Appearing in MegaHistoryJournal is not, however, any indicator that the piece is actually good."
"The student, at the end of the semester, using the syllabus, calculated his mark should be 92.5%, an A- at the school, but when he saw his report card listing a C, he emailed the teacher to complain. The teacher's response was that he had decided that, after three out of the four required tests, that the class grade average was too high, so he changed the way he was going to grade the last test without telling the class, resulting in the student's getting an 84% instead. The student then noted that 84% was still a straight B, not a straight C. The teacher then said that when he calculated this student's mark and found it to be 84%=B, he felt that the student really had not actually done B work, and in the teacher's opinion had done more like C work, so he gave the fellow a C anyhow, despite the math. The student then complained to the Uni's ombudsman, who sided with the teacher on academic freedom concerns."
"In some cases, the administrators impose a lack of discipline so stunning that it is dangerous for the teacher to be in the classroom, and no substantive education is even possible."
"Exactly what does this say about Ivy League degrees and grading, especially from the era prior to say the 1970s? The late great Ray Kroc was once asked by a reporter if it were really true, as he had publicly claimed, that he would refuse to hire a Harvard man to work in his restaurants, even as a manager? He said he had no choice-- he could not hire the Harvard man as the Harvard man would consider it beneath his dignity to clean the toilets, and Kroc wanted bathroom cleanliness to be a hallmark of what McDonald's would offer. What are we dealing with here-- just a bunch of spoiled rich kids whose families got them there, in order to see to it that the kid would then have the benefit of an Ivy league degree, irrespective of their competence?"
"...at many old-time SLACs and compass points, till very recently, publishing was professor-optional, more or less. "
"we are simply sending a higher percentage of kids in each annual cohort to college every year. The percentage is almost double what it was thirty years ago, and vastly greater than it was before the Boomers hit college, let alone before WWII. Of course, therefore, student performance will suffer, especially when there are so many colleges that were established to handle the new numbers, but find only so many 'good' students to go around, and have to more or less settle for whatever they can find."
Shall I go on?
