In Reply to: Re: I don't think it is that big of a deal posted by amadbruin on September 27, 2026 at 08:29:02
Now that I’m in education, I’ve become painfully aware of how much of the system is really about protecting money, courses, and jobs.
English wants to teach reading instead of trained reading specialists because those classes mean more faculty positions. I’m currently fighting with Business, Psychology, and Learning Skills over who gets to teach Statistics, Business Calculus, Data Analysis, and non-credit Business Math for students with learning disabilities. The argument has surprisingly little to do with who actually has the strongest background. It is mostly a turf war over who gets the FTE.
The same thing happens with curriculum. Too often, we design education around protecting departments rather than asking what students actually need to know.
I saw this firsthand. After earning my PhD, I realized that very little of the mathematics I studied at UCLA had much connection to the mathematics I actually needed to earn a living. When I went to CSULA for my master’s, they asked me to critique the curriculum because of my research background. My response was blunt: almost none of it taught a billable skill.
We have become so invested or own sacrifice to learn minutia that we demand the next generation follow in our footsteps whether we use that minutia or not.
Algebra is a perfect example. We spend 10 teaching students topics that ultimately lead to the quadratic formula, as though being able to derive it is some essential life achievement. It isn't.
The real problem is that education often protects what institutions want to teach instead of what students actually need to learn. And once jobs and departmental budgets become attached to the curriculum, changing it becomes almost impossible—even when everyone knows parts of it are a waste of students’ time.