Brooks quotes two devastating passages about enrollees' performance in basic composition courses. Professor X laments, "Remarkably few of my students can do well in these classes. Students routinely fail; some fail multiple times, and some will never pass, because they cannot write a coherent sentence." And again: "In each of my courses, we discuss thesis statements and topic sentences, the need for precision in vocabulary, why economy of language is desirable, what constitutes a compelling subject. I explain, I give examples, I cheerlead, I cajole, but each evening, when the class is over and I come down from my teaching high, I inevitably lose faith in the task, as I'm sure my students do. I envision the lot of us driving home, solitary scholars in our cars, growing sadder by the mile."

Perusing Brooks, I had the impression that I had received support for my own recent squib on the irrelevance of the admissions essay as a predictor of students' writing skills - that I'd get to say "I told you so." But it turns out that Brooks misread or misrepresented the Atlantic piece - or else his meaning was distorted in the editing process. Despite the reference to "a small private college," Professor X's critique does not concern the (possibly faux) elite. The good professor teaches at "colleges of last resort" for students who have failed elsewhere or spent years in the workforce and are now seeking credits for job promotion. Despite his faith in the liberal arts, Professor X is advocating a respectful return to vocational education and an acknowledgement that not everyone who deserves promotion as a health care worker or law enforcement officer will produce literate research papers. Adult education or education for returning students — this point seems to be at the heart of X's argument — is "a substantial profit center for many colleges" that, often as not, offers false hope.

So: with op-ed commentary as with newspaper science journalism, it's a case of caveat emptor: even reporting that lauds good reporting and writing that faults sloppy writing can mislead. The press often does a poor job of summarizing even minimally complex work. Always, always, the assiduous blogger needs to return to the source.

++++

Coming soon in this space: thoughts on the recent New York Times piece about drug makers' agreement to stop offering doctors logo-embossed mugs and pens.

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Tags: admissions, anonymous writer, classes students, coherent sentence, college, composition, composition courses, david brooks, dieters, irrelevance, ivory tower, multiple times, new year's resolutions, passages, private college, professor x, squib, the atlantic, thesis statements, topic sentences, writing skills