Here’s an Obama administration scandal no one has heard about. Spencer Irvine of Accuracy in Academia reports.

Right Back After Investigation

At the D.C. Newseum, a policy summit sponsored by the National Journal and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation outlined the modern problems facing colleges, faculty and students. However, most of the attention was directed at the first speaker, who is under investigation by the federal government for sharing information with his non-profit while working for the U.S. Department of Education.

Ron Brownstein, the editorial director of Atlantic Media interviewed Robert Shireman, the executive director of the education policy non-profit California Competes. When Brownstein breached this topic of a federal investigation, Shireman bluntly said, “I am not here to answer those questions” and Brownstein shifted gears.

Shireman served as one of the Education Department’s deputy undersecretaries from February 2009 to July 2010, early in President Obama’s first term. Overall, Shireman seemed to be more of a motivational speaker than an education policy wonk in giving his answer to solve higher education woes.

He compared the 1980s Jane Fonda exercise video revolution during the 1980s to the current education problems in the U.S. It seemed that with the video, Americans realized that exercise can be done at home, but without a good reinforcement, it has only led to “a lazier and fatter nation” in the past few decades. Too often, said Shireman, “convenience is a barrier to learning” because there is a “human tendency toward slothfulness and laziness.”

Shireman lamented that too often, when people listen to the news they have an attitude of “I just wait for people to tell me what this means” instead of using critical thinking skills. This also illustrates the American higher education system’s woes, said Shireman, because “the problem isn’t the availability of knowledge” but getting students to “exercise” their brains and stretch their academic horizons.