Perry's War on Texas Universities

M

mcbrett

2,500+ Posts
On another thread, I jokingly posted pictures of Perry in ag gear. This thread is not a joke. As most of us know, Perry has re-populated the Board of Regents with his loyalists intent on gutting all public Universities in Texas. His goal is to turn The University of Texas, TAMU, TT, UH etc, into profit centers.

This is a sample of the Perry Higher Education doctrine:

1) Tenureships removed from professors. All professors judged both on student feedback and whether or not their class turns a profit. Unprofitable classes may be cut regardless of their scope or focus. This favors classes that do not have labs and punishes science, medicine and engineering.

2) Online classes are encouraged to replace actual classes. “Why should 100 students sit in Chemistry 101 in Welch Hall if we can charge the same for 1,000 students sitting home online?”

3) Academic Research- severely gutted based on the perceived profitability of the benefits of the research as judged by Perry appointees. Imagine 5 Yell Leaders around a table: “Why the hell should we fund to map the genetic code if we can’t sell the darn maps? Whoop!”

4) A 4 year education, including books, should not cost more than $10,000. Pure and simple- unrealistic.

5) Professor Compensation tied to student feedback. This punishes professors who make students do unpopular tasks with the goal of learning or a stronger education.

And others.

We've discussed this topic before on this board- many of us, including our aggy, raider, cougar etc friends- are outraged. A coalition has been formed to fight Rick Perry and his University gutting agenda which intends to keep UT Austin and others as a world class research and academic University, like what we know it as today, and not a profit center.

The University already ranks in the top 5 nationally as best values, and top 20 in many areas of academic areas despite receiving the least amount of funding relative to its piers. This is not a spending issue.

Finally- there is something to do other than whine. Here is a link to a coalition we can join to help support our University. The coalition, if you view the supporters, is comprised of a "Whos Who" of Texas business leaders. This is not a Democratic or Republican issue- but in case you are wondering, several members on the Executive Committee are former GW Bush aides, Karl Rove and Sen. Hutchison aides. I repeat Conservative friends- this is not a Democratic issue simply because Perry is the catalyst. It is a Texan issue- as it should be.

Here is a link to the Coalition: Texas Coalition for Excellence in Higher Education

And lastly, an article about this issue in the Washington Post- as Perry considers a run for POTUS- this is now national news. Wash. Post article on Perry's war on education

If you are pro-business and job creation, you don't create jobs or commerce if you gut the product- which is the skill sets of the people who work at these companies.

I urge my HornFan friends- if you care about The University as you know it, to both oppose the Perry agenda and support this coalition. We are not Thunderbird Online University, we are Texas.
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Nice attack on that series of completely imagined straw men. You've completely mischaracterized what Perry and other reformers are trying to do.

It's only natural to rally around your school, but give me a break.
 
I do think that, broadly speaking, education is at a crossroads. Not just higher education, but at the high school, middle school, and elementary level as well. The entire way we conceive of education is in question at this point, and I do worry that we're going down a very strange road.

Technology plays a role in that of course, with the online classes and all that. It increases access, perhaps, but it also depersonalizes the process, and it is debatable to me whether it provides students with the same quality of instruction. But it also presents the State with all sorts of new opportunities for monitoring the delivery of content. In the public schools, this often is advertised as a good thing, since it can be a mechanism for kicking the lazy teacher in the butt.

But it also puts the State in position to control the message in ways that it never could before. The machinery now exists to sanction teachers and instructors who go off book, or who hold unorthodox views.

I couldn't care less about tenure. And student feedback probably should be some component of an instructor's evaluation, though certainly not the decisive component.

There are certainly some ominous trends in education right now, from the standpoint of the teacher/instructor. The missi dominici are beginning to show up more often on the horizons of our little classroom fiefdoms.
 
Student's evaluations of professors are largely worthless. It is rare that 18-22 year olds will sit down and put the necessary time and effort into evaluating anything. It also let's petty disagreements about grading policy and the like become an influence on very important evaluations. It puts the cool, hip, and often less challenging profs at an advantage over those who push their students farther than they want to be pushed. Terrible idea all around.

I wonder what Perry would have given his gym teacher at ATM after he got a C in the class.
 
There are some points of discussion- for sure. However- if you read the Wash Post article I linked to- they discussed a wealthy Perry supporter (donates 125k, and more on other occasions) to his campaign- helped initiate this idea with Perry after UT Austin rebuffed his idea on how to staff a joint project. The University wanted professors, this wealthy donor wanted people from outside the University. When UT Austin insisted, the man went to his friend Rick for help and a gripe- saying in short- this University needs to be run like a profit center.

While there are points to that, the University is already one of the most efficient in the country, consistently called one of the best values- and lastly- an education is not exactly created at a profit center.

In my case, I feel strongly my education in Austin would have suffered greatly had several of these initiatives been around in the 90's.

My physics lab class probably lost money for the University- but the education I received still helps me in my profession today- and in fact I am a regular donor to UT in part because of that.
 
The sad truth is that universities ARE profit centers. They are a business. If they dont have butts in seats, they cant justify their existence.

However, why should more people be going to college? Is there a reason? Do we need more attorneys, engineers or doctors? Is the rate of those that are graduating not enough to fill the needs of society?

What is the end game? To provide a high level of education for students who meet the requirements to earn that education? Or is it so that everyone can "have a degree" that half of them wont ever be able to use because there are either too many other people with that same degree or because it is a worthless degree?

What are the rational reasons and why should we follow them?
 
Same could be said for the number of people getting law degrees and education degrees vs the number of jobs out there.

I think it's because every school district out there wants to be seen as the district that prepares kids for college and not a lowly working class district for poor kids that go to trade school and become plumbers.
 
I have met very very few 18 year olds that I would trust with my salary. Seriously, many of these profs have dedicated their life to their field and we are going to have a bunch of kids determine a large part of their salary?
 
Absolutely Dionysus...

Ive met 20 year olds waiting tables with more savvy and creativity than people with PhDs. Just given the right training and opportunity, its amazing how successful some people would be.

Having advanced degrees is nice, but its not the end all, be all. As someone with a masters degree, I get sick and tired of any current or past president trying to shove in our face the need for every kid to go to college. And Im sick of our schools be judged based on that.

Im not entirely sure what the answer is, but I know its not having every kid in college and tying school funding to it, or trying to make every kid graduate from college with a degree that wont get them anywhere.
 
Ok, let's say that you are right and that a portion of pay should depend on evaluations. Shouldnt that be a university decision? Why is Rick Perry inserting himself into this? I believe that UT only gets 13% of it's money from the state. Shouldn't UT be able to decide how to pay profs since they foot 87% of the bill?
 
Where are all the "kids these day suck" people when I need them?
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I guess I probably look at evaluations differently because of my background. My evaluators have at least a masters degree, have taken multiple courses on the evaluation process, are tested to make sure their evaluations are within an acceptable range when evaluating a standard sample lesson, etc. The idea of giving an 18 year old a survey and saying "go for it" is a little foreign to me.
 
In my particular case, there's nobody on staff qualified to evaluate me on the content. They're qualified to evaluate me on the instructional technique, at least in theory. And that worries me, because my methods tend to be rather different than what is nowadays encouraged by the educational establishment. I'd honestly rather put my trust in the kids to give an accurate account of whether they're being engaged, and whether they're learning meaningful things consistently, than to let it rest with someone who's been trained by the establishment to look for trendy methods.
In reply to:
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Some people realize there is a value to the individual and to society beyond one's chosen trade. Perry and a lot of those on this thread are not included, it would appear.
Educated voters are necessary for democracy.
There are trade schools, on-line schools, and book stores where you can buy every book a school uses to educate its students. But that isn't how top universities teach their students-and Perry wants to diminish the top schools in Texas.
McBrett is correct-this is an all-out attach on higher education, and we should all be very worried about UT and A&M's future as highly-rated academic institutions.
A university is not a "profit center," and its students are not customers. There is a "higher" purpose, and that is why it is called higher education, not trade school.
When the state cuts back its support of UT's annual operating budget to 16% but demands cost cuts, student ratings determining professors' salaries, and all those other whacko ideas, something is very, very wrong with the leadership in the governor's mansion, er, $10,000 per month luxury digs, wherever he is camped out these days.
UT's top staff has many opportunities to teach at other top research schools, and they are recruited like a qb in SEC country. We will start losing the cream of the crop if these draconian policies are imposed on UT's leadership.
 
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