Posted on 04/23/2015 5:12:53 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Imagine what would happen if we passed a law that required every elected representative in the U.S. to take a phone call from a minimum of 10 constituents a day (and I mean individual constituents, not lobbyists and interest groups). Under this law, representatives would also be evaluated by Likert scale surveys on how well they meet the needs of their constituent callers. Anytime survey scores slip below a certain numerical threshold of acceptability, the elected official is fired from office, regardless of the results of democratic election or the prescriptions of the state or federal constitutions. By such standards of evaluation, how many of today’s representatives would still have a job?
I ask because the Iowa legislature has recently introduced a bill for institutions of higher education in Iowa that mandates that professors whose student evaluations dip below a certain, government-set threshold be terminated, “regardless of tenure status or contract.” Further, the bill calls for the bottom five professors above the threshold on the scoring scale to be publicly shamed by having their names and scores published, after which point “the student body shall be offered the opportunity to vote on the question of whether any of the five professors will be retained as employees of the institution.” And there you have it, at last: the inevitable convergence of assessment strategies for higher education and “Survivor.”
The Iowa bill follows similar legislation in North Carolina, a bill to “improve professor quality” by mandating that professors in the North Carolina public university system teach four courses each semester. The rationale of the “improve professor quality” bill: if professors at research-intensive universities are required to teach at least twice as many classes as they do now, their teaching will improve. Because, as everyone in any job can imagine, we’d all do our jobs much better if we were required to do twice the work in the same amount of time for the same amount of money? Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is taking this curious illogic yet further by proposing in his state that professors need to be “teaching more classes and doing more work,” only he plans to compensate them by cutting the University of Wisconsin system budget by $300 million over the next two years.
The reason I don’t seriously advocate for similar impositions on elected representatives, as in my opening thought experiment, is because I’ve never spent a second of my life as an elected representative. I have ideas about how representation in the U.S. might be improved, but I certainly wouldn’t propose to implement those ideas without getting a firm understanding of what the job of representation entails, preferably from a range of experienced elected representatives, and from the vast body of research on democratic and electoral reform. If only our elected officials in conservative strongholds like Iowa, North Carolina and Wisconsin were capable of the critical thinking required to understand that they’re meddling in something of which they have little knowledge and less experience.
The stereotypical professor is usually a lazy and irreverent misanthrope with a penchant for booze (Dennis Quaid in “Smart People”), a brooding obsessive (Russell Crowe in “The Next Three Days”), an incompetent nitwit (Luke Wilson in “Tenure”), and occasionally a murderous villain (James Purefoy in “The Following”). But research shows that the average professor works 61 hours per week, hardly enough time to drink on the job, plan a jailbreak, or develop a murderous cult following on weekends. If we actually evaluated our elected officials based on stereotypes of their work, rather than the reality of the demands on their time and energy, I wonder once more: how many of them would get to keep their jobs?
The greatest irony of all in these stories about clueless legislators dictating terms of assessment for teaching and research to expert professionals, however, is that elected officials are perhaps the one kind of professional for whom it’s reasonable to judge primarily (if not exclusively) by accountability to their constituency. Since democracy—unlike teaching and learning—is foremost about representation, locating true authority in the voters above the representatives, our elected officials should spend less time worrying about how students rate professors, and more time thinking about how we rate their service.
In the college classroom, we most certainly care what students have to say about how we teach, mentor, and prepare them. I read every word of every student evaluation I get each semester, and I reread it all again before I step into the classroom the next semester. As you might imagine, much of student feedback is helpful; some of it is misguided. Along with being observed by experienced faculty peers, this is one of the ways I improve my “teacher quality” on a semesterly basis. But like every professor (and countless students, too), I also know that there’s an obvious conflict of interest at hand if and when students have direct power to oust professors. We already have the “I deserved an A” conversation all the time. Do we want to have that conversation with a job and a career on the line every time? Is this what Iowa legislators mean by professor “effectiveness”: converting students into paying customers who are always right, even when they’re wrong?
To put it simply, it would be mad to propose to improve the quality of brain surgery by asking brain surgeons to double their patient load. It would be mad to propose to improve the quality of police work by asking police officers to double their shifts. And it would compound this madness to propose such things while also slashing operating budgets and subjecting practitioners to termination if they don’t set aside their experience and expertise and cater strictly to the desires of the people they’re trying to assist, the people who go to the surgeon or the police not because they already know how brain surgery or police work is done, and have the resources to do it themselves, but because they don’t; because they need an expert to help them out.
If, as in surgery and police work, we want real quality in higher education, we need to support and listen to the experts who do the work of teaching and research everyday. Putting words like “effectiveness” and “quality” in the title your bill won’t fool anyone but those who, based on stereotypes, already despise what education stands for (until the next time they read a challenging book or article, pop an aspirin, or cross a bridge).
This is the real motive behind the conservative legislative agenda when it comes to higher education: to use buzzwords like “quality” and “effectiveness” to mask measures that make it more difficult for professors to supply quality education to our students—the future of our democracy and economy—and to conduct research effectively. “Quality,” “efficiency” and “improvement” have long been corporate euphemisms for slashing jobs and burning institutions to the ground. An educated populace with access to both the rich history and the cutting edge of knowledge is the scariest thing for those who are politically invested in maintaining a docile and contingent work force, a fear of social change, and a revisionist history of “efficient” and “creative” destruction of public goods.
Georgetown University
Aaron R. Hanlon is a Visiting Assistant Professor with primary research and teaching interests in the 17th-18th centuries, from the emergence of the "New Philosophy" and 17th-century British science writing to the "rise" and development of the novel throughout the 18th century and across the Atlantic. His research focuses on how we organize knowledge, how the domains of reality and fiction interact in the novel, and how science writing and the novel mutually construct our ideas of what we know and how we know it.
Professor Hanlon is currently working on two book-length projects. The first, "The Politics of Quixotism," examines the proliferation of quixotic characters in British and American fiction (1612-1815) as part of a political history of exceptionalism, which both informs the history of "American exceptionalism" and locates an underexplored "British exceptionalism" of the long eighteenth century. The second, "Epistemological Rhetoric in England: 1600-1800," examines the rhetoric associated with "data," "fact," "knowledge," "truth," and other epistemological categories in science writing and the novel.
Hanlon's articles have appeared or are forthcoming in _New Literary History_, _The Eighteenth Century: Theory and Interpretation_, and _Studies in the Novel_, among others. He is also a contributor to Salon.com, where he covers topics related to his research and teaching, and to higher education more broadly.
Professor Hanlon's Spring ('15) courses include: "Rhetoric of 18th Century Poetry," "Restoration Drama," and "Intro. to Critical Theory."
http://explore.georgetown.edu/people/ah1132/
“They might be able to make savings just by asking faculty and staff to consider teaching one more class per semester,” Walker told reporters Wednesday in Madison. “Things like that could have a tremendous impact on making sure that we preserve an affordable education for all of our UW campuses, and at the same time we maintain a high-quality education.”....
....Walker reiterated that his proposal — which amounts to a 13 percent cut in state support for the state’s 13 four-year campuses and 13 two-year colleges plus another two-year tuition freeze — is effectively “Act 10 for the UW System,” a reference to the 2011 law that largely eliminated collective bargaining for most public employees.
He said concerns raised by university leaders about potential layoffs are the same complaints that school boards and superintendents made four years ago, when Walker made historic cuts to K-12 education. Those were largely absorbed by teachers and other K-12 staff paying more toward pension and health insurance premiums.
But Walker has argued the elimination of union contracts that dictated hiring and firing and other workplace rules has given school districts the flexibility to control their budgets more like a private business.".....
The more money we throw at education, the worse it gets. Maybe there is a connection.
Boy, Salon sure has their panties in a wad over Scott Walker, don’t they?
Walker is the Left’s #1 enemy.
Look what they did to him and his supporters in WI - with the John Doe investigations - 4+ years.
The specter of uber-liberal UW system [nest of socialist activists/activism] getting “squeezed by Walker has set off alarm bells across academia.
Who does this bozo think pays his salary?
Fifty percent (50%) or MORE of all states’ budgets go to education.
We’re paying.
Somehow the socialists aren't being able to throw the election results their way. Maybe other states need to look at Wisconsin as a model of how to prevent thrown elections, because I have no doubt that the left has tried.
While I am not sure I would fire professors based on student recommendation surveys alone, I do think that its a useful criteria. And one that should force a review of the professor.
I also like the teaching mandate. There are lots of professors that get paid for being on staff but, don’t do anything. They just self promote and collect a check. This is pretty common. And even if these guys go on speaking tours or write books, that still does not really help the university.
But the point of this essay is all wrong. Politicians are not equivalent to professors. Universities exist to fill the public need of education. And professors are hired to fill that need. If they don’t then we need to get someone who is.
And don’t get me started on “research”...
Being a professor of rhetoric, Hanlon is certainly capable of using imagery to his advantage, just like Adolph Hitler. I’m not saying his use of imagery makes him a Nazi. On the other hand, we don’t know how many people he would kill if he had the opportunity. What we do know is this: He opposes holding professors accountable. Any attempt to hold professors would, in his words, “burn colleges to the ground.” To translate this into ordinary language, requiring professor to meet some kind of standard of interest to students and their sponsors, or else get an honest job, would result in him losing his job. This is simply an admission that he and his fellow elitists could not meet any such standard.
Sigh!
That was the line used successfully against PA’s last governor and he lost his bid for re-election. The stupid voters don't realize how much money spent in the name of education goes to teacher salaries, new football stadiums and what not. BUT in some schools most don't graduate. Those that do are functionally illiterate. I read in one local district, of all the high school kids taking the SAT, only 2 passed. You can blame much of the failure on other factors, but certainly, lousy teachers focused on indoctrination instead of education is a major part of the problem.
You mean grant funded issue advocacy - academic stamp of approval for sale?
Sounds like really interesting stuff. Seriously, it does but then I’m a lit major. But the question is whether we can afford to pay for this stuff.
More leftist drivel from Salon.com.
Ho-hum.
And they have numerous allies right here on FR....
Salon, MSNBC, Jim Cramer ... blowhards!
And homeschoolers far outperform those in public school,
like, 87th + percentile out-perform.
Seems that, if they TRULY favor “education” instead of union jobs and gov’t indoctrination,
they’d make conditions favorable for homeschooling families, like, lowering overall property taxes.
| National Average Percentile Scores | ||
| Subtest | Homeschool | Public School |
| Reading | 89 | 50 |
| Language | 84 | 50 |
| Math | 84 | 50 |
| Science | 86 | 50 |
| Social Studies | 84 | 50 |
| Corea | 88 | 50 |
| Compositeb | 86 | 50 |
| a. Core is a combination of Reading, Language, and Math. b. Composite is a combination of all subtests that the student took on the test. |
||
I did like the Golden Fleece awards that then Wisconsin Senator Proxmire gave out every year. Most of which were “research grants” for really stupid stuff. Someone should continue to give out that award. Most research projects are ridiculous and a waste of money. Some are valuable. But there is little to distinguish the good from the bad.
There has to be some system of accountibility for teachers and professors. If their teaching methods are not effectively producing results they should be terminated. No Tenure or protections for teaching positions should exist. Evaluations should be based on performance and how much the students are learning.
There is a move in some schools back to the teaching methods employed in the ‘50’s. There was a common sense approach to academics back then. Somehow that got lost resulting in a high percentage of kids that were not able to read or do basic math. We need a renewed effort to teach history, not revisionist history, but true American History, warts and all. The lack of knowledge of history and awareness of what is happening in the world today among young people is appalling. We used to have “Current Events” each week along with Social Studies and Government. There is no way we can raise kids to be responsible citzens without these fundamentals.
I believe the goal of the Left has been to produce a society of dumbed down, maleable masses. We have to take control of education back NOW! No more Common Core. No more Federal Funds and Federal Standards. Local Control and each state adopts Standards of Performance.
[Wisconsin seems to be ground zero for the war between the socialists/Marxists and the conservatives]
I believe Minnesota takes first prize.
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