Perry and the Profs

If you want a glimpse of the way Rick Perry operates as an executive and a politician, consider the issue of higher education reform in Texas, which no one in Texas knew was an issue until Perry decided to make it one.

In his 30-year public career, Perry—how to put this delicately?—has shown no sign of being tortured by a gnawing intellectual curiosity. “He’s not the sort of person you’ll find reading The Wealth of Nations for the seventh time,” said Brooke Rollins, formerly Perry’s policy director and now president of the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a free-market research group closely allied with Perry. At Texas A&M he majored in animal science and escaped with a grade point average a bit over 2.0. (Perry’s A&M transcript was leaked last month to the left-wing blog Huffington Post by “a source in Texas,” presumably not his mom. How his GPA compares with Barack Obama’s is unknown, since no one in higher education has thought to leak Obama’s transcript to a right-wing blog.)

Perry expends his considerable intelligence instead on using political power and, what amounts to the same thing, picking fights with his political adversaries. When Rollins came to Perry in 2007 with a radical and comprehensive proposal to overhaul higher education in the state, Rollins says the governor quickly understood the potential of the issue, not only politically but on its merits. The state operates more than 100 colleges, universities, technical schools, and two-year community colleges, organized into six separate systems. As in other states, public higher education in Texas is scattered, expensive, poorly monitored, and top heavy with administrators, even as it subjects students to often large annual tuition increases without a compensatory increase in educational quality.

Perry’s first poke at this sclerotic establishment came early in his first term. He suggested converting the money that the state gives to public colleges and universities into individual grants handed straight to students. Money is power, and Perry’s idea was to place the power in the hands of “consumers,” as he put it, rather than the administrators, to increase competition among schools and thereby lower costs and increase quality. “Young fertile minds [should be] empowered,” he said at the time, “to pursue their dreams regardless of family income, the color of their skin, or the sound of their last name.”

The higher ed establishment, led by regents of the University of Texas system, rebelled, and the legislature, well-wired with the system’s allies, agreed, and the proposal died. But Perry continued to poke. College graduation rates in Texas are unusually low, and the gaps among whites, blacks, and Hispanics are unusually high. Nationwide 38 percent of American adults (age 25-64) have a post-secondary degree; in Texas the figure is 31 percent. So Perry proposed “Outcomes-based Funding,” tying the amount of aid a school receives to the number of students it graduates. To keep a school from lowering its standards to increase its graduation rates, he suggested giving an exit exam to all students receiving a B.A. Students wouldn’t have to pass the exam to get their degree, but the information yielded by such a test—how much learning is going on around here?—would be useful, mostly to reformers. The proposal was seen, correctly, as a threat to the status quo, which has so far successfully fought it off.

The proposals Rollins brought to Perry in 2007 turned on the same themes of—apologizing in advance for the buzzwords—accountability and transparency: collecting information about how much students learn and how well schools function, and holding the schools responsible for the results. “His priority has been putting students back into the driver’s seat,” Rollins said. Perry said he hoped to apply the cost-benefit logic of business to public higher education. He incorporated Rollins’s ideas into a package of reforms and called a “higher education summit” to build support.

The reforms attacked the establishment from multiple angles. They would require schools to expand their websites to make vast amounts of new information available to students. For the first time, professors would be required to post course syllabi online. To suss out slackers among the faculty, schools would post every teacher’s salary and benefits along with the average number of students and course hours they taught every year. A summary of student evaluations would be posted too, and the average number of As and Bs professors handed out, to guard against grade inflation. Before choosing a particular school or enrolling in a major, students would be given a list of the specific skills or knowledge that they could expect to learn, as well as the average starting salaries of students who had graduated from a similar course of study.

Perry also suggested separating teaching budgets from research budgets, as a way of encouraging teachers to teach and researchers to do research. Tenure would be granted only to teachers who spent a large majority of their time teaching; a defined percentage of tenure jobs would go to researchers, who would concentrate on pure research. A system of cash awards and other incentives would compensate professors who successfully taught a large number of students.

Any businessman in a profit-seeking enterprise would see ideas like “pay for performance” as unremarkable, but they overwhelm the delicate sensibilities of people who have spent their professional lives on campus, where the word “nonprofit” is meant to act as a firewall against the unpleasantness of commercial life. “Texas Governor Treats Colleges Like Businesses,” headlined the Chronicle of Higher Education—a sentence sure to induce aneurysms in faculty lounges from El Paso to Galveston. The outrage was deafening, especially when university regents began acting on the recommendations. The Texas A&M system, for example, which includes a dozen schools, posted a spreadsheet on its website evaluating teacher performance on a cost-benefit basis.

“Very simplistic and potentially very dangerous,” an official of the American Association of University Professors said. “This is . . . simplistic,” said the dean of faculties at A&M. “Simplistic,” said the Houston Chronicle. A group of former regents and wealthy school boosters organized a pressure group to oppose -Perry’s reforms. The group hired Karen Hughes, a close aide to the second President Bush, as press spokesman. The rage at Perry from within the establishment has taken many forms: You think it’s easy stealing someone’s college transcript?

The protests might have been more effective except that Perry, for the last decade, has been seeding Texas higher education with like-minded reformers (cronies too). By 2009 he had appointed every regent in the state. The chancellor of A&M who issued the cost-benefit report, for example, was a former chief of staff of the governor. At least three campus presidents have been pressured to resign in recent years, to make way for Perry appointees—all Republican businessmen. A particularly popular (and vocal) vice president of student affairs at the University of Texas was removed and replaced by . . . a retired Marine Corps general.

The appointees weren’t as pliant as Perry might have wished. The implementation of the reforms has been difficult and at times dilatory. Perry barrels on. In his state of the state address this spring, he urged administrators to develop a four-year bachelor’s degree that would cost less than $10,000 “including textbooks.” The discount degree, he said, would be a “bold, Texas-style solution” to the problem of rapidly rising tuition. (The average in-state cost of a four-year degree in Texas, including books, is roughly $30,000.) After the goal was declared impossible by Perry’s critics, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board published a plan to lower costs dramatically: greater use of online classes and “open-source” course materials, accelerated or staggered student schedules, fuller integration of four- and two-year colleges, and more.

Perry’s admirers praise his sure-footedness—his ability to sense cultural trends before others do and turn them to his political advantage. He was the first national politician to ally himself to the Tea Party movement in 2009, a move that’s just now paying off. He caught the mounting anxiety among middle-income parents about college costs early on. Most American parents now say that a college degree will be essential for their children’s future success; at the same time, according to a new Pew Foundation poll, only 22 percent of Americans believe that most people can afford to send their kids to college. And 57 percent describe the quality of American higher education as “only fair” or “poor.” To address this anxiety Perry’s opponents offer more government subsidies, which in turn provide an incentive for schools to raise their prices—an attempt to douse the fire with gasoline. Perry’s ideas are cheaper, more comprehensive, more imaginative, and more likely to work.

And they have a good chance of being put into action. In late August, Perry scored another significant, if partial, victory. The University of Texas regents approved an “action plan” proposed by the system’s chancellor, who isn’t a Perry appointee. The plan is a compromise, but it incorporates many of Perry’s ideas, including some of the most radical, such as “pay for performance” and “learning contracts” between schools and their students. Amazingly, the plan has won support from both the right (Brooke Rollins’s Texas Public Policy Foundation) and left (Karen Hughes’s group).

Reforms like these would have been unthinkable 10 years ago, before Perry picked up his stick and started poking the system until it had to respond. It’s been a remarkable display of political entrepreneurship: Create an issue, define it on your terms, cultivate public support, and your opponents, who never saw it coming, will have to go along, even if only partway—at first.

Andrew Ferguson is a senior editor at The Weekly Standard and the author, most recently, of Crazy U: One Dad’s Crash Course in Getting His Kid Into College.

I kindly disagree

I do appreciate that. Look, I've got the task of explaining how I see this like a Dutch Uncle would. I'm not angry with you. I just don't know any other way to lay it out there, than like this.

. . . . .

IMO there are GOP boys club RINO’s in the senate and house. I agree with that, and I also think their fellow travelers infiltrate every Republican administration. When we do get a good guy in there like Reagan, it's tough for them to completely short-circuit what those fellow travelers want to do. They exhert influence. Sometimes that influence affects decisions to a greater or lesser degree.

I kindly disagree on Bush he was a better President than what the MSM want you to think. He was indeed Alinskyized and did NOTHING to counter that but his interviews with his book erased all of the media garbage about him. I don't care what the media thinks of him. The media is the media and they are going to aid those who try to Alinskyize Republican leaders. That goes with the territory. It's dismissed by most Repulbican. Perhaps his book did erase all the media hype about him. What it couldn't erase was his record.

I don’t blame Bush I blame the government gone wild RINO club. THEY have to go. The RINO club, as you call it, is an evident problem. While they do have to go, Bush was the President of the United States, the most powerful man in the world. I'm not going to dismiss the RINO club's impact on his terms in office, but that can't explain away why Bush failed to utilize his six full years with majority control to fix a myriad of Leftist legislation.

I refer to him as a RINO, because at his core Bush did not even grasp the fact that there was a myriad of Leftist legislation that needed to be fixed. He also didn't grasp that it had been 45 years since we had held the White House with a Republican Leadership in the House and Senate. This was a six year period when we could have righted wrongs. A once in two generation chance comes, and we did didley squat with it.

Does that evidence a Conservative at the core individual to you? Of course not.

So instead of us rolling back the Leftist cloud that hung over our nation getting worse for 45 years, we merely maintained the status quo, and then the Left took over right where it left off. Do you begin to see why I see Bush in the terms I do. Was this some concoction of the Leftist MSM? No, it was and still is Bush's record.

Historical Record (the last 100 years), Republican Control of White Hosue, U. S. House of Representatives, and the U. S. Senate...

2001 06 years 3 Congressional terms
1953 02 years 1 Congressional term
1921 12 years 6 Congressional terms

Presidential History Data Source
Congressional History Data Source

It had been eighty years since we had more than a two year window of full Republican control. The last time we had more than a two year window, the Republican President, the Republican U. S. Senate, and the Republican U. S. House of Representatives led us into the deepest parts of the Great Depression. (None the less a certain candidate's supporters here try to game Reagan because he cast his first presidential vote for FDR, 1932, and continued to do so. I guess these same people see quite a bit of similarity between 1988 and 1932. They also think they've got a Conservative by the tail too.)

Bush is history and will go down in history well favored, I believe. And a lot of people in the general public will like the guy and think he did a great job. Yet we as Conservatives are held to a higher standard. We are tasked with turning this nation back from the brink. We are not blessed with the shroud of cluelessness, that would allow someone to view Bush in a blissful manner, not realizing what was at stake from January 21st, 2001, until December 31st, 2006.

I'm not saying this to put you down. I am saying this with the full understanding that you will see the truth of what I am addressing here.

You are letting McDemocrat freak you out too much. I honestly don't know what person or entity you're talking about here. Okay down below you talk about Perry in correlation with McDemocrat.

Look, we have Democrats, Republicans, and Conservatives. Sadly, we have folks who are perfectly comfortable with being "a run of the mill Republican", until they get the bright idea that they would make a great president. Then they claim they've always been a Conservative. Here we have a guy whose team claims he was even a Conservative when he backed Al Gore for President in 1988. That's his and their grasp of what being a Conservative truly is. That's the standard for them. To me that just destroys what the concept of Conservatism actually means, if even Al Gore can be claimed to have been one in 1988, registered as a Democrat in Reagan's day.

Palin endorsed Perry and said you betcha to Romney VP in 2012 and that does not bother you when you are so freaked out about Bush? Where did you get the idea this didn't bother me?

Freaked out about Bush? You really do need to back off here. Either we are Conservatives and want to see Conservatism fluorish, or we are someone who can watch Bush and not grasp anything that went wrong when we had the White House, the Senate, and the House under our control? Is iy freaking out to mearly point out that Bush didn't undo any of the leftist agenda, and actually introduced more of his own? No. It's merely stating the reality of it.

No candidate is perfect.Look at Paw Paw endorsing Romney WTH! I wasn't a Pawlendy supporter. It was my take that this guy was flawed from his debate performaces alone. His endorsement of Romney confirmed it for me. Why are you using this lout to defend Bush?

And I don’t think we will get a hero and TRUE big gov reform. Well, if you support folks like Bush and Perry, I can understand why you see it this way. If we continue to support people like this, yours is a self-fulfilling prophecy. No politician will do this I think Jesus will come first.

The elites freak out at Perry calling SS a ponzi scheme do you really think some one will get in there and dismantle the EPA,DOEduc,DoEnergy, and so on and so on, and disavow the UN? You know, it's one thing to talk down about Social Security, and it's another to present a fully worked out repalcement for the American Public to digest. I don't necessarily disagree with the Ponzi Scheme label, but Ponzi schemes do count on the public participating by choice. There's no choice with Social Security. It's foced on people when they could do better. It's talked about as if it were a separate fund. It's talked about as if it was something that we should defend in it's present form rather than fix it so people's later years would be spent with a much higher standard of living.

I will get on a horse and ride beside you if this can happen. I don’t see Palin being the frontrunner any more than Bachmnn can be,sorry. You've mentioned Palin as some sort of standard several times now. Evidently you are operating from some sort of misperception. I'm not a Palin supporter. Why would I judge others based on her actions?

Like you said then all’s we have is Cain. I don’t think Perry is McDemocrat PERIOD. It would be interesting to know what your description of a Democrat would be, if you don't think they are large government project supporters, land rights abusers, dictatorial by nature, implementing parts of the Dream Act... These are Conservative traits in your mind? I dont' belive that for a minute.

I think the same way about West as you do Palin at this stage. I'm not convinced at all that you know what my thought on Palin truly are.

But he is not running I face that reality and move on. I like West, but I do not think he has been around long enough to loft him for President. He was sworn into Congress this year. This is his first year in that body. As far as I know, he hasn't held any other elcted office. He hasn't been a star in the private sector either. It takes more for me to back someone than this. When he's been around for a while and we know him better, perhaps he'll flesh out to be a good leader.

I laud his military service. I still don't think that alone qualifies him to be President.

If he did he would be the frontrunner over all. But I am not in denial. I don't share your enthusiasm over this guy, specifically that he is ready right now to be President. I do like his views, but you have to have more behind you than what this guy does to become the President of the United States.

While I GET and understand your McDemocratMcCain dilemma I also snap out of that long enough to realize Obama CANNOT be re-elected PERIOD. Like Bachmann said ObamaCare will be LAW and not able to be touched just like SS. Obama’s current horrific so called jobs plan with a government bank snuck in will be law. We will have to agree to disagree. Obama's approval ratings are in the tank. He is not re-electable. He has lost the independents, and he has even lost some Democrats. We have the best chance we have had since Reagan, to place a real Conservative in the White House, hopefully with a Republican Senate, as well as the House.

Settling on Perry, is like settling on Bush. Here we go again, with nothing being undone, and plenty more being done. Why are you falling for this? You know better. He has tipped his hand as governor, and now we're supposed to act like we don't know it?

When did I compare Perry to McCain? I may have, but I generally don't think of him like I do McCain. None the less, I don't think either of them are a Conservative. Neither of them should be our next presdient.

This guy is not a Conservative at his core. We both know that. You just have to come to grips with it.

If a Republican is all you want, then heaven help us, because folks who continue to see this like you do, will not help us.'

You don't think the Lefitst agenda will ever be rolled back, so you're not even going to try to place someone in there who will. No, you most certainly are not ridding your horse next me, but I like you and I sure wish you were.

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He picked the right fight.