Posted on 06/10/2015 1:06:50 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Scott Walker, in hot pursuit of the Republican nomination for president, knows no fear of sacred cows. He is attempting to reform the concept of permanent faculty appointments at Wisconsin’s publicly financed universities. The governor wants to repeat his earlier surprising victory in which a conservative chief executive in a very blue state took on the increasingly powerful and increasingly political teachers’ unions, and trimmed their empty sails.
Mr. Walker’s successful campaign to put a rein on the teachers’ unions — to eliminate the obvious corruption of unions contributing to politicians’ campaigns and getting in return raises in salaries — focused national attention on him. No other governor, with perhaps the exception of Gov. John R. Kasich of Ohio (who’s also running for president), has been capable of such feats. Can lightning strike twice?
The rising cost of academic tuition, increasing much faster than inflation or the depreciation of the dollar, has become a national crisis. Only professors, as the faculty lounge wit observes, can afford to send their children to college. But it’s no joke. One “solution” talked up by some politicians is that maybe it’s not so important for everyone to go to college. But perhaps the place to start the discussion is the proposition that maybe it’s not so important for the professors to get lifetime guaranteed employment. It’s rarely available in state and federal judicial systems. Volkswagen mechanics, body-and-fender men, truck drivers and motel housekeepers rarely get it. What’s so special, except to themselves, about professors?
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
It’s become little more than a self-licking ice cream cone.
Ike was right.
The college I teach at eliminated tenure 30 some years ago.
The last professor with tenure retired 12 years ago.
New faculty are hired for two years, but are reviewed after one to see if their contracts are renewed. Then the faculty member is reviewed for a three year contract and finally the faculty member is reviewed for a five year contract, renewed every five years. Also, if there is a marked decrease in teaching skills for what ever reason, the Academic Dean can take action to cure the problem or dismiss the faculty member (with due process and formal reviews).
A rock-solid conservative friend of mine is supporting Walker over Cruz...if he goes after tenure, and especially if he’s able to break the monopoly on teacher certification for grades 1 to 12 (or 6 to 12, for starters), I might just be there with him. People who have read Thomas Sowell understand just how bad things are with teacher cert today - the system needs to be WIPED OUT.
Regents, Chancellors, Tenured Professors, Committees.
Back to King George and the British Royalty?
It’s gratifying to see that a good poke in their collective elitist eye elicits such fear.
Each “assault” launched and won against the Big Education “Borg” has shown the voters that these groups are not who they say they are; the mask has slipped and about to be ripped off.
People need to know that FIFTY [50+] percent of all states’ budgets go toward education. On top of that are federal dollars (our money) that come with sundry legal, curriculum, nutritional, behavioral,..etc...etc... hooks. Soon it’s easy to see that parents and their neighbors are paying but they aren’t running the show.
It doesn’t matter how many pat-yourself-on-the-back-mom-and-dad “My child is an honor roll student at [school]” bumper stickers the unions pass out, people are catching on.
The question needs to be expanded to include federal employees—Most notably, judges.
Surprisingly the editorial omits one very important point. Just about all universities give tenured professors free, or great reduced, tuition for their children...
Trade skills, blue collar work, all the stuff promoted by Mike Rowe of Dirty jobs fame is absolutely essential to the economy.
Too many people flunk out of a business degree two years in, when they could learn to be a diesel mechanic, HVAC repair person, electrician, plumber, chemistry tech and get a job that can’t be outsourced to India or done by a guy who just came across the border.
Who knows where this could lead, it has endless possibilities.
ALL universities are watching this, “this” being that tenure is being removed from WI state law and given to the UW where they will now have the levers of control to (due to money considerations - Walker’s last 2-year budget and this one freeze tuition) make cuts to, let’s say UNNECESSARY courses like say, SOCIAL stuff!
It’s a very “clever” plan.
And if these courses are so vital to the education of our society, then the universities can dip into their million/billion dollar endowments.
But they won’t.
You’re spot on.
bfl
I alway post one simple sentence ...
UW Total Endowment Fund Assets: $2,191,856,879...increased endowment by $600 million since 2009 ...
Never get a response...
When I was in cemetary...ooops I mean seminary, a professor asked the class who they thought controlled the church...students answered the bishop, the church council, pastors, God, etc. All good answers he said, but the answer is tenured seminary professors...so I guess we can say tenured professors control society too.
“...so I guess we can say tenured professors control society too.”
Yes, and many of them have never worked (breathed) outside of university life (and most likely would be unemployed outside of a university setting).
They live in a bubble, a closed loop thought environment.
“....Never get a response... “
: )
You make too much sense.
Why is it that we never hear about these leftists complaining about George "The Jewish Nazi" Soros?
simple.... the press is controlled by other jewish nazis
This is what they REALLY fear....
Nov 19, 2011 - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
“............Michael W. Grebe, president and chief executive of the foundation, said there’s nothing secretive about his organization. Rather, Grebe likened the Bradley Foundation to the 1960s Green Bay Packers, who ruled the football world with a fearsome ground game and a deceptively simple running play, the sweep.
“We’re going to run off tackle, right over there, and we’re telling you we’re going to run there and we’re going to knock you on your butt and carry the ball down the field,” Grebe said during an interview inside the foundation’s headquarters near downtown. “There are no surprises.”
Acting like a venture capital firm for ideas, the Bradley Foundation funds thinkers, doers and organizations tethered to conservative ideals of “limited, competent government,” free markets and a “vigorous national defense,” faithfully executing the will of the late manufacturing titans and brothers Lynde and Harry Bradley.
And make no mistake: Bradley Foundation-funded ideas, as well as political leaders who turn those ideas into action, have helped drive America’s conservative revolution over the past quarter-century.
All told, the Bradley Foundation dispersed more than $350 million in grants from 2001 to 2010 to hundreds of institutions, ranging from arts organizations and school choice groups in Wisconsin to prominent national policy organizations, a Journal Sentinel review shows.
“I think there is some level of understanding of the breadth of organizations and causes they’re involved in,” said Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca (D-Kenosha). “But I doubt many people would have any idea that they spent $350 million over the last 10 years.”
Aaron Dorfman, the executive director of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, said the Bradley Foundation supplies “the intellectual justification for conservative causes.”
“They have been particularly skillful at funding the think tanks and university programs that provide this intellectual foundation for their policy positions.”
The list of major recipients reads like an all-star roster of conservative think tanks: millions of dollars directed to well-known groups such as the Hudson Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute, the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, and the Federalist Society - all trying to put their stamp on three branches of government........
[HUGE SNIP]
.....Having spent decades in the often rough-and-tumble world of politics, Grebe is accustomed to dealing with and overcoming criticism.
That’s because, Grebe said, the foundation is focused on the long term.
“We tend to have a thick skin here,” he said.”
Big Education needs to recognize that with their prices rising at 2x inflation for decades they have creared a bubble that needs to be popped.
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