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[jonesey]

Well, if Governor Scott has his way.  Warning: Scott is what you get when the Tea Party is put in power. 

Florida Governor Rick Scott has started talking to appointees to college and university boards about embracing the controversial ideas being pushed in Texas to reform higher education, WCTV News reported. Governor Scott is a fan of Texas Governor Rick Perry, a fellow Republican whose allies are behind many of the reforms. Many of the Texas changes focus on measuring faculty work, and Governor Scott said that was a priority. "One of the things I really like about what he has in there is the fact that we should be measuring our professors," Scott told the News Service of Florida on Tuesday. "I believe students ought to be measuring the effectiveness of our professors because ultimately, it is the families' money paying for this. We really ought to have a measurement system [that is] student-centered."

Full story.

There needs to be an IQ test before voting, I swear to God.

[neutralname]

What happens when the Tea Party people meet the Assessment People?  Will we get the Tea Assessment Party People? 

[southerntransplant]

Good luck. You do not want any of this.

[lost_angeleno]

I'm fine with this.  My teaching is student centered: when I teach I look right at my students.
When I give them their "F"s, I focus on putting the grades right next to the students's names.
Totally student centered.

[mad_doctor]

<Sips his Johnny Walker Black as he watches from afar, fascinated...>

[southerntransplant]

SRSLY. Kill this with fire.

[mad_doctor]

<Pours a Johnny Walker for southerntransplant, and slides it down the bar>

[toni52]

Scott's education proposal is just the latest in the Tea Party's war on higher education--and advancing the anti-intellectual vision of the future of higher education.  

[dale1]

Actually I think we've already lost the war, and we're just now seeing the light from the star that's already gone out. 

As California, Texas, and Florida go (and occasionally Ohio), the rest of the nation follows. 

Hate to be such a pessimist, but I think when the cavalry finally arrives, the war will be long over.

[southerntransplant]

Actually I think we've already lost the war, and we're just now seeing the light from the star that's already gone out. 

As California, Texas, and Florida go (and occasionally Ohio), the rest of the nation follows. 

Hate to be such a pessimist, but I think when the cavalry finally arrives, the war will be long over.

Well, to be sure, there is resistance in Texas to the TPPF nonsense. We'll see how well that works. It might just be delaying the inevitable.

[the_honey_badger]

SRSLY. Kill this with fire.

Yeah, you all have no idea how bad this is until you are living it. Kill it with a gasoline fueled fire...

[southerntransplant]

SRSLY. Kill this with fire.

Yeah, you all have no idea how bad this is until you are living it. Kill it with a gasoline fueled fire...

The local paper is certainly keeping it alive. The comments under these stories sound like the noisier part of this state wants to return to an agrarian-style existence where everyone worked for a living and book learning made you too smart to accept the status quo too big for your britches.

[betterslac]

Academics have always been drawn as different and generally amusing in American popular culture. This portrait has been considerably darkened by the conservative populism of the past few decades, with its anti-intellectualism, emphasis on business interests and association with Biblical fundamentalism.

One way to expose the fact that these plans are really attacks on higher education (rather than good faith attempts to reform the academy to help students) is to speak the language of laissez faire capitalism on which these plans are based and expose the contradictions we find in these proposals. Here some buckets of cold water to throw on these fires:

1) If academia is really a business, why is government interfering? And why is it interfering to impose a particular business model on it? Would it make sense that government insist that banks operate like widget factories? That Saks operate like Wal-Mart?  Of course not. When operating in the realm of "business", these people do not speak so broadly and ignore the differences between business sectors. And they would be the first to say that government officials don't have the experience or the knowledge necessary to make these kinds of decisions regarding the operation of businesses.

2) If academia is really a business, why should the government interfere with the operation of the market? There is an academic market. There is no monopoly on the part of public institutions, or even non-profit institutions. There are places that provide cut-rate BAs-- mostly for profits. Some student populations are satisfied with that product; others are deeply dissatisfied with the services provided and the shallowness of the education they receive. If more people want such education, more institutions will offer them. But the trend seems to be in the other direction: low cost, tuition-driven slacs are being driven out of the marketplace. But, generally speaking, if people want this type of education, and business is the model, let the market decide rather than "having big government tell everyone how to do things," which appears to be the mantra for every other issue area (besides those having to do with sexuality, of course).

3) Finally, since when did "families pay for it" become an acceptable reason for government action? Families pay for lots of goods and services: does that mean that government now has the right to dictate their business practices and specify in exact detail how their employees are to be supervised and the form their goods and services are to take?

[jonesey]

The argument against 1 & 2 is that colleges are funded by taxpayers, thus, the increasing political outrage (real or staged).

Here in the Sunshine State, we have a governor who has openly stated that he wants to dismantle as much of the state government as he can.  He removed the state contribution to employee salaries (no state retirement for profs, just a run-of-the-mill 401k), including first responders (even though cops and firefighters, like profs, are some of the lowest paid in the entire country), and is asking/demanding that all colleges and universites demonstrate that their degree programs make graduates "job ready."  In short, he's trying to turn UF and FSU et al. into the University of Phoenix (even though, under the new watered down accountability rules, even for profits don't have to demonstrate gainful employment anymore).

It's a nightmare.  Don't look for jobs down here.  Georgia pays more, and Alabama has more progressive social policies (Alabama!).

[southerntransplant]

It's a nightmare.  Don't look for jobs down here.  Georgia pays more, and Alabama has more progressive social policies (Alabama!).

I think it's a bit premature to dissuade anyone from looking for jobs in FL or TX. As I mentioned, there is a lot of resistance to the TPPF "solutions." I'm not saying they won't come to pass, but Perry is starting to tire of pushing very hard. The two "reforms" which were attempted didn't get very far. Perhaps others have a different perspective.