ACTA's Must-Reads

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ACTA on holiday

Dear readers, please note that our offices will be closed until Monday, January 4th, and we will therefore not be posting any Must-Reads until then. We wish you all the best for this holiday season and for the coming year.

Posted by David Azerrad on December 23, 2009 at 11:52 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Yearning to know that they don't know

First the good news: According to a new survey by the American Revolution Center, over 90 percent of Americans believe it is important both to know the history and principles of the American Founding, and to teach them to students. Even when the responses are broken down according to political affiliation, income, gender, level of education or geography, Americans of all backgrounds nearly unanimously recognize the importance of the Founding.

Unfortunately, these same people have a rather hazy idea of what these principles are and how this history unfolded. Eighty-three percent failed a 27 question multiple-choice exam on the Founding period. Only 65 percent placed the American Revolution in the correct century.

The poor results will not be surprising to those who follow ACTA's work. In an earlier survey of historical literacy, we had found that four out of five seniors from the top 55 colleges and universities across the country had failed an exam on general American history. And when we looked at which of the country's leading colleges and universities actually require American government or history on WhatWillTheyLearn.com, only 20 of the 137 institutions we surveyed got a check mark.

Looking at the exams in both these reports, one may be tempted to dismiss some of the questions as completely irrelevant to contemporary political life and informed citizenship. After all, couldn't one reasonably ask what difference it makes whether anyone knows who the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court was? In and of itself, the answers to this question merely amount to random pieces of information, easily accessed through a simple Google search. A Trivial Pursuit champion could well memorize the names of all Chief Justices and not know the first thing about the Supreme Court.

What matters ultimately though is not the name John Jay, but an understanding of the federal judiciary power and his role in shaping it. Someone who has studied this important question and understands what Publius called "the least dangerous" branch of government, will have encountered the name John Jay along the way. As such, he will be able to easily answer this question because he possesses a deeper understanding of the governing institutions of his country.

There is also something to be said for simply knowing and recognizing the names of the great men and women who left their imprint on this country's history. America is such a vast country and its population so diverse that part of what unites its people is a shared history. Let us not therefore neglect the education that will permit the next generation to bind itself to what Lincoln called "the mystic chords of memory."

Posted by David Azerrad on December 23, 2009 at 11:45 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Tuition hike ABCs

One of the points ACTA emphasized in our recent testimony before the Louisiana Postsecondary Education Review Commission was that nationally, increased administrative spending seems to be one cause of skyrocketing college costs. Mark Schneider of the American Institutes for Research and the American Enterprise Institute expands on that point in a wonderful new paper entitled "Where Does All That Tuition Go?" While the whole thing is excellent, here is a particularly enjoyable excerpt:

[T]uition, fees, and overall student costs of attending college are increasing far faster than inflation and most people's salaries. In turn, students take out more loans, and many work long hours even while enrolled full time. Further, graduation rates at far too many institutions are mediocre at best, in part because colleges and universities are not engaging in the practices that keep students engaged and enrolled.[14] So who is benefiting from rising tuition?

Let us look at an interesting pattern of growth in personnel over the last decade. Figure 1 shows that when it comes time to hire, colleges and universities are stocking up more on executives and administrators than on faculty.[15] This helps explain one of the key findings of the Delta Cost Project's recent report Trends in College Spending....Its recent report found that in recent years, the average college or university has increased its institutional support--which includes general administrative services, executive management, legal and fiscal operations, and public relations--faster than it has increased its instructional expenditures.[17]...

In short, students seem to be a lower priority than administrators when it comes to allocating revenues.[19] This is part of what Jane V. Wellman, director of the Delta Cost Project, calls "the higher education funding disconnect: spending more, getting less."[20]

Even more interesting is the pattern of increases in salaries documented in the Almanac of Higher Education, a compendium of trend data in higher education issued yearly by The Chronicle of Higher Education. Combining salary data from the most recent edition covering the 2008 academic year with earlier data from the 2004 academic year, as reported in the American Association of University Professors's faculty salary survey, we see the tyranny of the alphabet.[21]

Figure 3 shows that if your title leads with a c--as in "chief" of almost anything--you win, with average salary increases of close to 30 percent. For more detail, consider data recently reported by The Chronicle of Higher Education: presidents at research universities had a median income of $627,750, which was an increase of 15.5 percent over the year before.[22]

Not everyone can be a chief of something; some must settle for being a dean. And just as d follows c in the alphabet, if your title starts with a d--as in dean of arts and sciences or dean of education--you lag behind the c's. For the set of deans displayed in figure 3, salary increases were in the 18-25 percent range. And sure enough, if you are an f--as in faculty--you fall behind your more alphabetically privileged colleagues, with salary increases around 15 percent.[23] Moving to the end of the alphabet, if you are an s--as in student--well, you get to pay for these salary increases that exceed inflation. There is one notable exception: professors in two-year colleges found that their salary increases were lower than the growth in the CPI.

Read the whole thing. And if you are a trustee, don't just read: Take a close look at what your institution is spending on administration, and what your students are getting for that money.

Posted by Charles Mitchell on December 22, 2009 at 12:51 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Higher ed straight talk

Straight talk on higher education is often hard to come by. ACTA tries to deliver. And so does our good friend Dr. Richard Vedder. In a recent post on the Center for College Affordability and Productivity's blog, Vedder looks at a new book by sociologist Jackson Toby and focuses, in his characteristically candid way, on some of its key findings. Most colleges today blame K-12 for their problems. But Vedder thinks that's not quite right: In fact, the problems are also due to the universities themselves. He quotes Toby: "Lax university standards have contributed to the dumbing down of our secondary education system."

Regrettably, this statement is all too true, and it seems particularly relevant in light of my recent trip to Louisiana to provide testimony to that state's Postsecondary Education Commission. Amidst major budget shortfalls, the Commission is trying to assess the state of higher ed in Louisiana in order to see if there are better ways of doing business. Believe me, there are. Fewer than 40 percent of the students who enroll in Louisiana's four-year colleges graduate in six years. That's one reason ACTA endorsed the proposal to raise admissions standards at the four-year colleges.

The proof will be in the pudding, and the Commission has not yet issued its final report. But it and the University of Louisiana Board of Supervisors have already commendably signed on to the proposition of raising standards. It's ACTA's hope that the Governor will get behind this commonsense proposition as well.

In too many cases, higher education is the problem, not the solution. Richard Vedder deserves much credit for shining a light on this truth. And Louisiana has a chance to do something about its own higher ed troubles and to show the rest of the country that it is possible to bring real reform to public universities.

Posted by Anne D. Neal on December 18, 2009 at 05:44 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

A new national standard?

Earlier this week, ACTA president Anne D. Neal was in Baton Rouge where she submitted testimony before the Louisiana Postsecondary Education Review Commission. In an opinion piece published in today's Advocate, editorial writer Lanny Keller features Neal's take on the opportunity for real change at Lousiana's colleges and universities. As Neal points out: "While other states are bemoaning the economic challenges before them, Louisiana stands out for realizing that current budget shortages provide a unique opportunity to explore ways of reducing costs, enhancing effectiveness and improving quality. By doing so, Louisiana can set a national standard for innovative, high-quality postsecondary education."

Posted by David Azerrad on December 18, 2009 at 05:25 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

A 21st century workforce and citizenry

In today's DC Examiner, ACTA president Anne D. Neal published a piece in which she builds off of President Obama's opening remarks at the recent White House job forum to call on our universities to give America the 21st century workforce and citizens it needs.

Posted by David Azerrad on December 14, 2009 at 11:47 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Information, please

Education Sector's Kevin Carey has an excellent article on the "near-total lack of useful information about teaching and learning" at American colleges and universities in the latest issue of Democracy. Not only is Carey's prose lucid and jargon-free, but he clearly describes how the chase for prestige at American universities, coupled with the fierce hostility of the higher ed lobby to anything that even smacks of accountability in terms of learning outcomes, leaves parents, students and donors in the dark when it comes to "the single most important thing" universities do, namely "helping students learn."

"American colleges grant more than 300,000 bachelor's degrees in business every year. Whose graduates are most successful in business? There are anecdotes, but no available, comparable data. Nobody really knows. Which teacher education program best prepares candidates to excel in the classroom? Nobody knows. Nearly every college teaches introductory courses like calculus and English. Where are the best calculus and English professors? Who is most successful in preparing students for law and medical schools? Whose graduates make unusual contributions to philanthropy and the arts? Who teaches writing well, given the academic preparation of the students they enroll? Who teaches anything well? Nobody knows."

As we had remarked in an earlier post, ACTA's "What Will They Learn?" initiative is an attempt to shed some light on the paramount question of student learning. By sifting through countless course catalogues and ignoring all the bloated distribution requirements, we've determined which universities actually require solid college-level classes in crucial subjects. WhatWillTheyLearn.com does not purport to offer a comprehensive assessment of learning outcomes but it remains one of very few sources of straightforward information on education available to students and parents.

Posted by David Azerrad on December 10, 2009 at 04:38 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Minnesota teacher education proposal causing a stir

The Teacher Education Redesign Initiative at the University of Minnesota has been raising some hackles recently, with concerns that some of the proposed changes could compromise students' freedom of expression. Thus reports yesterday's Chronicle of Higher Education, which describes the Initiative's "Race, Culture, Class and Gender" task group report and its emphasis on promoting certain "dispositions" among future students--several of which carry distinct ideological overtones.

A number of observers have expressed concern that these proposals, if enacted, could curtail students' academic freedom and even force some students to abandon teacher training entirely. The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education in particular has outlined the proposal's legal implications with regard to free speech in a letter to U of M president Robert Bruininks. Over at Minding the Campus, Professor KC Johnson has invaluable commentary on the program and its consequences for the academic integrity of the teacher education program.

Sadly, there is precedent for a university attempting to wield this sort of heavy-handed approach in advancing an ideological agenda. As ACTA documented in its trustee guide Trouble in the Dorms, the University of Delaware featured a residential life program that employed coercive measures to get students to achieve narrow "learning outcomes"--and paid a price with student complaints and negative publicity. The University of Minnesota--and particularly its Board of Regents, which is ultimately responsible for ensuring that the university abides by the First Amendment--needs to take a close look at the trajectory of its teacher training restructuring before such a fiasco can be allowed to happen.

Posted by Sandra Diaz on December 03, 2009 at 10:03 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Political correctness (and ACTA) revisited

Once again, Stanley Fish has dedicated a post on his New York Times blog to issues raised by ACTA. This time, it is the new book The Politically Correct University, to which we contributed a chapter. Referring to it and also the new book by American Association of University Professors president Cary Nelson, he writes:

Indeed I would welcome not only Nelson but all the contributors to "The Politically Correct University" as faculty members in my college, if I still presided over one. On the evidence of what they have written, they are capable of tempering (without abandoning) their partisan commitments in an effort to look closely and clearly at the state of higher education and propose solutions to the problems acknowledged by all parties. No one (as I have demonstrated in this column) will agree with everything these two books say, but reading them together, and in counterpoint, is a genuinely educational experience. Rather than merely cheering for your side and booing at the other, you actually learn something.

Incidentally, The Politically Correct University is the year-end gift ACTA is offering this year. That is, if you make a contribution to us of $100 or more, we will send you a copy signed by ACTA president Anne D. Neal. If you like what we're doing here and would like to see what provoked this post by Professor Fish, please donate today.

Posted by Charles Mitchell on December 01, 2009 at 02:47 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack