In an act to attempt to further run the Florida government as a “business”, Governor Rick Scott is beginning to introduce conversation to Florida legislation to consider similar higher education reforms that Texas Governor Rick Perry has been implementing in the Lone Star State. The controversial plan known as the “Texas Seven Breakthrough Solutions” would quantify educational performance at the instructional level (O’Connor, 2011).
These reforms aim hard at cutting university costs by holding professors more accountable for their instructional capabilities, and almost completely disregard the invaluable research many professors provide to the academic community.
The reforms tend to focus on the peace of mind gained from becoming a tenured member of an institution, and therefore valuing the instruction of students at a much less degree than completing their research. The reforms would essentially initiate a system in which an institution can nominally measure the performance of its professors (Lutz, 2008).
Of course there always are positive ideas that could come from reforms, but in this case they would need to be extremely restricted. Many institutions would strictly become for lack of a better term, degree factories, trying to churn out as many graduates as possible to keep up with the requirements of these reforms. Gone is the day were a professor takes on seven to nine undergraduates for a senior seminar, because it simply would not be economically efficient. Personally, I gained the most academically during my undergraduate years in these small seminars because it gave me a platform to discuss and interact with my professor on a much more personal level; experiences that I would not trade with any lecture based course with 200 students. The entire instructional guideline for an institution would become a numbers game. How many students can we get through the system in a semester?
A way for reforms to create more of a positive effect on the institution while still focusing on actual course instruction would be to simply start with higher requirements for total courses taught in an academic year. With the steady growth of online and distance learning professors could add a course or two more during the given year to meet these specific standards to balance out research and instruction. That would be a start, and a gradual one, as major changes like this can simply be taken on overnight.
Where these reforms could have an immediate negative impact is at the community college or junior college level, where tenured professors are for the most part, strictly employed for instructional purposes; as these institutions would most certainly turn into a form of degree factory. The primary reasons students attend community college is for the lower cost of attendance and the generally smaller class sizes compared to that of a four-year university. If these reforms are implemented, what is to stop community colleges from increasing class sizes substantially? In Florida, Governor Scott wants to look at the university system as a business; the students are the customer and the degree is the product. A business is all about profitability the more degrees you can “sell” the higher the profit margins, so class room size growth would really be inevitable.
The overall goal of the “Seven Breakthrough Solutions” is to create the possibility for more students to graduate from college, and for tuition expenses to be somewhat reigned in. Both goals are great, but this plan goes about it the wrong way. You cannot create a value system for professors based solely on instructional achievement. The plan would create a chart very similar to a budget sheet with professors that have brought a profit to the university or college and those who have not. The problem however, is that the overall body of work (including research) could not possibly be judged according to that standard. The system would be too cut and dry, too simplistic, and for that reason, organizations such as the Association of American Universities have been for the most part opposed to the idea (O’Connor, 2011).
There obviously needs to be something done to control the ever rising costs of higher education in the United States, but these tactics, which are becoming more and more popular in conservative run states are not the right way of attacking those issues. Professors are the backbone of the American educational institution, and much of the reason for the diverse thinking that occurs on campuses across the country. Restrict their abilities and force them to follow these sets of guidelines will only limit the minds of our young students, and that will have a much larger affect on the country versus saving a few dollars every semester.
Resources
Lutz, W. (2008, May 23). Perry, regents discuss higher education reforms. The Lone Star Report
Retrieved from http://texashighered.com/node/6
O’Connor, J. (2011, September 13). Is florida ready to consider texas higher ed reforms?. State Impact: NPR. Retrieved from http://stateimpact.npr.org/florida/
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