0 Predatory Privatization: Exploiting Economic Woes to "Transform" Higher Education

Milton Friedman must be dancing in his grave at the moment.  In every economic crisis there's an opportunity to impose change, he professed, and no smart leader let such an opportunity pass by. Especially when it comes to undermining public goods.

Leaders of MOOC movements across the nation, including here at home in UW-Madison, are telling us that this is simply the right time to take the leap into a transformed space in higher education, one enabled by technology.  I have absolutely no doubt that they sincerely believe this.  And I have equally little doubt that most are entirely unaware of their place in history, and the degree to which they are acting out a narrative written many decades earlier.

MOOCs are not primarily or even secondarily about bringing open, no-cost education to the masses. Instead, these efforts created by private elite institutions and for-profit businesses squarely aim to outsource traditional governmental functions in education, and divert taxpayer dollars from the building of public assets and institutions to create long-term revenue streams and profit for corporations.  That's privatization, period.

If MOOCs were simply the meeting of technological triumphs and the demand of students around the world, they would have been embraced in a very different way, and developed in a much more democratic manner.  There is a third factor guiding their growth, and it reveals their true meaning.  As described in this document circulated by the "Committee on Institutional Cooperation," a consortium of the Big Ten universities plus the University of Chicago, it is the meeting of these two pressures plus economic pressures regarding debt and tuition that make this the moment for MOOCs.   Not only does traditional higher education face additional threats from regulation, say the leaders of MOOCs, but heck, you're fast becoming "irrelevant" too. Through disruptions from all over, we will be squeezed into submission.

Very little good has ever come from decisions made through austerity politics.

*****

Do you feel tired when hearing the word "innovation" because it's been so often in the news? Are you now just waiting for your university to do something about it? Did it ever occur to you that this is due to a coordinated push by business-minded authors and foundations to deliver the compelling message that "traditional higher education" is outdated because...

• Uncontrolled cost increases
• Graduates lack critical skills
• Resistance to pedagogical innovation
• Irrelevant scholarship
• Tenure protects faculty from accountability
• Undergraduate tuition is subsidizing  faculty research
• Traditional universities are captive to the  prestige arms race—real change will  come from radical, low cost models

What's coming next? The Executive Advisory Board has a glimpse of the future for faculty...

After being shown by "innovators" that our beliefs are "traditional' and "outdated" we will next begin the pathway to salvation-- the 'gamification of education.'

The pathway is so clear, the future so bright, that there will be, according to this model-- "NO EXCUSES" for resisting transformation.  We will enter the new world of 'high capacity' instruction, which focuses on new hires-- not those old "experienced" teachers.

Recall the claims in New Orleans, when school reformers arrived, that "teacher experience" was overrated?

Sound far-fetched? Why would anyone bother to push this agenda so hard?  Oh, wait for it-- because the new education is entirely in service of the business sector.  'Cause of course, this transformation is all about the improving the economy, stupid!

Forget Liberal Arts, folks, now we will have Liberal Arts 2.0!

And for all of you researchers, no more need for "disciplines"- according to the report, those are going the way of the typewriter.

Finally, glory glory hallelujah we will reach the punchline:  more dollars reaching the private sector.

Scared yet? Wait for it...

Don't you see how inevitable it is? Stop clicking your heels together, Dorothy.. after all...

So, what to look for next?  PRIVATE rather than PUBLIC votes.  "Paperless" budgeting. And oh, so much more...

Still feel like sitting still and letting others make decisions for you, you "traditionalists? "


Postscript:
Some readers have suggested this blog is insightful while others claim it's a conspiracy theory. For both groups, I suggest you take a look at this new piece by Andrew Leonard.  Leonard, a journalist, began as roundly skeptical of claims like mine, but has evolved his thinking.  In this piece, he writes "But what if MOOCs actually turned out to be part of a right-wing plot? After some reflection, it’s become clear to me that there is a crucial difference in how the Internet’s remaking of higher education is qualitatively different than what we’ve seen with recorded music and newspapers. There’s a political context to the transformation. Higher education is in crisis because costs are rising at the same time that public funding support is falling. That decline in public support is no accident. Conservatives don’t like big government and they don’t like taxes, and increasingly, they don’t even like the entire way that the humanities are taught in the United States.It’s absolutely no accident that in Texas, Florida and Wisconsin, three of the most conservative governors in the country are leading the push to incorporate MOOCs in university curricula. And it seems well worth asking whether the apostles of disruption who have been warning academics that everything is about to change have paid enough attention to how the intersection of politics and MOOCs is affecting the speed and intensity of that change. Imagine if Napster had had the backing of the Heritage Foundation and House Republicans? It’s hard enough to survive chaotic disruption when it is a pure consequence of technological change. But when technological change suits the purposes of enemies looking to put a knife in your back, it’s almost impossible."

Exactly.

0 It's Time to Wake Up

The smoldering ashes of public higher education can be seen and smelled across the nation, as the once much-lauded, now much-decried University of Virginia goes up in flames.

Pardon my French, but it's about time everyone opened their eyes, ears, and mouth. This stuff stinks!

It's impossible to count how often during the past several years those of us residing at her sister public flagships have heard UVA held up as a model, a "best-practice" of public higher education for the 21st century.  Haven't you heard all about her wondrous break from state government that allowed her the "flexibility" and "innovative freedoms" to raise tuition while expanding affordability, thriving when the rest of us starved?  We at UW-Madison got an earful of it from ex-chancellor Biddy Martin during the fiasco known as the New Badger Partnership. And true believers abounded.

As I said then, that emperor has no clothes.  UVA hasn't been a true public university in some time. It is not a democratic institution where the voices of all constituencies are honored. It is not succeeding in expanding affordability with Access UVA, an ineffective sinkhole into which millions of dollars have been thrown.   It is not flourishing with strong academic programs and a great faculty retention rate.  It is not innovative, not independent, and not a model.  No, it is a rich man's campus, run by millionaires and political conservatives, who are driving agendas disconnected from the needs of educators and students. And those elites just got their way, evicting a president who appears to have stood up to their efforts at "strategic dynamism"-- e.g. the crappification of all that is good and meaningful, and worth investing in in public higher education.

The people governing UVA are like so many of the so-called "reformers" who think efficiency and flexibility are magical words, and who have conveniently but very wrongly diagnosed the challenges facing colleges and universities as residing in the "inmates" -- i.e. the faculty.  These boards and trustees have an unbelievably disrespectful attitude towards the teachers to whom they pay tens of thousands of dollars to educate their children in what they fondly call an "asylum."

The conservative agenda to defund public institutions at all possible levels has created this situation-- not the faculty.  Don't fool yourself -- those who advocate for "holding the line on college costs"  are not doing it for the good of the students but for the good of the corporations who seek to benefit from the rapid growth of the for-profit sector. It is nothing short of devastating that this agenda had confused the public from embracing a genuine affordability agenda, such as the one I support, that works with educators to find affordable approaches to high-quality education and a system of paying for it that maximizes the enrollment and success of students who will benefit most.

Institutional insiders-- high-level administrator types-- have too-easy embraced (sometimes unwittingly) the conservative agenda because they are paid handsomely to do it.  Heck, if they don't oblige quickly, it's clear they'll be fired! After a bit, they begin to enjoy drinking that kool-aid, since they are ensconced in fancy homes, taken to lovely meals, and sent on jaunts to Paris. It's far easier to embrace the business people than to labor in the trenches doing battle with state legislators who fear college's so-called liberalizing tendencies (what we call "being educated").   It's not surprising that the Board at UVA assumed Teresa Sullivan would go along with them.  It's pretty clear that Biddy Martin would've.   But they made a mistake, since as a sociologist Teresa has a knack for using her skills as an "outsider looking in" as well as an "insider looking out."  She's a sociologist of work and organizations and no doubt saw their scheme for what it was, refusing to play along. After all, she views the university as a "compact among generations," not a compact between business and politics.

She was ousted. Good for her.  Twenty minutes of good hard labor in public higher education is worth far more than decades of pandering to the likes of business school deans, Bob McDonnell and Scott Walker, and wealthy alumni.

Want to be a 'Sconnie, Teresa?  We'd love to talk.

ps. For more superb reading on the UVA drama, I recommend these astute commentaries:

Kris Olds-  a friend, a colleague, a genius
Dagblog -- this guy even uses the word 'neoliberalism'

0 Beware the New "Education Sector"

Over the years, Kevin Carey and I have had our tussles, most recently over whether some of his recent stances on education reform were too faithful to a business model, which I called "neoliberal."  But throughout it all, I have remained a fan of both Kevin and his shop, Education Sector, since both are known for asking hard, data-driven questions about whether higher education is meeting the needs of students from disadvantaged families.   So I am extremely disappointed to see that Education Sector has been hijacked by the conservative Right, and now clearly represents the interests of business elites, pushing free-market principles on all of education.  Kevin, to his credit, is getting the hell out of there, moving to the New America Foundation, accompanied by his talented colleagues Stephen Burd, Amy Laintinan, and Rachel Fishman.

Within a few days the change at Education Sector will be complete.  The leadership includes several consultants to the Romney campaign and members of the Hoover Institution, such as John Chubb, Macke Raymond, and Bill Hansen, who seem to believe that markets have magical powers, and that educating students is akin to making hamburgers or sauerkraut. Worse yet, Hansen is a former Bush appointee who lobbies for the Apollo Group, and has worked against every effort to contain corruption in for-profit schools.  He was president of Scantron, of the "fill in the bubble" testing industry, and has worked to advance the cause of student loan providers. And his jobs have been described as things like "creating a new education line of business...and  integrating the education services activities throughout the company into a strategic product portfolio." Stephen Burd's long been on to this guy- he is trouble.

No doubt about it, these folks will use Education Sector to advance an agenda aimed at ensuring the federal government stops helping students afford college.  They'll start by telling us that college isn't really necessary, and that financial aid is ineffective-- but they'll also do nothing to ensure public higher education becomes free. Instead, they will push free-market solutions -- mainly online education-- for other peoples' children, while probably sending their own kids to elite private schools.

So next time you see a report from Education Sector, give it a second look.  Theirs are no longer "Charts You Can Trust."  They are acts of political manipulation pushed by the hard Right.

Consider yourself warned.

Updated at 11:16 am CST. Gee, Google is so much fun.

0 Elites to 99%: Resistance is Futile

Today my Twitter feed brought a swan song for public higher education, sung by a chorus of elites.  It was accompanied in harmony by some   public higher education leaders who are surrendering and turning in their badges.

A few highlights:

• The co-founder and former chief executive officer of CarMax told a crowd attending the Association of Governing Boards of Colleges and Universities 2012 National Conference on Trusteeship that public universities should strive for major tuition increases. Reports the Chronicle of Higher Education, "Poor kids borrow money so that the rich kids can get a tuition discount," said Mr. Auston Ligon, now a member of the Board of Visitors at St. John's College in Annapolis, Md. "Quit subsidizing people like my kids."   
• Gordon Gee of The Ohio State (and buddy of Biddy Martin) is promoting a forthcoming book from Stanford University Press called "Public No More."  This little ditty plays a familiar tune, sung by two business school types. Again we are told, the current business model of higher education is broken (duh) and public higher ed's "longstanding dependence on state subsidies...is unsustainable...recent cuts are permanent...public universities either recognize this...or face decline....attempts to block competitive forces by resistance and delaying actions are self-defeating."  Apparently these dudes never heard of the need to present and evaluate without pre-judgement alternative models in policy prescriptions.
• According to Inside Higher Ed, some educators are full-on gung-ho about privatization and not even experiencing "angst" about it (sidenote to IHE--nice framing, making having reservations sound like neuroses). The chancellor of Maricopa Community College, a man in charge of guiding the futures of thousands of black and brown students, apparently has an oracle.  Rufus Glasper tells us "We have no choice. The state funds are gone forever."  There's no point in anything but his kind of "realism," and his so-called solution is a private for-profit model. 

Just a few questions. Why is the CarMax guy being invited to talk with AGBCU?  What's his expertise-- oh right, car sales. Discounting.  Clearly buying college is like buying a car--all about the transaction. And we all know that poor people with their complete information totally understand how discounting works, that's why high tuition-high aid is so successful...  Say it with me now: puhleese.

Second, when did smart people all start singing in unison about simplistic, singular solutions to complex problems?  Did they all attend a special dinner party together where primers were distributed, and the private monetary incentives for making the education "public no more" were explained?  Sure seems like it.  Because they are talking to highly educated people in a way that is utterly pedantic-- there is one solution and one solution only -- pass the buck onto the "consumer"? Can you imagine if instead they said, "Hey 5th graders, pay your own way through elementary school?" 

Third, how much longer are you people (yes you, our readers) going to take this?  For-profit leaders clearly worked this out quite well ages ago, using their massive profits paid for with your federal tax dollars to lobby legislators and university leaders into believing the future lies in private, for-profit education.  They're doing it from up high in the skyscrapers around the world, while many higher ed leaders are out there wittingly and unwittingly carrying their water and doing their bidding.  We mere "academics" and "students" who won't admit that really we are "obstacles" and "consumers" are simply in the way.

 PUBLIC NO MORE. WE HAVE NO CHOICE. RESISTANCE IS FUTILE. 

Where have we heard that before? 

0 Squeeze Public Higher Education-- And Watch it Squirm

Make no mistake about it-- a conservative agenda in public higher education, quite similar to the one for public k-12, is steadily progressing across the nation.  The multi-pronged attack includes cutting budgets ("we have no choice-- look at the deficit!"), deriding outcomes ("college is worthless, students are partying"), and applying business models to evaluating success ( c.f. all the efficiency talk).

Today's news is rife with stories suggesting that under attack, public colleges and universities are abandoning their missions, adapting market-centered approaches, fighting with each other, and otherwise jumping ship.

• A new survey reports that 143 public colleges and universities now have differential tuition -- a policy that seems efficient on its face, but may well further stratify opportunities, leaving behind those with the least information and least ability to pay.

• In Florida, a week after announcing substantial budget cuts to state U's, the legislature is pushing for the most elite public universities to jack up their tuition.  Let's create that 1%, why don't we?

• And in California, the Master Plan is nearly dissolved, as fault lines become battles lines and the new cry is "Forget you, state U-- we are better..."

If you weren't alarmed by events last year in Wisconsin, and what they suggested about national trends, you ought to be waking up now.  And assuming you are concerned, come out this week and hear about how public higher education can fight back.  Gary Rhoades is in town, at a visit sponsored by the Wisconsin Academy and the Wisconsin Alumni Association, and he's giving three talks.  Please join us!  The first one is tonight at 7 pm at MMoca.