Texas A&M System Will Rate Professors Based on Their Bottom-Line Value

[proud2BlibKansan]

The Texas A&M University System is moving ahead with a controversial method of evaluating how much professors are worth, based on their salaries, how much research money they bring in, and how much money they generate from teaching, The Bryan-College Station Eagle reports.

Under the proposal, officials will add the money generated by each professor and subtract that amount from his or her salary to get a bottom-line value for each, according to the article.

Frank Ashley, vice chancellor for academic affairs for the 11-campus system, said the public wanted accountability. "It's something that we're really not used to in higher education: for someone questioning whether we're working hard, whether our students are learning. That accountability is going to be with us from now on."

Peter Hugill, who heads the local chapter of the American Association of University Professors, blamed a conservative think tank with ties to Gov. Rick Perry for coming up with an idea that he said is simplistic and relies on "a silly measure" of accountability.

http://chronicle.com/article/Texas-A-M-System-Will-Rate/124280/

[w8liftinglady]

1. this doesn't surprise me.Texas 4 year colleges have been sold out

a resident can't afford them without significant loans.If you ain't coaching sports,you better show them the money(so to speak).

[Mimosa]

2. OMG

How will this work when it comes to a knowledge of Shakespeare, Wiliam Blake and Jane Austen? Or painting and sculpture?

[proud2BlibKansan]

4. Read the comments

A couple folks have pointed out that the humanities won't bring in as much as sciences.

Just a mind blower, isn't it?

[Mimosa]

12. Thanks, proud2BlibKansan.

I read some of the comments. Maybe America does need to catch up on engineering and science. But. ;)

[tammywammy]

3. Not surprised

Perry has his fingers all up in the TAMU system.

[MadHound]

5. Well, now that the war on public education is in full gear,

Time to open up the war on higher education.

It is becoming increasingly apparent that TPTB want the public intellectually dumb and economically desperate. After all, makes for a cheap, compliant work force.

[RKP5637]

8. The making of capitalistic drones. Yep, a cheap, compliant, obedient work force. n/t

[proud2BlibKansan]

9. In a way I am glad to see this

Perhaps if this ridiculous value added crap creeps into higher ed, we will gain more support for abolishing it all together.

[MadHound]

11. Oh no, it will get pushed hard by the right,

They've been after higher learning for a long while, and anything that gives them the ability to beat it into the ground, they'll take it and run. I can see this as a future plank in the Republican platform. Worse yet, I can see it as a future plank in the Democratic platform as well.

[Hannah Bell]

17. That front is already open, e.g. with the encouragement of for-profit/online universities

& the defunding of states.

[RKP5637]

6. This is ridiculous. Apparently the quality of their professorship in relation

to knowledge imparted to students does not matter. Only the cash flow to the bottom line is of value. This is crap. Ultimate capitalistic crap.

[proud2BlibKansan]

10. Next step is to rate K-12 teachers on the incomes of their students after graduation

Yes, ridiculous is a good description.

[Gold Metal Flake]

7. Protip: Corporate whores bring in more money.

Go for the gold!

[BadgerKid]

13. AFAIUI, pulling in grant money has usually been part of getting tenure.

I guess this means the process is going to be more public?

Also, one professor's opinion I heard 15 years ago was that the university tenure system was eventually going to go away.

[proud2BlibKansan]

14. The bigger picture, IMO,

is the abolishment of fields of study that don't bring in the bucks for the universities.

[RKP5637]

21. Yep, agree. Plz see my #20. n/t

[riderinthestorm]

15. OMG, one of my "best" classes was an ethics class taught by a Holocaust survivor

he was a PhD in philosophy who was at Bergen-Belsen and survived. He taught an ethics class that dealt with a broad array of topics: everything from the death penalty and slavery to exam cheating. His classes would never hold up to any standardized measure of 'accountability" - he taught critical thinking! There weren't "wrong" answers if you had a solid argument.

But his methods of analysis, critique, and never taking an argument at face value, are invaluable to me today many decades later.

This is beyond despicable! Higher Ed is to educate thinkers (as well as doers). A society needs both to be successful. :cry: I am horrified.

I know I've said my piece about this ridiculous quest to eliminate creative thinking in elementary ed, and the relentless persecution of teachers... and now we have to worry about this too?




(despairs)

[RKP5637]

20. The objective is to create uneducated educated robots to do the bidding of

capitalists to fatten the bottom line while not benefiting society in general. Only money counts in USA, Inc., not the quality of life and not the beauty of a creative life and its benefit to society.

The latter is dispensable in a purely for profit system. A society of mindless drones doing robotic chores, unquestioned, and menial wages is a capitalists' dream come true.

This is just one more step in the complete and deliberate dumbing down of America.

[Swamp Rat]

16. k&r

[Sancho]

18. They are doing some of this in Florida too...

but we have collective bargaining for most college faculty, so it affects faculty less. Silly.

[JCMach1]

19. Bullshit system unless they apply to teaching the SUBSIDIZED value of the students they teach

State schools heavily subsidize students. Unless you put the real cost into their little formula, it is going to skew heavily to grant earners where every dollar brought in is fully realized.

What should I be shocked that it is BS????

Sigh