It is astounding to stop and reflect on the amount of misinformation around us. It goes beyond our ingrained tendencies toward misperception, misunderstanding and the difficulty in shifting our beliefs when confronted with contrary evidence. Each of these traits is natural and we are subject to these tendencies even when aware of them. So we must be somewhat forgiving of ourselves and others when we spot these faults in action.
It’s another thing altogether, though, to deliberately twist – or invent – information to suit one’s needs. This is where advocacy groups come in, often with fancy sounding names and grand intentions. I write about this topic often, but a local example has me confounded more than normal. In a series on government agencies and salaries, the local daily recently quoted a Nevada “think-tank” on how to make higher education more accountable. Here’s a direct portion of the article:
Professors’ pay should be tied to whether they produce graduates who can land good-paying careers, said Patrick Gibbons of the Nevada Policy Research Institute, a Las Vegas-based private, nonprofit government research organization.
“That’s the only way they can justify their salaries,” said Gibbons.
“If these professors are turning kids into Einsteins who are graduating and getting high-paid jobs, they deserve a lot of money,” he said. “But if they fail to educate and graduate students who are leaving in droves, perhaps they don’t deserve the salaries they’re getting. It’s hard to evaluate.”
Not all high school graduates need to go to UNR to get a high-paying job, either, said Gibbons, who is not related to the governor.
“We have a kind of elitist attitude in America that you have to get a college degree, but then students graduate and they’re left with debt and disappointment,” he said.
What Gibbons says is profound. This is a subject I have studied all semester – broadly, what constitutes educational success. My course dealt specifically with streamlining P-16 efforts; however, my doctoral studies are in higher education administration.
Two significant points are raised:
1. Nevada is a working class state (some would say working poor), and it is true that it is possible to make a living, even a good one, without a higher education. The state has a tourism-based economy that historically undervalues education primarily because it does not see a greater need for it. Dealing blackjack does not require a college degree. At the other end of the spectrum, it is well established that high-quality education correlates to societies with greater civic participation, quality healthcare, communities with greater social cohesion and so on. It is here where Nevada, verified with easily found research, typically ranks lowest in many indicators. Along with this, to imply that a university is not needed simply because of the state’s job market ignores the reality that many students come from out of state (because of its low costs) to attend these institutions. Moreover, other industries, especially the state’s emerging high-tech, science and environmental firms require higher degrees. The more the state diversifies into other sectors — especially in light of our current economic crisis due in part because of the state’s tourism dependence – the more the job market will demand higher education.
2. Gibbons is correct to say that higher education is “hard to evaluate.” One of higher education’s chief faults is its lack of measurable variables that determine success. Thomas Sowell, in his book Economic Facts and Fallacies, states this poignantly:
“Accrediting agencies must rely on broad-bush indicators of campus resources, such a the number of books in campus libraries and student:faculty ratios – in short, the same kinds of input criteria, rather than measures of educational output, for which the U.S. News and World Report has been criticized.”
Lack of adequate measurements is in part characteristic of the very nature of higher education, with few exceptions (the University of Phoenix would be one). Suggestions to redress this situation are numerous, and it is likely that in years to come we will see more attempts at accountability similar to what public school education has seen with No Child Left Behind. Among measurements, expect to see attempts to increase student retention as a chief proposal.
But what makes the suggestion to tie professorial performance to student retention so fantastic is the obvious nature of how students move through higher education institutions. On one hand, it’s purely logistical. Classes are taught not just by professors of all ranks but also by adjunct faculty and graduate students. Any one professor simply cannot be tied to any one student, let alone hundreds, if not thousands, when students attend any number of classes in any given semester with any number of different types of instructors who represent a variety of disciplines.
There are countless other externalities that contribute to student success, from university climate, geography and finances, to even something as simple as students who drop out to get married and have children. To attribute any one of these to the professor as a measure for his or her salary, not to mention the even more perplexing issue of attributing career success post-college, to the professor – something also clearly influenced by external factors such as the economy – would be a precedent-setting and improbable way to attempt to achieve increased accountability.
Finally, students choose to attend higher education institutions; they also make the choice to quit if it is not for them. Should this really the responsibility of professors? If so, it’s quite a claim for a “free-market” institute.
Perhaps most striking is the recommendation being these ideas are the ONLY way professors can justify their salaries. Professors are already accountable, just according to variables the lay public does not readily understand or, perhaps, does not regard with value. Specifically, the professoriate is accountable in public universities (and even more directly, in land-grant universities) usually in tree ways:
- Student evaluations of teaching
- Research productivity — typically, the amount and quality of research publications, grants, etc., and
- Service to the campus and community.
To succeed as a professor, particularly in order to get tenure within five years, each of these should be in order; if not, your peers will show you the door. Perfect? Hardly, but it’s far more variable and realistic than what is suggested above.
The literature, or even Sowell’s book chapter on higher education, gives a much better analysis of the nature of higher education and its intangible role to society. In short, to invent something so afar from what policy research suggests makes, to put it nicely, for a fascinating read. And that is why it was in the local daily newspaper.
The short lesson is that journalists will quote these types of organizations and their representatives, and because these kinds of organizations are accountable more to demagogic interests than verifiable facts or, in this case, reasoned policy based on research, the level of misinformation continues unabated.
What reporters should be doing instead is seeking out experts, especially those with ties that are as impartial as possible.
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