A Straightforward Case against the Privatization or Outsourcing of the Curriculum

Simply publishing material in a certain topic area does not confer on oneself or on one’s employees the expertise or the credentials of professionals in that field. So a publisher of books on government and politics would not necessarily have any special expertise in governing or in running a political campaign. Likewise, a publisher of…

California Faculty, Teachers, and Allied Labor Groups Unify in Opposition to California Senate Bill 520, an Attempt to Mandate Legislatively the Privatization of the Curriculum

This letter has been endorsed by the following faculty groups: the California Faculty Association, the Faculty Association of California Community Colleges, the California Community College Independents, the California Federation of Teachers, the California Teachers Association, the California School Employees Association, the California Labor Federation, SEIU California, and USW 5810. April 18, 2013 The Honorable Darrell…

Online Education in the Land of Oz

“If you follow the Yellow Brick Road, you’ll eventually reach the Emerald City, but once there, you’ll find, as Dorthy does, that the Wizard of Oz doesn’t have anything to offer but an illusionist’s cheap tricks. “Oz isn’t where we want to be. It’s where we end up when we don’t know where we want…

Review of Public No More: A New Path to Excellence for America’s Public Universities.

Reviews of Recent Books Concerning Current Issues in Higher Ed: No. 3 Fethke, Gary C., and Andrew J. Policano. Public No More: A New Path to Excellence for America’s Public Universities. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford U P, 2012. This book has been very controversial. Not surprisingly, given that the authors have served as deans of…

American Higher Education in the Twenty-First Century: Social, Political, and Economic Challenges.

Reviews of Recent Books Concerning Current Issues in Higher Ed: No. 2 Altbach, Philip G., Patricia J. Gumport, and Robert O. Berdahl, eds. American Higher Education in the Twenty-First Century: Social, Political, and Economic Challenges. 3rd Edition. Eds. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins U P, 2011. In selecting the essays included in this collection, the editors…

Remarks on Benjamin Ginsberg’s Fall of the Faculty

Reviews of Recent Books Concerning Current Issues in Higher Education: No. 1 Ginsberg, Benjamin. The Fall of the Faculty: The Rise of the All-Administrative University and Why It Matters. New York: Oxford U P, 2011. Ginsberg’s book has very quickly become a seminal work in the growing body of scholarly literature dedicated to higher education’s…

A Follow-Up to “Taking Heed from the Front Lines”

The greatest irony in the increasing privatization of public education is that the deficiencies that the “reformers” typically claim to be trying to correct are often exacerbated by the very “reforms” that they are advocating. There is now a tremendous amount of statistical evidence that, on average, students in charter schools perform worse–and often much…