The GOP's War on Education?

[chw57]

I think they do get it and are trying to tear it all apart and privatize it. Walker terrifies me.

[mrspez07]

They are doing the same damn thing in school districts too. Blame the teachers for not doing enough, rely on the test scores and try to privatize everything.
That about sums up Jeffco and Douglas school districts in CO.

ETA: and of course, let's cut the underpaid overworked people first, maybe we'll get around to trimming the salaries of the administration. Same song, larger scale.

[lys]

A total political piece with definite bias/interpretation.
BIL is a professor a UW Madison --- who is about as liberal as anyone can get -- and he agrees that there are definitely places where there could be costs savings. Unions are not always for the benefit of the employees - much less the students.

Course load for a prof at UW Madison is low compared to many universities.

[josieposy]

“None of this seems like work to a guy like Walker because he lives a different life,” he said. “And I’m not going to make fun of what he does. I’m sure being a governor is a lot of work. He has to spend a lot of time in Iowa and South Carolina and North Carolina and courting other Republican big-wigs. That taxes the man horribly.”


Say what you want about higher ed, but this is freaking funny and I want to high five the guy.

[rupertpenny]

Maybe I'm terribly elitist, but I'd never vote for someone's go didn't have a college degree for president of the United States.

It might not be as bad, but they (well mainly Rick Scott I guess) are doing everything possibly to ruin public post-secondary education in Florida too. Affordable, relatively high quality state colleges was one thing I think Florida had going for it, but I'm afraid that's a thing of the past.

[NewOrleans]

I assure you that they are trying to tear it down. That has always been the purpose. That, added to how they DON'T get it, is a recipe for ugliness.

lol at Scott Walker telling anyone to work more or what goes on on a university setting!

[downtoearth]

Feb 3, 2015 10:19:21 GMT -5 lys said:

A total political piece with definite bias/interpretation.
BIL is a professor a UW Madison --- who is about as liberal as anyone can get -- and he agrees that there are definitely places where there could be costs savings. Unions are not always for the benefit of the employees - much less the students.

Course load for a prof at UW Madison is low compared to many universities.

So your BIL is a tenured, "liberal as anyone can get" professor at UW and he has told you, a NOT-liberal very MM IL, that he has more resources available to him or excess resources for others on campus that could total to $300 million dollars if taken away or cut across the UW system? 

I am giving you the wicked side-eye b/c this might be what you perceive or want to her, but I doubt that is what he has told you or that he's ever said he is overpaid and underworked.

Plus I wicked side-eye you b/c you are MM and know that Scott Walker is sucking at his budgeting and trying to prove that his cuts were "good" so he can jump on the national political scene and as a MM person, you KNOW he isn't balancing anything and just trying to stay afloat.  He's not fiscally responsible... he might be fiscally conservative in that he's getting less taxes, but he's not responsible at all.

[penguingrrl]

That's about the biggest bit of bullshit I've ever read. Does he truly not understand that a professor is not just a high school teacher for older kids? That they have a ton of responsibilities outside of their course load? H is a Visiting Prof and has a 3:3 teaching load for the year, but that's because as a VP he is expected to only teach and is not a researcher for the year. And I can tell you that planning lectures, lecturing, grading homework and writing and grading exams in addition to attending meetings and holding office hours is taking well more than 40 hours a week for him. There is no room in his week to add significant research time and he does that in the evenings while looking for jobs so he can keep his publication record up.

[2curlydogs]

I had to turn NPR off this morning or I was going to start throwing things.

I HATE this man. HATE him.

[darnkatz]

I fucking hate him. I can't even describe the rage I feel when I think about what he is doing to my home state.

[simpsongal]

Privatizing is the answer, right? That's why we're all paying $1800/mo for daycares staffed by minimum wage workers?

[jillboston]

Feb 3, 2015 12:15:43 GMT -5 simpsongal said:

Privatizing is the answer, right? That's why we're all paying $1800/mo for daycares staffed by minimum wage workers?

I love you. In a totally non-creepy internet way.

[smock]

A 2:2 load is the norm for research universities, because teaching is only supposed to be half of a professor's job. Outside of lectures, grading, advising students, etc., we are also supposed to be doing research and publishing. Unsurprisingly, Walker doesn't seem to see the value in that research.

[Velar Fricative]

So he wants professors to teach more, but doesn't he hate teachers? Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

He strikes me as clueless and KNOWS that he's clueless, but just doesn't give a shit. He enjoys living in a bubble where the only hard-working person in the State of Wisconsin is...Scott Walker.

[jeaniebueller]

Feb 3, 2015 12:15:43 GMT -5 simpsongal said:

Privatizing is the answer, right? That's why we're all paying $1800/mo for daycares staffed by minimum wage workers?

What are you talking about? Privatizing has done such wonderful things for the foster care system and the department of corrections....why wouldn't we want to privatize education? Oh, wait......#sarcasm

[badgergrl]

Feb 3, 2015 10:19:21 GMT -5 lys said:

A total political piece with definite bias/interpretation.
BIL is a professor a UW Madison --- who is about as liberal as anyone can get -- and he agrees that there are definitely places where there could be costs savings. Unions are not always for the benefit of the employees - much less the students.

Course load for a prof at UW Madison is low compared to many universities.

Please list comparable research universities ( comparable both in prestige and money brought in via research) that have higher course loads.

[tres3]

this is absolutely the game plan of the AFP. This is a blog post about what is going on in my county williamsonstrong.org/big-money-dc-based-national-right-wing-group-like-americans-prosperity-want-williamson-county-schools/

[badgergrl]

Feb 3, 2015 10:19:21 GMT -5 lys said:

A total political piece with definite bias/interpretation.
BIL is a professor a UW Madison --- who is about as liberal as anyone can get -- and he agrees that there are definitely places where there could be costs savings. Unions are not always for the benefit of the employees - much less the students.

Course load for a prof at UW Madison is low compared to many universities.

Lys I am still waiting for the list of comperable schools where they professors have a higher course load.  

[aurora]

I am a tenured professor. I have not had a day off since I got back from vacation on Jan. 5 (including weekends). That vacation was the first time in 5 years that I didn't bring my computer with me and work, usually daily, on vacation. In addition to most Saturdays and Sundays, at least 3 evenings per M-F I work for a couple of hours at home.

Don't even start to complain to me that professors don't work enough.

[UMaineTeach]

Feb 3, 2015 10:19:21 GMT -5 lys said:

A total political piece with definite bias/interpretation.
BIL is a professor a UW Madison --- who is about as liberal as anyone can get -- and he agrees that there are definitely places where there could be costs savings. Unions are not always for the benefit of the employees - much less the students.

Course load for a prof at UW Madison is low compared to many universities.

unions are never for the benefit of students. they are for the benefit of the members and non-members covered by the collective bargaining agreement.

[emilyj]

In addition to all the other horseshit in this article (and with Lys), a university professor isn't a "one size fits all" job. There are differences in teaching loads, service loads, research loads that differ from university to university. Some are research institutions. Some are teaching. You can't put my job expectations at a research institution on someone at a teaching institution, and vice versa. My current contract dictates that teaching is only 25% of my workload. 65% is research, and the rest goes to administration/service. Someone at a teaching university may have a 90% teaching load, 10% service, and no research expectation. So how can you compare me to them? You can't. I'm not going to list out everything I do, but suffice to say, I work way more than 40 hours a week. When I had my hysterectomy in December, I took 2 whole days off, then went back to answering emails.

You want to make budget cuts? Start with the administrator salaries at universities. They are fucking obnoxious.

I may be understanding this wrong, but: "attempts to privatize university research to make it for-profit."

What does that mean? Because I don't make a profit off my work. As soon as it hits a journal, I sign away all rights to it. I can actually plagiarize myself. So WTF is this 'for-profit' bullshit?

[UMaineTeach]

Feb 3, 2015 22:36:54 GMT -5 sunny said:

Why can't they see universities as job CREATORS, TRAINERS, and incubators? This kinda stuff makes me steam and rage.

LIBERAL INDOCTRINATION FACTORIES, duh.

+ all that science-y research, ewww

[aurora]

Feb 3, 2015 22:40:02 GMT -5 UMaineTeach said:

Feb 3, 2015 22:36:54 GMT -5 sunny said:

Why can't they see universities as job CREATORS, TRAINERS, and incubators? This kinda stuff makes me steam and rage.

LIBERAL INDOCTRINATION FACTORIES, duh.

+ all that science-y research, ewww

I think this is a huge part of the reason the GOP is attacking universities.

[secretlyevil]

Feb 3, 2015 23:39:59 GMT -5 aurora said:

Feb 3, 2015 22:40:02 GMT -5 UMaineTeach said:

LIBERAL INDOCTRINATION FACTORIES, duh.

+ all that science-y research, ewww

I think this is a huge part of the reason the GOP is attacking universities.

nailled it

[pt716]

Feb 4, 2015 7:57:17 GMT -5 asdfjkl said:

Feb 3, 2015 22:31:56 GMT -5 emilyj said:

In addition to all the other horseshit in this article (and with Lys), a university professor isn't a "one size fits all" job. There are differences in teaching loads, service loads, research loads that differ from university to university. Some are research institutions. Some are teaching. You can't put my job expectations at a research institution on someone at a teaching institution, and vice versa. My current contract dictates that teaching is only 25% of my workload. 65% is research, and the rest goes to administration/service. Someone at a teaching university may have a 90% teaching load, 10% service, and no research expectation. So how can you compare me to them? You can't. I'm not going to list out everything I do, but suffice to say, I work way more than 40 hours a week. When I had my hysterectomy in December, I took 2 whole days off, then went back to answering emails.

You want to make budget cuts? Start with the administrator salaries at universities. They are fucking obnoxious.

I may be understanding this wrong, but: "attempts to privatize university research to make it for-profit."

What does that mean? Because I don't make a profit off my work. As soon as it hits a journal, I sign away all rights to it. I can actually plagiarize myself. So WTF is this 'for-profit' bullshit?

Google Mitch Daniels patents Purdue privatize.


It's terrifying. The podcast includes a line from Scott Walker after he got called out for not recognizing all the research UW faculty do. Walker says something like, I'm all for faculty doing research but it should be research that benefits the taxpayers and makes financial sense. Not some research on ancient mating habits of aboriginal basket weavers.

I immediately thought, well, does antibiotic research make financial sense? It's not like to be very profitable.

The point is that while YOU don't own the research you do, but the State does, which means the taxpayers do. In a sense. This has resulted in research being less focused on making money and more focused on the public good. If the research were privatized either at the university level or, more likely, corporate ownership of individual labs or research programs, the bottom line would dictate.research because the it would be a question of what the University of Wisconsin's Monsanto research Lab wanted to research. Follow?

I hate that basic scientific research is not respected anymore. It's not going to make a profit and people outside the field probably won't care, but it's such an important part of the process. The discovery of things like the nature of chemical bonds or the structure of DNA weren't immediately profitable, but they enabled so many other discoveries.

[penguingrrl]

Feb 4, 2015 7:57:17 GMT -5 asdfjkl said:

Feb 3, 2015 22:31:56 GMT -5 emilyj said:

In addition to all the other horseshit in this article (and with Lys), a university professor isn't a "one size fits all" job. There are differences in teaching loads, service loads, research loads that differ from university to university. Some are research institutions. Some are teaching. You can't put my job expectations at a research institution on someone at a teaching institution, and vice versa. My current contract dictates that teaching is only 25% of my workload. 65% is research, and the rest goes to administration/service. Someone at a teaching university may have a 90% teaching load, 10% service, and no research expectation. So how can you compare me to them? You can't. I'm not going to list out everything I do, but suffice to say, I work way more than 40 hours a week. When I had my hysterectomy in December, I took 2 whole days off, then went back to answering emails.

You want to make budget cuts? Start with the administrator salaries at universities. They are fucking obnoxious.

I may be understanding this wrong, but: "attempts to privatize university research to make it for-profit."

What does that mean? Because I don't make a profit off my work. As soon as it hits a journal, I sign away all rights to it. I can actually plagiarize myself. So WTF is this 'for-profit' bullshit?

Google Mitch Daniels patents Purdue privatize.


It's terrifying. The podcast includes a line from Scott Walker after he got called out for not recognizing all the research UW faculty do. Walker says something like, I'm all for faculty doing research but it should be research that benefits the taxpayers and makes financial sense. Not some research on ancient mating habits of aboriginal basket weavers.

I immediately thought, well, does antibiotic research make financial sense? It's not like to be very profitable.

The point is that while YOU don't own the research you do, but the State does, which means the taxpayers do. In a sense. This has resulted in research being less focused on making money and more focused on the public good. If the research were privatized either at the university level or, more likely, corporate ownership of individual labs or research programs, the bottom line would dictate.research because the it would be a question of what the University of Wisconsin's Monsanto research Lab wanted to research. Follow?

NO NO NO NO NO! My husband's research won't be useful or profitable for another 30 years (potentially), but the point is that it will aid in drug design and effectiveness. It needs to happen, but will be a very long-term investment. This man is out of his mind!

[cattledogkisses]

OMG no. Privatizing research would be terrible for scientific progress.

[5thofjuly]

I'm sure these guys would consider my research "fluffy" since it's in the social sciences. But knowledge doesn't have to be profitable. It has to add to the knowledge base- mine helps us understand the ways that sex and social class impact our experiences within changing American families. But, nope, nuh-uh. Nothing important to learn from that.

I'm not convinced, though, that even if I were a natural scientist that they'd understand which research is "profitable" or "valuable" and which isn't (See: Sarah Palin and the fruit fly research.)

[emilyj]

Research that benefits the taxpayers and makes financial sense? Well, I'd be hosed. After all, a large chunk of my research focuses on women and minorities, and we all know how respected those two groups are in society.

[cattledogkisses]

Feb 4, 2015 9:11:43 GMT -5 5thofjuly said:

I'm sure these guys would consider my research "fluffy" since it's in the social sciences. But knowledge doesn't have to be profitable. It has to add to the knowledge base- mine helps us understand the ways that sex and social class impact our experiences within changing American families. But, nope, nuh-uh. Nothing important to learn from that.

I'm not convinced, though, that even if I were a natural scientist that they'd understand which research is "profitable" or "valuable" and which isn't (See: Sarah Palin and the fruit fly research.)

This is a good point. Who would get to be the arbiter of which research was valuable enough to fund? Politicians? Because that's laughable.