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FEA Frontline Report

FEA Frontline Report

Interim Committee Meeting Week

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January 28, 2013

“What exactly are we trying to fix here?”¾ Rep. Irv Slosberg asked during discussions of overhauling the state retirement plans.

The official start of the 2013 Legislative Session is March 5, but interim committee meetings have been ongoing since December.  Little reportable activity has occurred thus far – although this week things began to pick up.  They have now outlined their plans for the Florida Retirement System, started talking about on-line education, and were updated by the Florida Department of Education (FLDOE) regarding the progress of implementation of SB 736 (which passed during the 2011 Session).

We hope each year the legislature will just leave education alone; that public education can don the cloak of invisibility and successfully hide this one out – no more new crazy schemes and ‘reforms’,  no more ‘help’ -  just let our people teach and work.  No such luck.  Education reform continues to be a hot political topic.

Remember this: at the core of the education reform debate is not so much a disagreement over ideology but rather whether education policy decisions should be made on sound teaching practice and research on learning - or on business plan objectives.  The disagreement boils down to who profits: corporations and their CEOs or our students.

That is the legislative reality we face once again.  Welcome back!

·         Bill Update

Last Friday was the last day legislators are allowed submit their concepts for 2013 bills into bill drafting. That means no other legislative member bills can be submitted for the upcoming session.  Keep in mind, this is not the “filing” deadline but rather the “drafting” deadline.  Final bills must be “filed” and therefore released to the public no later than March 5 at noon.  Committee bills are another story; we’ll talk more about those as Committees begin their work in earnest.  They can be very scary.

At the time this report was compiled, 525 bills had been numbered and filed.  FEA is currently tracking 82 education related bills.  Not all of these bills will ever see daylight.  We will provide more detailed information as bills begin to be placed on Committee agendas.

·         The Implementation of SB 736

This week the House K-12 Subcommittee heard a presentation by the FLDOE regarding the personnel evaluation systems and implementation of the Student Success Act (aka SB 736). The law is slated for full implementation in the 2014-15 school year - the same year Florida fully transitions to Common Core standards.

Some legislators have publicly expressed concerns that the rushed implementation schedule of SB 736, Common Core statewide assessments and increased graduation requirements is a recipe for disaster. Yet, the DOE presentation glossed over the implementation issues and unresolved problems with the various moving parts of the assessment and evaluation systems.  And no one mentioned paying for it all.

FLDOE reported that all 67 school districts have requirements to follow, but they have a lot of flexibility in choosing how to evaluate teachers.  They presented charts and graphs indicating how well VAM was working: “just as we had hoped” (click here to see the report).

The rosy report prompted Rep. Dennis Baxley (R-Ocala) to gleefully announce, “Those who say it can’t be done need to get out of the way of those who are doing it. This has come a mighty long way and a lot of undoables are being done here ... seeing what gets measured and what gets done is tremendous.”

Yet, other committee members were skeptical. Rep. Ronald Renuart (R- Ponte Vedra Beach) asked whether the measurements developed so far take into account whether the teacher works in an “F” or an “A” school. He asked for data showing what happened to a teacher’s value-added score when a teacher with an unsatisfactory evaluation in a low-performing school is transferred to a high-performing school. DOE indicated that since the state has just one year of data, it is not yet able to assess the impact.

According to the Florida Current, Renuart later said he wants to ensure the system is fair to teachers.

“I want to make sure a teacher gets a fair assessment if it is going to affect their livelihood,” said Renuart.  Although impressed with the presentation he remarked, “I’m sure once I get back to my district I’ll be hearing some other sides to this.”

Rep. Karen Castor-Dentel (D-Maitland) ¾ one of two actual public school teachers sitting on the committee ¾ questioned the use of VAM to evaluate teachers who do not teach FCAT subjects.  FLDOE responded that the districts had the flexibility to decide what measure to use.

This is just the beginning of conversations around the implementation of SB 736 and other education proposals. Bills are being drafted to make changes to the current law including:

·         A bill (HB 377) to delay implementation of SB 736 has been filed by Rep. Mike Clelland (D-Lake Mary).  We believe a similar bill will be filed in the Senate by Sen. Geraldine Thompson (D-Orlando).

·         A bill to change the requirements of SB 736 for evaluation of non-FCAT teachers and non-classroom instructional personnel is in bill drafting by Sen. Audrey Gibson (D-Jacksonville) and Rep. Dwayne Taylor (D-Daytona Beach).  This is the same bill we worked on last year but it was never placed on the committee agenda. No bill numbers have been assigned at this time.

·         A bill to create a “wrap-around services” pilot program has been entered in bill drafting by Rep. Ricardo Rangel (D-Kissimmee).  No bill number has been assigned at this time.

Other FEA legislative priorities will be in the works through the amendatory process. 

·         Start of the 2013-2014 Budget Process

The governor is required to submit a budget proposal each year prior to the legislative session.  Last year he rolled out his ONE BILLION DOLLARS for education plan.  This year the PR gimmick is a $2,500 raise for every public school teacher. Remember – the legislature writes and passes the budget.  The governor’s budget is just a suggestion – the legislature may or may not go along with all or part of it. 

A $2,500 increase in pay would certainly be welcome, but it’s important to put it in its proper context. Starting in July 2011, teachers and ESPs – as well as law-enforcement officers, firefighters and other workers who are in the Florida Retirement System – had 3 percent of their salaries taken away so that the state could balance the budget. In addition, on January 1 of this year, a temporary federal tax break on Social Security and Medicare ended after two years – resulting in more than 2 percent disappearing from the paychecks of teachers and ESPs.

While the governor may propose an across-the-board pay increase, it’s still subject to collective bargaining and districts have to deal with plenty of unfunded mandates and cost increases. The governor has indicated he wants to dedicate money for a teacher pay increase by carving out a special category for it in his proposed budget.

Scott has also indicated that he will make a future announcement regarding pay for ESPs and other proposals, including one that would put more money in the Florida Education Finance Program (FEFP).

·         House Workshop on ‘State-worker Pension Reform’

NOTE: There is no bill at this time. The House Government Operations Subcommittee discussed a proposal that would shift all future state employees to a 401(k)-style retirement plan.  Committee chairman Rep. Jason Brodeur (R-Sanford) indicated the measure's future could depend on studies of the proposal's financial impact. The committee is waiting for an actuarial assessment that will indicate the long-term impact of reduced contributions going into the FRS Pension Plan before moving forward with the plan.

Rep. Ritch Workman (R-Melbourne), who spearheaded the 2011 changes, said during the 2011 debates that the existing retirement system needed to be fully funded before moving to a 401(k)-style plan. But House Speaker Will Weatherford (R-Wesley Chapel) has said he thinks the state needs to make the switch. And Brodeur said that the state's budget situation is now strong enough to consider the changes.

Brodeur stressed that current employees would not be affected.

The current proposal would:

·         Place all state employees hired after Jan. 1, 2014 would be placed in a defined-contribution plan (Investment or sometimes referred to as 401(K) plans) instead of the defined-benefit plan that most state workers currently join.    

·         Close the Senior Management Optional Annuity Program effective Jan. 1, 2014 (only 30 enrollees statewide)

·         Expand investment options to include an employee directed option (brokerage account)

·         Eliminate the option to apply for disability benefits under the pension plan for new enrollees effective January 1, 2014.

Opponents of the proposal argued that the state's pension plan is one of the best performing in the nation and is financially sound. In fact, FEA and other critics of the measure testified the proposal could cost state taxpayers additional money to set up and fund a defined contribution plan, beginning with $150 million next year and escalating to $450 million within three years.

"What exactly are we trying to fix here?" asked Rep. Irv Slosberg (D-Boca Raton).

As you well know, this is a remnant of the fight two years ago between public employees and mostly Republican supporters of overhauling the state retirement plans. At that time legislators voted to require employees to contribute 3 percent of their income to the retirement plan, but shied away from Gov. Rick Scott's insistence that workers should eventually be shifted to a 401(K) type plan.

"If the study comes back, and it is not where we thought it was going to be, I don't know how much appetite members are going to have to do something like that," Broduer said.

Thanks to Pat Dix for her contributions to this report.

The next committee week begins February 4.

College leaders consider making Florida’s next public university online-only

College leaders consider making Florida’s next public university online-only

By Tia Mitchell

Herald/Times Tallahassee Bureau

 

Florida’s 12th university became a reality earlier this year, and there is already discussion about whether the state needs a 13th.

 

House Speaker Will Weatherford challenged the board governing state universities to look into creating an online-only school in order to increase access to distance education. And Monday, the Board of Governors received the results of an independent study on the topic and discussed next steps.

 

Conducted by The Parthenon Group, the report outlines four options for Florida’s universities and colleges, both public and private.

 

The first allows each school to continue operating its own distance education program, represented the status quo, and it got the least amount of support from the Board of Governors’ Strategic Planning Committee.

 

The second and third options — systemwide collaboration or allowing one or more institutions to serve as the lead drivers of new programs — got a more positive response.

 

The committee asked staff to research a hybrid of these two choices ahead of next month’s full board meeting.

 

Board of Governors Chairman Dean Colson said he would like to have the state colleges and universities submit proposals to serve as lead institutions in order to create a sense of innovation and competition. “We want to give them a prod,” he said.

 

The board also decided to keep option four, a standalone online institution, on the table.

 

But in a written response to the Parthenon report, state university provosts said they have “serious concerns” about creating a new university, such as the cost, competition with existing programs, establishing accreditation and creating another bureaucracy.

 

Forty percent of students attending a state university or state college took at least one online course during the 2010-2011 academic year. That is above the national average, 31 percent.

 

Members agreed that there needs to be more data on existing programs and their outcomes to determine which types of online-based courses create the most student success and which programs are most efficient.

 

And they agree that more should be done to market the distance education already taking place in Florida, especially because out-of-state schools are recruiting students for online programs.

 

“I believe if we market together and develop the right marketing plan, it will far surpass any individual institution’s marketing plan,” said Randy Hanna, chancellor of the Florida College System.

Board members made it clear that they want to control their own destiny when it comes to whether the state needs another state university.

 

State University System Chancellor Frank Brogan said the board should take its time. But board member Manoj Chopra, a faculty representative, said lawmakers could step in and force their hand.

 

“I’m a little worried if the choice will be made for us by then,” Chopra said, possibly referring to how Florida Polytechnic, the state’s 12th university, was fast-tracked into existence this year by the Legislature.

 

Tia Mitchell can be reached at tmitchell@tampabay.com.

 

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/12/17/v-print/3146668/college-leaders-consider-making.html#storylink=cpy

Texas university supporters release data on outcomes to counter Perry's reforms

Texas university supporters release data on outcomes to counter Perry's reforms

Submitted by Kevin Kiley on December 6, 2012 - 3:00am

Texas Governor Rick Perry has a lot going for him in his efforts to rework higher education in his state.

His appeals, particularly around cutting the cost of degrees for the state and families and churning out graduates with more “marketable” skills, tap into an emerging vein of populist sentiment that’s fed up with tuition increases and concerned about post-graduate employment.

On top of that, over the course of almost 12 years in office, he has appointed every member of the governing boards of the state’s higher education systems, with recent appointments being particularly amenable to his brand of change. Those board members in turn have named [1] system and campus leaders with personal ties to Perry, many of whom have backgrounds in politics themselves.

But the Texas Coalition for Excellence in Higher Education [2], a volunteer group of supporters for the state’s universities agitating against the kinds of changes pushed by Perry and others, have long argued that the available data do not support his criticisms. Now they have something to show to back that up.

In preparation for legislative battles that are likely to arise when the 83rd Texas Legislature convenes next month, the coalition commissioned a third-party report to look at the relative strengths of the state’s two flagship public research universities, the University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M University – data the commission hopes will help ward off criticism and potential reforms its members view as corrosive to these institutions’ quality.

The report, which focuses primarily on the quality of entering students, student retention and graduation rates, the price of education to Texas families, degree productivity, and student success, is an attempt to shift the conversation about public higher education in Texas from the governor’s turf – focused on reducing costs to the state and families, questioning research expenditures and criticizing the flagships – to one more favorable to the institutions.

“We feel like maybe there’s not a real understanding among our leaders and in the public about what the unique mission of the public research institution is,” said Pam Willeford, a member of the coalition’s governing committee and a former member of the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. “There hasn’t been a lot of talk about where our institutions do well and where they need to be supported.”

Commission members are hoping the data, released today, help bolster their case for limiting cuts in appropriations or even for potentially increasing support for the universities, and keep lawmakers from dictating policies about what the universities should be focused on. Even if the statistics do not persuade the governor, commission members hope the information will be influential with state lawmakers and the general public.

Whether the data have any appreciable effect on warding off criticism or shifting the debate is still to be seen. Perry has remained adamant about seeing the changes enacted, even in the face of pushback by university faculty members and administrators and national higher education leaders. On top of that, Perry’s arguments – which have not been tested in other states – rely more on a philosophical belief that the business-like reforms he is pushing have the potential to effect change such as lower prices, taxpayer savings, increased student access, and improved workforce readiness, rather than evidence that such changes actually will have the desired result.

Texas has been referred to by many as “ground zero” of the twin trends of decreased state appropriations for higher education with increasing government intervention and accountability. It is the site of an emerging philosophy [3] about higher education reform that is starting to be embraced by governors in other states.

Hunter Rawlings, president of the Association of American Universities – an association that represents the top research universities in the U.S. and Canada, including UT-Austin and Texas A&M – has identified Perry by name as a political leader who ”does not believe in public support for public higher education, and who does not understand what an education at a research university means.”

The coalition, which launched in the summer of 2011 in response to various proposals viewed by many within and outside the academy as inimical to quality, is a group of about 400 prominent Texans, many of who are alumni of the two universities and have been involved in the state’s higher-education systems.

The group has been involved in almost all the major policy proposals and disputes since then, including helping rally support[4] for UT-Austin President William Powers Jr. when it appeared that his job might have been on the line.

One of their main concerns, Willeford said, is that policy makers are viewing the state’s universities through one lens without recognizing the variety within the systems themselves. “In our own discussions it was obvious to some of us that the unique mission of these kinds of institutions was not being appreciated,” she said.

Much of the report, authored by Michael McLendon, a professor of higher education policy at Southern Methodist University in Dallas (he worked at Vanderbilt University when the coalition commissioned him to write the report), is dedicated to exploring how mission differentiation among higher education institutions in the country and Texas specifically developed.

The report also uses data from the U.S. Department of Education’s Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System to evaluate the universities on a variety of metrics pertaining to undergraduate education. “The purpose of the report is to provide a baseline assessment of how well UT-Austin and Texas A&M perform in the realm of undergraduate education,” he said in a teleconference with reporters Wednesday.

Texas higher education administrators said they expect the legislature this year to debate whether or not to increase funding to the state’s universities, whether to tie that funding to outcomes, and, if so, on what outcomes to base those decisions.

The report tries to show that on many of the metrics that other states have used to – graduation rates; degree production; minority degree completion and degree production in science, technology, engineering and math disciplines – the universities perform quite well relative to their peers, other flagship research universities, and all universities classified as “very high research activity” by the Carnegie Corporation.

Incoming student quality, as judged by test scores, is higher at both institutions than at their peers. The universities are highly selective and have some of the highest percentages of Hispanic students of any universities in the country. UT-Austin and Texas A&M University degrees are less expensive to families than at their peers and have been growing at a slower pace in recent years (though that’s not for lack of trying [5] on the universities’ part).

The universities also rank high on outcome measure relative to its peers. On six-year graduation rates, both institutions hover right around the average of their peer groups. On four-year rates, the universities lag their peers, but both have made headlines in recent years for new efforts trying to raise those rates [6].

On other measures of graduate quality, such as the number of graduates who pass specific professional licensing exams and surveys of satisfaction, the university also ranks high.

Administrators from the two universities and their systems praised the report in a release issued Thursday. “This report validates what the data and many external rankings have indicated for some time — that Texas A&M University is extremely effective and efficient in serving the needs of our students and the state of Texas,” said Texas A&M University President R. Bowen Loftin.

“I was particularly pleased that the report reaffirmed the extraordinary educational and economic value that UT and A&M offer to the state and nation, as well as the dedication of university leaders, faculty and staff to continuously engage in qualitative improvement of the undergraduate experience," said Francisco G. Cigarroa, chancellor of the University of Texas System.

The report does not get at one of the major concerns of Texas policy makers: the cost of producing a degree, to both the state and families, which has formed the heart of Perry’s efforts, particularly his call for a $10,000 degree.

Part of the reason for not including such information, McLendon said, is because such a breakdown is hard to obtain. Given all the things institutions spend money on, variation in the programs and expenses across different institutions and the varying costs of producing different types of degrees.

One group that has tried to quantify the cost of producing a degree, the Delta Cost Project, found that Texas institutions actually stack up comparatively well to their peers in that respect, too.

In 2009, UT-Austin and Texas A&M University spent $18,003 and $16,405 per student, respectively, on education and related expenses, a category that includes spending on instruction, student services and a portion of academic and institutional support for maintenance and operations. Most schools in their peer group spent more than $22,000 per student. Part of that might be attributable to the fact that neither A&M nor UT-Austin has a medical school, which often cost more to operate on a per-student basis.

 

 

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/12/06/texas-university-supporters-release-data-outcomes-counter-perrys-reforms

A $10,000 Platform

A $10,000 Platform

November 30, 2012 - 3:00am

By

Kevin Kiley

When Florida Governor Rick Scott announced earlier this week the creation of two four-year, $10,000 bachelor’s degree programs in Florida, he could have easily been mistaken for another Republican governor named Rick.

Less than two years ago Texas Governor Rick Perry called on his state’s colleges and universities to create bachelor’s-degree programs that cost families no more than $10,000. The call set off a firestorm of debate about whether it was possible to control or lower the cost of offering a degree through the use of technology and competency-based assessment, or whether it was possible to find alternative subsidies that would drop the price for students and their families.

Perry and Scott appear to agree on much more than an ideal price tag. The two -- along with another Scott, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, who unveiled his own higher education agenda earlier this month -- appear to be at the forefront of what could be an emerging Republican approach to higher education policy, built largely around cost-cutting, which seems to appeal to some voters, if not to the academy itself.

The three governors have much in common when it comes to their approach to higher education, such as mandating low-cost options like the $10,000 degree; holding down tuition prices, particularly at flagship institutions; tying funding to degree completion, particularly in fields deemed to be in “high demand”; paying faculty on the basis of performance, including how they fare on student evaluations; and likely asking the institutions to do it all with less state money.

With state budgets still constrained, college costs are a growing concern for the electorate, Republicans holding 30 governor’s offices, and many of these lawmakers poised for higher profile in the next four years as they contemplate higher office, it seems likely that the proposals seen in places such as Texas, Florida, and Wisconsin will spread, and could even form the backbone of a Republican agenda for higher education from the states up through the national government.

“Up until now, the argument over college affordability has been dominated by calls to action on two fronts: lower interest rates on student loans and asking taxpayers to pay more so state legislatures can increase funding to higher education a greater amount,” said Thomas K. Lindsay, director of the Center for Higher Education at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a think tank with ties to Perry and associated with the reforms the Texas governor and others are pushing. “What this does, this changes the debate to reducing the cost to students and parents, raising expectations about what the public expects from higher education.”

But the approach taken by these governors has not endeared them to individuals in the academy. Actions taken by all three have been sharply criticized not only by faculty members and higher education leaders in their states, but also by national leaders, who view the erosion of state funding and increased restrictions on what institutions can do a breach of the traditional relationship between state lawmakers and public colleges and universities. “There are state leaders who do not believe in public support of public higher education, and who do not understand what an education at a research university means,” said Hunter Rawlings, president of the Association of American Universities in a speech at the University of Virginia in October. Rawlings specifically called out Perry and Scott in that speech and in others.

Tea for Three

Perry, who was elected to his third term as governor in 2010, and Scott and Walker, who were both elected for the first time that year, all ran on “Tea Party” platforms of cutting government expenditures, lowering taxes and creating jobs.

Like all governors serving over the past few years, all three had to reconcile decreased revenues stemming from the great recession with increased entitlement costs. Higher education appropriations, which make up a large chunk of discretionary expenditures at the state level, became a target.

“There isn’t that much of the operating budget to play with, so education routinely becomes a piece of the budget that ends up on the chopping block,” said Christopher P. Loss, a professor of history and public policy at Vanderbilt University.

Loss said it would be a mistake to call cutting higher education budgets a purely Republican strategy, as it seems to be a bipartisan activity these days.  States such as California, Washington and New York, where Democrats control governors’ offices and legislatures, have also cut budgets for higher education over the past few years, although recent budgets in New York have been more favorable to colleges, and California Governor Jerry Brown recently led a campaign for a tax increase that will reduce cuts to higher education.

Loss did note, however, that tying budget cuts to calls for increased productivity, something that Perry and Scott have done repeatedly, is something with the potential to appeal to voters. “I would hesitate to call it part of a ‘Republican agenda,’ " Loss said. “In essence, this is part of what governors do when they confront financial constraints. And it’s a politically savvy direction in which to go.”

While lawmakers have traditionally granted institutions the freedom to find new sources of revenues through tuition or elsewhere when they cuts budgets or promised to restore budgets in better times, Perry, Scott, Walker, and other Republican governors have made it clear that tuition will hold steady in their states. In 2011, Perry and Scott pushed against efforts by their states’ flagship institutions to raise tuition prices, a move that many in Texas say almost cost William Powers, president of the University of Texas at Austin, his job.

All three have made calls for reducing the cost of producing a degree through online courses and competency-based assessment. Walkerintroduced a competency-based online program earlier this year. Last year Perry created a Texas subsidiary of Western Governors University, a nonprofit competency-based online institution. This week he announced a competency-based technical training.

Scott and Walker have called for reducing faculty protections, either in the form of unions or tenure, which they say could potentially lower labor costs.

The calls for efficiency are embodied in the $10,000 degree, which sets a goal for institutions but doesn’t require lawmakers to get their hands dirty with working out the policy details. “When the person who holds political office uses his bully pulpit to call for this, it has the same effect that a market innovation would have in the free market,” Lindsay said. “Now you see all these institutions scurrying around to try to match it.”

Who’s in the Black?

While “efficiency” measures have been a major part of their agendas, Perry, Scott, and Walker also have plans for reforming what happens in the classroom, which makes them stand out among Republican lawmakers.

Perry, who has been in office since 2000, was the first of the trio to push a slate of reforms, many of which originated at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a think tank to which he has close ties. The most prominent group of those reforms is known as the “Seven Breakthrough Solutions,” a group of reforms focused on improving undergraduate instruction by more closely trying faculty rewards – pay, promotion, and tenure – to excellence in teaching. They also call for new measurements of teaching effectiveness and splitting research and teaching budgets.

E-mails obtained by state media outlets show that Perry personally pushed board members to move forward on adopting some of the reforms.

Both the University of Texas and the Texas A&M University systems produced reports that measured faculty salaries against the number of students they taught and the amount of money they brought in through research, labeling some as profitable and some as unprofitable. The listing generated a backlash from faculty members.

Faculty members in humanities departments, which tend to have smaller classes and generate less revenue from research, were more likely to end up "in the red," with the lists saying they did not generate revenue worthy of their salaries.

When Scott took office in 2011, he reportedly spoke with some of the thought leaders behind the Texas policies. According to media reports, Scott sends all potential higher education board appointees a copy of the Foundation’s “Seven Breakthrough Solutions for Higher Education” and interviews them all personally to see if they would be willing to put such reforms in place in Florida.

The measures to improve undergraduate learning and institutional accountability were met with both praise and scorn by higher education thought leaders.

The ‘Right’ Degrees

Many governors from all across the spectrum have adopted funding metrics based on outcomes rather than enrollment, but a major component of Walker's and Scott's efforts has been to more directly tie degree production to the perceived needs of the states’ employers, a push that has also led to antagonism toward faculty members in arts and humanities disciplines.

In an interview with The Herald-Tribune last year, Scott notoriouslyquestioned whether it was in the state’s interest to graduate students with degrees in anthropology. He doubled down on the sentiment in a radio interview, saying, "It's a great degree if people want to get it. But we don't need them here."

These governors have emphasized degrees in science, technology, engineering, and math, as well as more professional degrees, such as teaching and business, rather than humanities. A gubernatorial task force in Florida recently proposed charging students who major in humanities disciplines more to discourage them from entering those fields.

In his speech last week, Walker embraced a similar sentiment, saying that the state should reward institutions for producing some types of degrees over others. "We’re going to tie our funding in our technical colleges and our University of Wisconsin System into performance and say if you want money, we need you to perform, and particularly in higher education, we need you to perform not just in how many people you have in the classroom,” Walker said in a speech in California on Nov. 19. "In higher education, that means not only degrees, but are young people getting degrees in jobs that are open and needed today, not just the jobs that the universities want to give us, or degrees that people want to give us?"

Spread of Ideas

The policies pushed by Perry, Scott, and Walker have already generated significant local and national debate, and Scott’s adoption of some of Perry’s ideas show that there is likely room for them to spread.

Lindsay said lawmakers from several other states, both Democrats and Republicans, have approached him and the Texas Public Policy Foundation about their ideas.

Higher education policy researchers said the push for $10,000 degrees and other reforms pushed by the three governors appeal to voters because they’re simple and comprehensible, and don’t require lawmakers themselves to figure out the details.

Countless reports over the past two years have pointed to a decreased wiliness to pay high tuition prices and increased questioning of the value of a college degree.

“What I like about Rick Perry’s [$10,000-degree] idea is that it at least is a conversation starter,” said Joni Finney, a professor of higher education at the University of Pennsylvania. “It gets people thinking about what it takes to provide a four-year degree, for enriching and proving students with that they need. I think any conversation about the cost of higher education is valuable, because we don’t stand on solid ground on that issue. Right now, the cost is whatever amount of money the institution has. We need to start talking about what are reasonable costs. Whether the number is $10,000 or $12,000 or a lot more, putting a number out there at least forced people to think about it."

Tying degree production to the states’ perceived needs is also an appealing prospect, since ensuring a well-paid job upon graduation is a major concern for families. The move also appeals to state businesses.  

The 2012 Republican platform showed how greatly these ideas had penetrated the Republican policy mainstream “It is time to get back to basics and to higher education programs directly related to job opportunities,” the platform states. “Public policy should advance the affordability, innovation, and transparency needed to address all these challenges and to make accessible to everyone the emerging alternatives, with their lower-cost degrees, to traditional college attendance."

That’s not to say such ideas are already dominating the Republican conversation. There are competing Republican visions about higher education reform. States such as North Dakota and Wyoming – long controlled by Republicans – were some of the only states to see an increase in per-student state expenditures over the past five years. Both were buoyed by large influxes of revenues from natural resources.

And the discussion about many of these issues is not limited to one side of the aisle. Democrats, particularly President Barack Obama and his administration, have also pushed to contain costs to families at public universities, improve accountability for outcomes and ensure that students graduate with degree that lead to good jobs.

Making an Enemy

While the reforms pushed by Perry, Scott, and Walker have received praise from some pundits and members of the general public, faculty members and others in higher education have generally resisted their efforts.

The general sentiment among faculty members is that the reforms being pushed in states like Texas and Florida – lower expenditures on higher education, more vocational degrees at the expense of liberal arts education, less emphasis on research and more online courses – will not resulted in a better-educated workforce.

In Florida and Wisconsin, academics say that the proposals to discourage enrollment in humanities programs reflect a poor understanding of academe and the kinds of communication and creative skills that are prized in the working world. They point to studies showing that students with liberal arts backgrounds who can draw connections between disciplines and ideas are more likely to create new companies, take risks and earn promotions.

A major faculty criticism of the $10,000 degree programs is a concern that institutions will sacrifice quality, relying on technology, large classes, competency-based credit, and other tools that they say water down the educational experience. Close analyses of the $10,000 degree programs that have been created in Texas find that they are not truly getting at many of the issues for which pundits celebrate them. Most are not broadly available; students must spend time in high school taking dual-enrollment college courses, something many students are not prepared to do.They are all only available in specific programs. Some tinker with pricing more than cost, subsidizing students in the $10,000 degree programs at the expense of other students who pay full tuition, rather like offering non-need-based scholarships.

The Florida programs for Scott's announcement use similar tools to achieve the price reduction.

Proponents of the $10,000 degree say that this is the kind of experimentation the proposal was designed to induce. Eventually, they say, the goal is to help get at broader cost-cutting solutions.

In a column Monday, Orlando Sentinel columnist Beth Kassab noted the use of such strategies at Daytona State College, which offers a $10,000 degree for students who finish in three years. "Students are actually receiving less for less — a year less instruction and experience on a college campus in exchange for less money," she wrote. "That seems fair, but not some innovative deal the state should be crowing over."

Other critics point out that with greater state investment colleges could very well offer bachelor's degree programs for $10,000 or less. In-state tuition at the University of Florida in 2000, when state contributions made up a larger share of the budget, was less than $2,500. But as the state decreased its appropriations to the university, administrators say, it had to increase tuition to maintain quality.

“What you have is the legislature wanting to bail on the priority of higher education,” said Tom Auxter, a professor of philosophy at the University of Florida and president of the United Faculty of Florida. “You’re going to be awarding degrees that are worthless to people. They’ll have bachelor’s degrees, but they won’t know what they’ve missed until three or four years out of school.”

He said faculty members have been particularly active in pushing against the reforms advocated by Scott, and expects many to be active in the campaign against his re-election in 2014.

“I’m not pessimistic about winning this argument,” Auxter said. “I’m just uneasy about how much we might lose before we ultimately win.”

Roberto Martinez, vice chairman of the Florida Board of Education, who was appointed by Scott’s predecessor, wrote Scott urging him to abandon the $10,000-degree idea. "Asking the colleges at this time to issue a ‘$10,000 bachelor's degree' without commensurately increasing state funding is, I am certain, well-intentioned, but a very bad idea."

A group of prominent Texans, many of them Republicans, organized the Texas Coalition for Excellence in Higher Education, a group in opposition of many of the reforms pushed by Perry and others.

And on a national scale, Rawlings and others have begun publicly advocating against the reforms advocated by governors like Perry and Scott.

But even if higher education leaders reject these governors’ ideas, Lindsay said the move by Walker, Perry, Scott, and others to put the cost of a degree – not just to families by to the institution and taxpayers -- front-and-center in the debate, has forced Democrats to talk more broadly about the price of college, which he says has irreversibly changed the course of the debate.

“It would very much be in Democrats’ interest not to let the Republicans be seen as party of college affordability,” Lindsay said. “I don’t think that will last for long. I think before too long we’ll see both sides embracing this.”

Higher rates for non-STEM students bound to backfire

Higher rates for non-STEM students bound to backfire

By Tom Auxter | Guest columnist

November 30, 2012

Gov. Rick Scott says he wants more majors in science, technology, engineering and mathematics — the STEM fields. His Blue Ribbon Task Force on Higher Education Reform recently recommended achieving this goal by charging non-STEM students more. The task force report called this "differentiated tuition."

This proposal opens the door to charging much higher tuition for non-STEM students, who are now almost two-thirds of students. Although this new tuition scheme has little chance of producing additional STEM majors, it could easily damage the quality of the core curriculum.

The Legislature has already undercut Florida's essential degree programs in several ways:

1. Budget reductions: Over the past five years, the Legislature cut about a third of the universities' budgets. Before these cuts, Florida was already among the bottom five states for higher education funding per capita. Many university departments were already operating with a skeleton staff. Now almost all departments have barely enough faculty to teach core degree-requirement courses.

2. Pushing toward privatization: The universities are now under pressure to seek private funding for programs. But while private funds are available for the professional schools, such funds are scarce for the rest of the university. So while law, medicine, nursing, pharmacy, etc. can find some private money, the core curriculum that undergraduates depend on goes begging. And over-reliance on privatization can undermine the mission of the universities to create and share knowledge for the public good.

3. Ignoring the loss of faculty: Departing faculty are not replaced, and departments shrink to half the size of programs in comparable universities elsewhere. Courses are packed. Adjuncts come and go, and students lose the relationships with faculty members that provide advice and guidance in college and recommendations for graduate studies or employment upon graduation.

Against this background, what is the effect of jacking up the tuition of non-STEM students? What happens when we give politicians the license to back away from funding non-STEM programs?

1. Cherry-picking victims: Differentiated tuition will enable politicians to falsely claim they support the universities while actually eviscerating them. Now the governor, who wants to stop funding anthropology, and the new Senate president, who wants to stop funding psychology, have a way to stop funding these "frivolous" degrees.

2. Student exodus: Students are already questioning why they ever started a degree in Florida, even with Bright Futures covering some tuition. What good is having a degree from a gutted program? Where can they go with it? Are they ready for a future with huge gaps in their preparation? Will they happily pay off much larger student loans for a program that shortchanges them? Or, will they decide to accept scholarships from other states where they will not be cheated out of a meaningful degree and a real future? Will we soon find an exodus of the best and the brightest students from Florida?

3. Faculty exodus: Faculty are already leaving Florida's universities in record numbers. In their eyes, budget cuts in teaching and research demonstrate Florida's devaluation of university education. For example, Florida State University lost 50 faculty members in each of the past two years. This plan will accelerate the loss of faculty.

The irony is that the extra money politicians think they are getting through differentiated tuition will be useless for attracting new faculty to STEM programs in the way they planned. STEM faculty are like other faculty: They are attracted to a real university, with the vitality of intellectual and cultural life that comes with it.

They will reject the new vocational/technical model of a university designed by politicians. And when they do, the universities will be hard-pressed to add the STEM majors the governor wants.

Tom Auxter is a philosophy professor at the University of Florida and statewide president of United Faculty of Florida.