I think this is something we really need to worry about. .
From an article in today’s New York Times:
Michael Tini, 54, … a card dealer in Atlantic City, taps his head, (and says)
“Look, I understand that teachers are the brains of the operation, O.K.? But my hours are cut, and my taxes are killing me.”
He taps his head again. “They have got to take it in the ear, too.”
It is hard to imagine that University faculty will be exempt from the same point of view. Academics are hardly seen in a positive light by Fox and its Tea Part offspring. While logic might dictate that now is a time to protect a resources needed to train America’s next generation of workers, the thinking driving our public seems more likley to lead to a “race to the bottom” where our system will only protect the wealth of the rich while the system needed to produce wealth for the next generation is allowed to rot.