Ed. This was originally posted on the AAUP listserv. I have left the authors’ identity confidential because of concerns of responses from administration.
Our country seems to be fatally wounded. Perhaps the experience of losing a war, and perhaps two more, has left the soul of our people and our leaders wondering about the worth of our most valuable strengths. Education is an instructive case. Distrust about of our teachers and our educational system, that used to be among the best in the world brought the fantasy that new educational strategies can solve the problem. In two decades of applying politically palatable but fully untested snake oils, implemented by a horde of “specialists” and well paid administrators, the cure virtually destroyed the system. Forty years of teachers distrust and negative selection by paying miserable salaries, plus the “no child left behinds”, the accountabilities, and several other snake oils strategies, and of course we now have a K-12 almost done.
The same insecurity is now putting our higher education in the fry pan. Since the eighteen hundreds this country has produced the best physicians, outstanding engineers, poets, scientists, actors, teachers, and a cadre of Nobel laureates. But now we are doubtful! With few exceptions universities have already established a policy of hiring CEOs to occupy the top ranking positions: these people may be woefully expensive but they know how to manage, that seems to be the lemma. And with one of the worst economic crisis in place, it is now straight forward to start strangling salaries, getting rid of tenure, demanding accountability, finding parameters of efficiency; and finding who is responsible (responsible of who knows what!), but, is it the faculty, the administration, the students, the staff, the system?….We need to point fingers because something has to be wrong. Soon to come are the snake oil dealers of education magical cures, those that can be readily sold to politicians, and we’ll be well in the way of K-12.
Where is the soul of this society? Where is the old Yaqui spirit that allowed this country to TRUST its people and its soul, and made it overcome any challenges? Good question!
Pedro