Two Views of Classism in the USA
THE Ave hopes you will not ignore the relevance of BOTH parties to the effort to replace high quality AMERICAN education with one another sort of low quality … good enout for the masses alternative .. Western Governors is a great example. Read this article from Bloomberg (my amendments are in red) :
Western Governors University (WGU), is an online mix of course offerings in health sciences, business, information technology, and teacher education. The concept has been embraced by the six Democrats and 13 Republicans who make up the Western Governors’ Association. Now in its 15th year, the nonprofit WGU, funded entirely by $6,000 (semester) tuition fees, has awarded nearly 17,000 bachelor’s and master’s degrees. While these fees are lower than a state university, they are higher than the fees at far more capable community colleges.
Current enrollment stands at a little less than 34,000. Students, who average 36 years old, are required to put in at least 20 hours a week but are given six-month “semesters” over which to spread the work. In a 2011 survey, 65 percent of WGU graduates said they received a raise, a promotion, or a new job responsibility as a result of their degrees.
Laura Huish, of Farmington, N.M., had long aspired to become a teacher but couldn’t go back to a traditional college full time because she also had to care for a young child. She discovered WGU while working as a school secretary. “It was perfect. I could work, be with my kid when I needed to, and work at the degree online,” says Huish, who enrolled in 2009. She earned her degree in three years and last year was hired as a full-time teacher at a primary school. “It’s not for everyone,” says Huish. “You have to be motivated.” This is a real advantage of WGU .. except that the actual meat of a teaching degree strill requires any student to work as an intern. Given WGU’s lack of qualified faculty to supervise these internships and WGU’s lack of faculty with expertise in such important subject matter as science, literature ans writing, it is very hard to imagine that the WGU degree is a good credential for a District wanting to hire qualified teachers.
While both parties have been part of the effort to promote WGU, the Democrats are being had. WGU is very much a part of the right wing Mormon Republican establishment in Utah and the right wing educations “reform” effort led by Jeb Bush. Two years ago, Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels issued an executive order creating WGU Indiana, calling it Indiana’s “eighth state university.” The move allowed WGU students from Indiana to apply for loans and other aid. “Governor Daniels had said there were 750,000 Hoosiers who had started college but hadn’t finished, and this could get more of them more credentials for better jobs,” says WGU spokeswoman Joan Mitchell. Indiana has 2,600 students enrolled in WGU, a tenfold increase over just those two years. Texas and Washington state have since taken similar steps.
Part of the reason for Democratic support is the claim WGU is non profit. This claim is as true as Mitt Romney’s claim not to have broken any laws in his tax returns . Like Romney, WGU uses its non profit status to avoid taxes while being very profitable. WGU. while employing almost no faculty and paying unqualified advisers at levels that are worthy of a sweatshop, pays its executives salaries approaching $1,000,000. Moreover, unlike a true public university, WGU does not disclose its salaries and allows its executives to be paid by the vendors that supply thius “online” university with coursewares.
The truth is that revealed by theis comment from the Bloomberg piece: No one is claiming that this is the same market as Harvard and Princeton,” says Andrew Kelly, an education analyst at the American Enterprise Institute. “But elected officials strapped for public money for education are looking for ways to reap a larger return in innovation, hopefully boosting the earning power of the citizenry.” It is striking to me that this AEI “education analyst” compares WGU to Harvard and Princeton, ignoring the nations great PUBLIC universities. For those Ave readers who do not know, the AEI is a far right think tank funded by the same folks who bring you Karl Rove’s PAC empire.
WGU is in the forefront of the far rights’ class warfare. READMORE about WGU