Transcript Road Map - AAUP CBC

The Corporatization of Higher
Education and the Attack on
American Workers
Rudy Fichtenbaum, President
Road Map
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Embracing the Corporate Model
Broader Context
Consequences
How to Fight Back
EMBRACING THE
CORPORATE MODEL
You know you have the corporate
model when:
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Administrators & politicians talk about faculty
productivity.
Universities & colleges care more about bond ratings
than the quality of education they offer students.
Administrators make unilateral changes in
curriculum and academic policies.
You have “merit” pay or “pay for performance.”
Promotion and pay for faculty depend on student
evaluations.
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Students are your “customers.”
Your administration says: “the market explains
growing inequality among faculty.”
The majority of faculty have no job security, few
benefits and are largely excluded from the decision
making process on campus.
Your administration tries to break your union.
Your budget system turns each of your colleges into
profit centers so faculty will be more
“entrepreneurial.”
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College presidents and politicians call for the
creation of “enterprise universities” to complete the
privatization of public higher education.
College and university presidents get paid like
corporate CEOs.
Grades are out and badges are in (college grades are
inflated so that they are meaningless, leading to
experiments where badges modeled after patches on
Boy Scout uniforms are given– inspired by video
games).
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Professors compete for bonuses based on student
evaluations.
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In Oklahoma, universities are awarding $5,000 to $10,000
to participating engineering professors who score in the
top 5% on their semester-end student evaluations.
Those who score in the next 15% receive half those
amounts.
Similar bonuses for “top-rated business professors.”
Texas A&M is giving bonuses of $2,500 to $10,000 to
faculty receiving the highest scores on student
evaluations.
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Administrators try to lay off tenured faculty for
“budgetary reasons.”
You are forced into a “wellness program.”
You are fired or forced to resign for using
controversial teaching methods.
Faculty can be fired for “improper use of social
media.”
Corporate Influence on Higher Ed
“Nationwide patterns since 1980 show that the
context has transformed through universities’
increasing use of a corporate business model that
goes well beyond Justice Brennan’s observation
in Yeshiva that universities have become ‘big
business.’”
--Point Park University Amicus Brief for the AAUP
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“Faculty have experienced a continually
shrinking scope of influence over academic
matters.”
“Faculty loss of influence over programmatic
and other academic matters reduces faculty
influence even in their individual academic
course content and research.”
--Point Park University Amicus Brief for the AAUP
[There] “are embedded structural changes that
favor top-down decision-making authority by
university administrators responding to market
concerns, rather than a collegial process of
consultation and consensus-building over
academic affairs.”
----Point
Park University Amicus Brief for the AAUP
“One outcome of this institutional shift is a
growing conflict between university
administrations and faculty over unilateral
actions taken by administrators either without
consultation with faculty or overriding faculty
governance bodies’ recommendations.”
--Point Park University Amicus Brief for the AAUP
CONTEXT: THE ATTACK ON
WORKERS IN THE US
To understand why our institutions are being
transformed, i.e., corporatized, we have to put
this development in a broader social context.
That context is the corporate attack on the
working class in the United States.
The attack is taking place on many fronts but is
particularly strong at the state level. In 2011 and
2012:
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4 states passed laws restricting the minimum
wage
4 lifted restrictions on child labor
16 imposed new limits on benefits for the
unemployed
--EPI BRIEFING PAPER #364 | OCTOBER 31, 2013
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15 states passed laws restricting public
employees’ collective bargaining rights or
ability to collect “fair share” dues through
payroll deductions.
19 states introduced “right-to-work” bills, and
“right-to-work” laws affecting private-sector
collective bargaining agreements were
enacted in Michigan and Indiana.
--EPI BRIEFING PAPER #364 | OCTOBER 31, 2013
State Attacks on Public Employee
Collective Bargaining Rights
Examples:
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Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker proposed
sharply curtailing union rights in 2011.
Collective bargaining rights were eliminated
for:
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Tennessee schoolteachers
Oklahoma municipal employees
Graduate student research assistants in Michigan
Farm workers and child care providers in Maine
Examples:
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States created “emergency financial
managers” authorized to void union contracts.
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Michigan
Pennsylvania
States limited public employees’ ability to
bargain over health care.
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New Jersey
Minnesota
Examples:
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Ohio’s SB-5 prohibited employees from bargaining over
anything but wages, outlawed strikes, and did away with
binding arbitration (the only impartial means of settling a
contract dispute without a right to strike) in favor of the
state agencies’ right to set contract terms unilaterally.
Ohio’s SB-5 also removed the right of faculty to engage
in collective bargaining
Indiana adopted new legislation that prohibits even
voluntary agreements with state employee unions
(having already eliminated most collective bargaining
rights for state employees in 2006).
Attacks on Teachers Unrelated to
Student Performance
Attacks on Public Pensions
States enacting legislation to cut public pensions
that were among the best funded and most
solvent:
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Wisconsin
Florida
North Carolina
Layoffs of Public Employees
But cuts were not correlated with states that
faced the largest fiscal challenges. From January
through December 2011, 230,000 jobs were
eliminated.
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Texas alone cut 67,900 jobs
Many of the budget cuts took place in states where
Republicans had just taken control in November 2010.
New “All Red States”
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Alabama
Indiana
Kansas
Maine
Michigan
Ohio
Oklahoma
Pennsylvania
Tennessee
Wisconsin
Wyoming
New “All Red States”
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These 11 states plus Texas accounted for
71.8% of public jobs eliminated in 2011.
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These same 12 states accounted for just 12%
of the budget shortfall among states.
Who Is Behind these Attacks?
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Chamber of Commerce National Association
of Manufacturers
Club for Growth
Koch brothers–backed Americans for
Prosperity.
American Legislative Exchange Council
(ALEC)
Why the Attack on Public Employees?
The attacks on public unions, particularly in
Wisconsin and Ohio, were made under the guise
of responding to the fiscal crises.
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Wisconsin’s Scott Walker: “Our people are
weighed down paying for a larger and larger
government”
“We can no longer live in a society where the
public employees are the haves and taxpayers
who foot the bills are the have-nots.”
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In Ohio, John Kasich insisted that he was
“empowering taxpayers.”
“Greedy” unionized public employees were
the haves and the public were the have-nots.
Is Public Employment Growing?
Spending on Public Employment
Don’t Let a Crisis Go to Waste!
Like the trends we’ve observed on our campuses,
corporate interest saw the crisis as an
opportunity to lock in cuts to public services.
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70% of all US school districts made cuts to
essential services.
Examples of Cuts
Despite widespread evidence of the academic
and economic value of preschool education, 12
states cut pre-K funding that year, including
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Arizona -- eliminated it completely
Ohio -- repealed full-day kindergarten, and cut its
preschool program to the point that the number of
four-year-olds enrolled in state-supported
preschool is now 75% less than in 2001
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Pennsylvania also cut back from full-day to
half-day kindergarten in many districts—
including Philadelphia, which also eliminated
40% of its teaching staff, cut its English-as-asecond-language program in half, and
increased elementary school class sizes from
21 to 30.
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In Florida, the Seminole County school board
proposed raising thermostats to 78 degrees, the
maximum allowed by law.
In Tucson, Arizona, the school district eliminated
geometry, art, drama, and photography classes,
increased class sizes to up to 40 students, and was
still fined $1.9 million for failing to provide the
minimum required instruction hours for seventh and
eighth graders.
North Carolina cut its textbook budget by 80%.
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Legislatures enacted new tax giveaways to
corporations and the wealthy while simultaneously
slashing funding for schools, libraries, and health
care.
Michigan, for example, adopted a bill, authored by
an ALEC member, that eliminated the state’s
primary business tax and substituted a flat 6%
corporate tax—costing the state $1 billion per year in
lost revenue—even while cutting K–12 funding by
$470 per student.
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Florida eliminated its corporate income tax for
nearly half the state’s businesses, adopting a bill cosponsored by a quartet of ALEC legislators and
hailed by the Chamber of Commerce as the first step
toward a complete phase-out of corporate income
taxes.
Ohio phased out its inheritance tax—which had only
ever affected the wealthiest 7% of estates—forgoing
almost $300 million a year in funds that had been
primarily dedicated to local government services.
Why Attack Unions?
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Why the attack on unions, when most workers
are not even unionized?
It is not about wages, health care, and
pensions.
The Attack on Unions
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It is about destroying the only organizations
that workers have to try to influence the
political process.
It is about completing the agenda that started
with the Citizens United decision.
It is about the broader corporate agenda of
preventing a fight back movement against the
growing inequality.
CONSEQUENCES
The Corporate Model in Higher Ed
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David Schultz published a noteworthy essay in
Logos entitled “The Rise and Demise of Neo-Liberal
University: The Collapsing Business Plan of
American Higher Education.”
Two models of higher education since the end of
WW II:
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Dewey model, in which public institutions were central,
and institutions promoted a Jeffersonian view of higher
education, recognizing an educated citizenry as central to
democracy
The Corporate University, with top-down authority with
administrators and corporate-led boards displacing
traditional faculty governance
Are We Doomed ?
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Contradictory forces have always existed in
American higher education.
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ruling elite in our society
the working class majority
Contradictory Nature of Higher Ed
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Higher education was central in defending
both religious and secular values central to the
preservation of capitalism.
Somewhat later, as science and technology
became more important, the idea of higher
education as vehicle for providing “practical
training” also emerged.
A Force for the Common Good
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Others (e.g., Thomas Jefferson) have seen
higher education as the great equalizer, a
vehicle for educating citizens and the
“common good.”
The Era of Expanding Access
During the period leading up to World War II,
most scientific research and the innovation that
drove American industrial might occurred in
private research labs.
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Bell Labs, Dayton Engineering Laboratories Co.
(DELCO), Battelle Memorial Institute.
Only after WWII, with the onset of the Cold War,
did universities become centers for research.
The Era of Expanding Access
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The GI bill first opened college admissions to the
unwashed masses.
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The elite universities all opposed the bill; they thought
that helping ordinary people who had been drafted go to
college would dilute the pool of college students with
mediocre students.
However, hundreds of thousands of veterans were
returning to the US with little prospect for
employment, and left-led unions of the CIO were
pushing a social agenda, so the GI bill was enacted.
Expanding Access & the Dewey
Model
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The big expansion of access to college, however,
came in the 1960s
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increased funding for public higher education
urban universities
community colleges.
Greater access to higher education was a component
of the reform era that began in the 1950s
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the civil rights
the women’s rights
and antiwar movements.
The Social Upheavals of the 1960s
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The social upheavals of this era
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Greater access to college
Medicare and Medicaid
Clean Air and Clean Water Acts and the EPA
OSHA
Greater income equality
The “Dewey model” was a facet of the of mass
movements for social justice and equality.
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The Death of the Reform Era &
Corporatization
The death of the reform era by the late 1970s and
the rise of the corporate university
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Part-time faculty have replaced tenure line
faculty, undermining both academic freedom and
shared governance.
These changes must be seen as part of the broader
neo-liberal attack on organized labor and the
achievements of the 1950s-1970s reform area.
We need to ask: “Why should the public care
about academic freedom and shared
governance?”
FIGHTING BACK
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Changes in higher education do not occur in a
vacuum.
If there is any hope of reversing the deleterious
effects of corporatization on higher education, it is in
faculty and academic professionals aligning
ourselves with the labor movement and the broader
movement for social justice.
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Strengthen existing chapters
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Have a membership drive on campus at least once a
year
Make office visits to get faculty to join AAUP
Every chapter should have a website and the
national AAUP should provide a template for the
website.
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Have a presence on social media, i.e., Facebook and
Twitter
Use the website to communicate with faculty with an
online newsletter and links to other AAUP chapters.
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Starting a national campaign on contingency
and link it to academic freedom, which is
needed to maintain the quality of education.
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Get our chapters to incorporate policies of AAUP
in their handbooks and in our collective
bargaining agreements.
Campaign to Build Public Support for a Charter
to Defend Public Higher Education
Some possible language adapted from:
http://defendtheuniversity.ie/
1.
Higher education is a public good, not a private profitmaking institution, and corporations or business interests
should not dictate teaching or research agendas.
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The strategy of a university or college should reflect all
dimensions of human endeavor and be built on the full and
open participation of all staff and students.
Campaign to Build Public Support for a Charter
to Defend Public Higher Education
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The main aim of teaching is the dissemination of
knowledge and the fostering of creativity, and is not just
about increasing ‘human capital’.
The main aim of research is to create new knowledge. It is
not just about enhancing the profit margins of
corporations, many of which do not even meet their tax
obligations.
After teaching and research, the third mission of
universities is about engaging communities and
addressing social disadvantage, and not just about
‘enterprise engagement’.
Campaign to Build Public Support for a Charter
to Defend Public Higher Education
6.
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Students are the lifeblood of colleges and universities, and
the next generation of enlightened and humane citizens
and are not just consumers of education or generators of
‘customer satisfaction’ indices.
All staff working in higher education are entitled to a
dignified and collegial workplace free of surveillance and
control and the arbitrary degradation of working
conditions.
Information and communications technologies are a great
tool for teaching and research but should not be used to
impoverish the quality of education or reduce staffstudent contact time.
Unions: More than Bargaining Contracts
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Build alliances on campus with students, parents
and unions on campus.
Think about contacting alumni who have a stake
in the institution’s reputation.
Build alliances with community organizations
including K-12 teachers.
Work to make your state conference more
effective.
Build linkages with other higher education
unions by participating in CFHE.
Political Action
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Get involved in politics
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See if it makes more sense for your chapter or state
conference to be a 501c(6).
Conduct voter registration drives on campus each
year.
Your chapter or conference may want to endorse
candidates, particularly for state offices based on
where they stand on issues that relate to higher
education.
Mobilize members to work on legislative initiatives.