by Matthew Henry Hall

As Karl Marx once said, “Keep the baby, but when you chuck the bath water, toss out that nasty old bathtub too.” Okay, Karl Marx never said that, but it does, metaphorically at least, get at my first overarching point. Higher Education doesn’t need just a few policy changes; it needs a whole new bathtub. Margaret Spellings, the U. S. Secretary of Education, concurs. Her dream tub and my dream tub may differ, but we both agree the current tub’s gotten kinda nasty.

Over a year ago, Spellings, and her “Commission” of experts issued a report titled, A Test of Leadership, Charting the Future of U. S. Higher Education. Although finding some good in the present state of our country’s higher ed institutions, Spellings and her commission found some basic problems. Colleges tend to be too expensive for many would-be undergraduates and aren’t accountable for whether or not the students—many who will go into debt to attend—learn anything. The solutions the commission offered, which I don’t entirely agree with (i.e., standardized tests), can be argued one way, then another. What seems more important is that although Spellings and company got some of the problems right, they entirely missed the biggest problem of all. Teachers, the people who perform the primary function of any school, usually have little to no say in how their school is run, that is to say, governed.

Welcome! The article you'd like to read is available to Adjunct Advocate subscribers, or to non-subscribers for purchase with AdjunctNation Passport credits. Your AdjunctNation Passport credit purchases compensate the writers directly!

If you like, visit our secure online store to purchase AdjunctNation Passport credits or subscribe. PLEASE NOTE: If you're already registered, you don't need to register again to read the article! You need to login, go to our secure online store, and purchase AdjunctNationCredits.