Has anyone considered how much an incompetent physician, teacher, lawyer, or therapist costs society? The idea of having students prove their mettle was to allow colleges quality control over the entry of new professionals. Unfortunately, the legislators have made the exercise of this responsibility economic suicide. No matter how good the instruction, some people are just not cut out to be neurosurgeons, accountants or school teachers. Coupled with the advent of grade inflation and higher education as a retailer of credit hours was the universal adoption of student satisfaction surveys allegedly measuring teaching effectiveness. There is a double irony in this practice. First, if a student were in a position to know whether or not he or she got an appropriate amount of “knowledge” in the most appropriate way, there would be no point to the student being a student in the first place. He or she would already know too much. If the student is innocent of the subject matter and of effective techniques for getting it across, he or she should not be asked to evaluate something outside his or her realm of expertise. In this light, it is readily seen that student evaluations of teaching are not and cannot be a measure of teaching excellence. Instead, student evaluations of teaching amount to little more than a marketing instrument revealing student satisfaction.
And what are students likely to find satisfying? Something fun, something reflecting minimal inconvenience while advancing the student toward the goal of eventual economic reward. What is most unsatisfying is being asked to prove your mettle. W.E. Deming and other gurus of quality theory have long acknowledged that employees will produce the numbers they are to be judged by. Consequently, it is imperative that the numbers that leadership seeks matter. As a result of student satisfaction surveys, professors are rewarded by minimizing immediate personal inconveniences requiring students to “prove their mettle.” This problem may be shortly aggravated further, at least in Texas. A proposal sponsored by state Sen. Bill Ratliff, R-Mt. Pleasant, to be considered for legislative action in the next session, permits the firing of tenured faculty if their student evaluations are “below standard” (whatever that means).
There is a cry for accountability in higher education today. That cry is certainly reasonable. To address the cry, matters of accountability must be taken seriously and not used by political demagogues seeking to enrich their personal fortune in university administration or in the Legislature.
Society for a Return to Academic Standards
Tenure Remains Vital to Freedom
