VOL. 33, NO. 4 | SUMMER 2014 NCLB goes to college 1 We are all contingent 2 Students are not guinea pigs 13 Reclaiming the promise 14 Mobilizing for equity 16 Ripped apart The trends deprofessionalizing faculty and staff are hurting students, too Power grab 4-Profits R Us The education racket Building a profession How administrative Let’s not emulate Privatizers are co- Taking the reins to bloat is killing the ‘efficiencies’ of opting our service for achieve real teacher education PAGE 5 for-profitsPAGE 7 the public good PAGE 10 education reform PAGE 12 EDITOR’S NOTE OUR MISSION Fighting to do our jobs TheAmerican Federation of Teachers is a union of professionals that champions ON SO MANY LEVELS, and in so many plac- faculty is 48.5 hours.) fairness; democracy; economic opportunity; es, higher education is in deep trouble. Young ■ In 2012, the American Association of Univer- and high-quality public education, healthcare people feel they can’t afford to go to college, sity Professors-AFT chapter at Rutgers Univer- and public services for our students, their families and our communities. We are and, for a large number, it’s true. A huge ma- sity learned that the administration had en- committed to advancing these principles jority of students leave college with debts that tered into a seven-year secret contract with through community engagement, limit their choices about where to live and Pearson to provide online degree programs. organizing, collective bargaining work from the day after they graduate. The contract let Rutgers and Pearson split the and political activism, and especially Remember the old notion of higher educa- revenues. The union fought back. through the work our members do. tion funding being a shared partnership be- ■ Pearson, a private, British-based company, is tween government (state and federal), institu- drawing profits from all over the U.S. education RANDI WEINGARTEN tions, private sources, and students and system—from administering testing associated President families? That’s faded as the partners have with the K-12 Common Core State Standards, LORRETTA JOHNSON pulled back, shifting the burden onto the to the edTPA assessment of teacher perfor- Secretary-Treasurer FRANCINE LAWRENCE backs of students. mance in New York and other states, to the Executive Vice President Another notion that is under question is modularization of course offerings at Miami- MARCUS MROWKA the place of faculty at the center of the enter- Dade College (an opportunity provided by the Acting Communications Director prise, guiding the academic mission of provid- Florida Legislature). ROGER S. GLASS ing teaching, research and service. ■ The adoption of new, watered-down course Editor BARBARA McKENNA The last charming artifact of better times sequences for graduation at the City University Managing Editor in higher education is the idea that education of New York (Pathways) and the State Univer- ADRIENNE COLES is a public good that benefits civic and eco- sity of New York (Open SUNY), without the DANIEL GURSKY ANNETTE LICITRA nomic life as much as the individual, and thus consultation of faculty. VIRGINIA MYERS deserves public investment and protection. ■ The embrace of massive open online courses MIKE ROSE Contributing Editors Not to be too cynical, but for many of the and other online delivery methods that go LAURA BAKER folks leveraging power today, higher educa- around traditional faculty roles and disaggre- JANE FELLER SEAN LISHANSKY tion is viewed as a source of private gain for gate teaching and learning processes. Copy Editors financial institutions like Sallie Mae and Wells These circumventions around the faculty JENNIFER CHANG Fargo, and for for-profit education groups like and staff’s traditional roles are nothing com- Production Manager the Apollo Group, Education Management pared with the massive end run of converting MICHELLE FURMAN PAMELA WOLFE Corporation, Coursera and Pearson. Heck, as the full-time tenured academic corps into a Graphic Designers Sen. Elizabeth Warren is loudly noting, even contingent, underpaid, undersupported work- JENNIFER BERNEY the U.S. government is raking in profits on force with very little say over academic matters Production Coordinator SHARON WRIGHT student lending that it is not distributing to affecting student success. Production Specialist serve education goals. The bill she has just In this issue, we explore the implications of SHAWNITRA HAWKINS introduced, the Bank on Students Emergency broadscale deprofessionalization. We close ALICIA NICK Production Staff Loan Refinancing Act, would address that. with a report on the annual AFT higher ed is- Given their place at the heart of the enter- sues conference, where ideas crystallized AFT ON CAMPUS (ISSN 1064-1971, USPS 008-636) is published quarterly by the American Federation of prise, faculty and academic staff—the front- about how we must fight for our students and Teachers, 555 New Jersey Ave. N.W., Washington, DC line education professionals—should be in our profession. The theme was reclaiming the 20001-2079. Phone: 202-879-4400 www.aft.org the best position to frame and articulate promise of a higher education system once Periodicals postage paid at Washington, D.C., and what’s at stake in this battle over the future of touted as the envy of the world. additional mailing offices. higher education. But, faculty systematically Economist Jared Bernstein, a keynote POSTMASTER: Send address changes to AFT On Campus, have been disarmed and demonized, robbed speaker, described how the interests of a very 555 New Jersey Ave. N.W., Washington, DC 20001-2079. of their voice on professional matters, and few—the 1 percent—are holding hostage the MEMBERS: To change your address or subscription, notify your local union treasurer or visit www.aft.org/ enervated by the whittling away of academic health of our economy. AFT members really members. freedom, tenure, governance and job “get” what’s going on in this increasingly strati- Letters to the editor may be sent to the address above or to [email protected]. security. fied world, he said, urging educators to start AFT ON CAMPUS is mailed to all AFT higher education Deprofessionalization examples abound: barking an alarm for the rest of Americans who members as a benefit of membership. Subscriptions ■ In 2011, administrators at Kean University are not paying as close attention. represent $2.50 of annual dues. Nonmember subscription price is $12/year. in New Jersey asked faculty to produce time The toll taken on educational quality when © 2014 AMERICAN FEDERATION OF TEACHERS, AFL-CIO sheets to prove that they were working at least our members are deprofessionalized is mount- 35 hours a week. An incredulous KU Federa- ing. It’s time to start barking and reclaim the Cover illustration: NENAD JAKESEVIC tion of Teachers fought back. (National news promise of higher education. coverage noted that the average work week for —BARBARA MCKENNA WHERE WE STAND No Child Left Behind goes to college RANDI WEINGARTEN, AFT President YOU’VE LIKELY HEARD the horror stories Unfortunately, the bad ideas don’t end grams, we need a systemic approach to pre- from the K-12 world: Students reduced to data there. paring teachers and a higher threshold to points; teachers defined through algorithms. Last summer, the Obama administration ensure that every teacher is ready to teach on Evaluations based on the latest trend in ques- unveiled a proposal to rate higher education his or her first day in the classroom (as we tionable science—value-added modeling, or institutions based on graduation rates, gradu- outlined in the AFT Teacher Preparation Task VAM. Seasoned, well-respected educators ate earnings, student loan debt and the num- Force’s “Raising the Bar” report). We need to losing their jobs because of officials emphasiz- ber of students to receive Pell Grants. And like help programs to prepare confident and com- ing testing over teaching and learning. ratings for K-12 schools and the proposal for petent teachers, instead of penalizing them for Unfortunately, this bad idea has legs—it teacher preparation programs, these ratings not fitting into some misguided formula. isn’t limited to K-12 anymore. Proposed “re- would determine levels of federal funding. And any ratings system must take into ac- forms” in higher education are strikingly simi- As you well know, our higher education count the vast diversity of higher education lar to K-12 accountability systems already in system is made up of a wide range of institu- institutions in this country and the students place, with a disturbing focus on high-stakes tions and programs that offer educational they serve. This doesn’t mean that these in- testing. These proposals come from many of opportunities to a diverse group of people—a stitutions and our educators shouldn’t be the same people who push austerity, polariza- tion, privatization and deprofessionalization in their quest to convert our system of higher The proposed methodology is nothing more than a quick-fix, education into one that is defined as a profit- able commodity. test-and-punish, market-based approach recycled from the Some are calling it “No Child Left Behind highly flawed, data-driven policies of K-12 teacher evaluations. goes to college.” Regardless of the name, let’s stop bad ideas from becoming bad policy. Education Secretary Arne Duncan recently strength that would be undermined by any held accountable. Quite the contrary. We announced plans for new regulations to assess efforts to homogenize. must work together to ensure that all higher teacher preparation programs that would be The questions abound: How would this education institutions provide a rigorous based on the test scores of their graduates’ proposal account for different institutional education for all students, with an engaging students. Programs that graduate teachers missions, such as open-access community curriculum created by well-supported fac- with low student test scores would lose their colleges, historically black colleges and uni- ulty professionals.