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| No hassle for this tassel! |
The President of Wolf 359 College made an announcement, the jist of which was as follows:
I would like to make a brief announcement about a current legislative initiative that will impact our college. Currently legislature is attempting to pass an initiative in which our funding will be based on graduation success rates. It has not passed yet, but we will keep you posted with regards to this issue. There is no doubt that this will impact the way we do things here, should the initiative pass.
Wow, sounds like "No snowflake left behind".
Can you say grade-inflation?
Well, congratulations EMH! You job is about to get much much easier if you won't have to grade with any sort of rigour.
ReplyDeleteThe no hassle for this tassel thing made me laugh one of those sad laughs.
You have a faculty orientation?!
ReplyDeleteDid they have a cash bar at faculty orientation?
ReplyDeleteThanks Gordon for the finishing touch on the image!
ReplyDeleteYep, this sounds like what NCLB translated to the college level would look like. All the methods I can think of of actually measuring the attainment of college-level skills are far too expensive.
ReplyDeleteOf course, at the rate that students jump from school to school these days for all kinds of reasons, it may take them a decade to decide how to measure the graduation rate, let alone decide what a "successful" one would be.
Hi all, back from an Internet-less stint in the woods!
ReplyDeleteYes, we already have that for next year. We get "output-oriented" money from the state. That means that for every class they pass, we get a pittance. For every glowing graduate, we get a measly sum. For every publication my proffies produce, another pittance.
I have told people to buy as many toys as they can now. And paper. And chalk. If we keep up our standards, we may not have much money left.
@EMH
ReplyDeleteCouldn't resist. Failed art class twice while trying to date Suzie Deckyser.
Ha ha. They can't make me do that shit. I taught a course over the summer that only 10 people out of an initial 25 managed to survive with a C. Everyone else bailed or flaked out. That's fine with me.
ReplyDeleteThey could put the screws to the adjuncts, but I don't know what they could do to me. Ask me nicely to give better grades, after which I will ask them nicely to send me better students. And I will write letters to the president of my school and letters to the local paper and talk to everyone I know (including my legislators) about how fucked-up that kind of system is.
The only way we can battle this sort of bullshit is to fight it, not immediately lie down and stick our rumps up to be ass-fucked. This means the tenured folks must stand up and say NO.
But academics are by and large a bunch of cowards, so I wouldn't expect much.
Stella for President
ReplyDeleteShe'll fucking educate the shit out of your kids.
I want the bumper sticker!
ReplyDeleteNow THAT'S a bumper sticker!
ReplyDeleteI've heard some talk of this idea around the water cooler, too, and this makes me nervous in this tea-partying era of the Tea Party. I teach mostly remedial classes. Many of my students do not have the life skills to pass a class, let alone the academic skills.
I'm guessing that everyone gets an A if legislation like this is actually enacted in my neck of the higher ed woods.