Rick Perry’s War Against the University of Texas
… is either from the Bible or common sense.
Rick Perry is at war with the University of Texas at Austin and, indeed, the State Constitution of Texas, at least if you believe the thoroughly bipartisan and rapidly growing cast of critics.
What began in 2008 as a seemingly innocuous enough—although, frankly, not very well thought out set of reform proposals for the manner in which Texas’ public universities conducted business—has turned into an all out political brawl between Rick Perry (and his groupies on the Board of Regents) and University of Texas alumni.
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First, we should outline the contours of the conflict. In 2008, Rick Perry unveiled “seven breakthrough solutions” that he argued would inject much needed market forces into the University of Texas system. Among these ideas, Mr. Perry proposed separating teaching and research, rating professors based on student assessments, and punishing classes that did not generate enough revenue. Perry’s seven “ideas” actually identify real problems worthy of examination and perhaps modest reform measures.
But there is nothing modest about Rick Perry’s plan for the University of Texas (if he gets his way). In Perry’s world, a class that teaches Shakespeare is an idiotic waste of time since, honestly, what good is a bunch of knowledge about some old writer anyway. And furthermore, it’s losing revenue since most young college students are not keen to sit in class at 8 am attempting to master the nuances of the aforementioned works of one William Shakespeare. So he would get rid of those professors and their classes. Perry would also probably drive off all of the research freaks that many of you encountered during your college days who hate students because they think students are stupid.
Of course, having not spent all that much time around the classroom back in his college days, Perry is perhaps unaware that these arrogant freaks also tend to conduct the most groundbreaking research, which probably explains why they are so pleased with themselves in the first place.