Monthly Archives: April 2012

by | April 17, 2012 · 10:32 pm

Take 10 minutes tomorrow & join WCU’s budget protest

Spend 10 minutes of your day on Weds 4/18 making your statement against the proposed budget cuts to West Chester University! Join the  (peaceful) budget action “mob.”

Assemble at the arch between the library & Main at approximately 12:40 tomorrow. All you’ll be asked to do is stand, listen to a recorded song, and maybe hold a sign.

Help make sure decreasing state support doesn’t continue to compromise public higher education in PA. Come demonstrate against these cuts with many other faculty and students!

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by | April 7, 2012 · 4:40 pm

Other than the fact that’s already started, Mike the Mad Biologist is just right about this

Mike the Mad Biologist is one of my favorite progressive bloggers. He’s a research scientist somewhere in Boston with a strong interest in K-College public education; I’ve been reading him regularly for a couple of years now.

In this post from today (Sat), Mike traces the pathway that rightwing campaigns usually take: a think tank produces a report, Fox News and the Wall Street Journal “legitimize” it, lobbyists and other goons get hold of it, while the astroturf/grassroots generates public support for it.

Mike sees this happening to public higher ed this summer. Read the post. It’s bone-chilling and entirely believable. Although we’re not the UC system, we’ll be in the crosshairs of this too, as soon as PA legislators get wind of it.

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Filed under ALEC, APSCUF, CFHE

by | April 5, 2012 · 9:38 am

Let’s hope this isn’t precedent setting

Not the news I wanted to wake up to on an otherwise pleasant Thurs morning. In today’s Inside Higher Ed, a story about a unionized cadre of part-time instructors (the union is an AFSCME affiliate) at the City Colleges of Chicago who have ratified a contract including merit pay for “student outcomes” (read: standardized test results); the merit pay replaces their longevity raises.

I’m willing to listen to the union’s explanation for why they accepted this, but the way it’s reported in this story isn’t very convincing. And any educational plan that Rahm Emmanuel endorses is probably horrible.

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Filed under Access, Advocacy, AFSCME, Collective Bargaining, Contingent faculty, Inside Higher Ed, merit pay, Public education

by | April 4, 2012 · 4:07 pm

The Campaign for the Future of Higher Ed issues its first report

I was going to write a post about this yesterday and didn’t. Fortunately, a new post just showed up on the State APSCUF blog that says what I would have anyway.

If you aren’t familiar with CFHE (Campaign for the Future of Higher Ed), it’s a consortium/think-tank comprised of higher ed faculty/advocates, many of whom represent the actual educator contingent of Higher Education (y’know, faculty), formed to advocate publicly for the value and importance of higher education in the face of continual, well-funded, often dishonest attacks against us.

APSCUF has been a key contributor to the organization and launching of this effort.

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Filed under Advocacy, APSCUF, CFHE, Inside Higher Ed, research