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Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

The LAT, The Regents, and The Conventional Wisdom

By Michael Meranze

With so extensive a demand, it follows that a very large part of our social comment--and nearly all that is well regarded--is devoted at any time to articulating the conventional wisdom.  To some extent, this has been professionalized.  Individuals, most notably the great television and radio commentators, make a profession of knowing and saying with great elegance and unction what their audience will find most acceptable.  But, in general, the articulation of the conventional wisdom is a prerogative of academic, public, or business position.  Thus any individual, on being elected president of a college or university, automatically wins the right to enunciate the conventional wisdom.
                     John Kenneth Galbraith

The Los Angeles Times responded with remarkable alacrity to the news that California legislators--concerned by the continual fee hikes and the size of executive compensation at UC and CSU--might begin to demand greater oversight over how state monies are spent in higher education.  Indeed, I can't think of a more rapid response to an educational issue from the Editorial Board in recent years.  One day we hear that legislators are considering certain steps, the next day we get a counter-blast from the state's leading newspaper.  But is this abstract possibility really the most pressing issue for the LAT to weigh in on?  What is the fuss all about?  The editorial gives clues about what is really at stake--and it gives a glimpse into the conventional wisdom of California's elite opinion makers.

Entitled "The Road To Mediocrity," the editorial opines that "The Legislature should not be allowed to micromanage the UC and CSU systems."  While I, too, am wary of the legislature intervening in the everyday operation of UC and CSU (recent developments in states like Texas and Washington are enough to give one pause) there is a problem here: even according to the LAT's own reporting no one is proposing "micro-managing" the two systems.  Instead legislators are contemplating placing limits on executive pay and student tuition and demanding greater transparency.  I can understand why UCOP and the Regents might not like these ideas, but the LAT?

To be sure, this refusal to look hard at the Regents and upper-management is not out of character for the paper.  After all, the only person at the LAT who was willing to say anything about Dick Blum's apparent conflict of interest regarding online education was Michael Hiltzik

But to be fair the real action is elsewhere.  The issue of micro-managing is actually about market forces.  After shedding symbolic tears on behalf of students whose tuition was raised the Editorial Board moves onto its concrete gripe with the legislature: it didn't raise fees high enough on community college students.  Let's forget that CC college fees more than doubled between 2003 and 2005, let's forget that more and more students are being driven from the CSU and UC system into the Community Colleges (already overburdened) because of the rising fees at the universities, the micro-management that the LAT apparently fears is that the legislature will get in the way of letting universities charge students as much as they can.

Despite its claim to defend the Master Plan and the multiple functions of the UC, the Editorial Board is unable to see any source of income other than students.  Increasing Community College fees may seem like a small step to the LAT, but the Community Colleges already serve the poorest students, many part-time as they work to support themselves and their families.  Given that they are the essential entry point to higher education for many it is absolutely central that they be as open as possible.  Funding needs to come from somewhere besides the students.  And while the Editorial Board is  worried that the UCs and the CSUs will price themselves too high the only alternative they imagine is cutting labor costs.  While they now claim that the University needs to stay in the race for "top managers and star professors" they previously suggested that the furloughs be extended a year because most professors wouldn't actually leave because of the pay cuts (since most, I suppose, had nowhere to go).

The LAT should be taking the lead in calling for a more equitable tax system to address the structural problems that we face.  At the least they should push for ending a tax structure designed to shield corporations and commercial real estate or and argue that the power of finance capital (on the Regents and beyond) be curbed.  Instead they, like the austerity mongers in Washington and elsewhere, are calling for the burdens of the economic crisis to be borne by those who are already burdened the most. 

The play of the market, rather than any shared vision of a common good, drives the vision of the Times--and the history of the last few years has done nothing to shake it.  And in this belief they replicate the conventional wisdom of those who benefit from today's plutocracy, i.e. those who have created the economic crisis in the first place.

7 comments:

cloudminder said...

first off, great debate over the "the state's leading newspaper." perhaps more subscriptions 'cause its LA, but....

second, reading that piece we knew there were entrenched monied interests behind the scenes making calls requesting the phrases "the legislature wants to micromanage blah blah blather" this is just part of the political game

in a smaller scenario UC scares the student newspapers over the transparency bill on auxiliaries (see Daily Cal editorial on SB 330 and the ASUC bookstore) - disinformation campaigns are alive and well.

let us also recall UC and Chamber of Commerce ties

and the resultant never ending scandals

but this time the K- 12 group (huge) are indeed angry at UC - the funding it received etc- big time! (Samuels comments on the last post were right on target)

let's see what happens - seems January is going be an interesting month for a number of reasons.

Anonymous said...

So I don't think the solution is to make UC subject to the political whims of a dysfunctional Legislature. A better solution would be to create a more effective process for selecting Regents.

Michael Meranze said...

Anonymous--
I agree with you there--as I indicated in my post I have doubts about legislative intervention to any great degree. But the point is that no one is really talking about that possibility but the LAT who use it as a fear tactic to get to raising fees. It is pretty typical of their approach to this--either students or workers have to pay. Never any more equitable tax system or limits at the top.

Catherine Liu said...

Michael -- Great analysis of the LAT editorial. I've been wondering if there isn't some way we can find a way of reaching out to good legislators who really care about the UC...and help them ask for more transparency and recruit them to help us find a way to throw out the Regents.

sachin chaudhary said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Gerry Barnett said...

Let's see. The conventional wisdom is, there is just not enough money in the state for UC.

The conventional wisdom is, UC administration has worked tirelessly to advocate for the importance of UC to the state in an effort to secure the most favorable funding it can.

The conventional wisdom is, UC will have to go private. It's diplomas are private credentials purchased by individuals to improve their prospects for employment and income.

The conventional wisdom is, the lack of funding means raising tuition, more students paying out of state tuition, and cuts to the programs and employees that are politically weak.

The conventional wisdom is that UC's excellence is just fine, that it is as administratively efficient as it could possibly be, and that UC is essential to the economic vitality of the state.

So, who is creating this conventional wisdom?

It appears that the Regents *want* the outcomes pointed to by the conventional wisdom. They *want* higher tuition. They *want* administration to prevail over academics. They have created a the conventional wisdom that any further argument for state funding of UC is merely an attempt to preserve faculty entitlements and inefficient minor functionaries like departmental assistants.

It is as if there has been a huge loss of faith--between state government and university, administration and faculty, faculty and students, university and public.

What public acts by faculty and students would defy all this conventional wisdom, not play into the hands of administrators who want the blimp to come down, and establish a new conventional wisdom, in which academic efforts represent hope and capability for the future?

Michael Meranze said...

Gerry--that seems exactly right to me. And you have asked the $64,000 dollar question.

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