[lbo-talk] More "school reform" nonsense

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Thu May 27 14:35:07 PDT 2010


brad wrote:
>
> Carrol wrote:
>
> Please tell us how to Select the Selectors, Judge the Judges. And who
> judges those who judge who should do the judging?
> Carrol
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Is that a joke?

The fatal flaw of ALL merit systems is that those who judge competence are themselvesd usually more inompetent than any of the people they arejudging.

Merit systems ALWAYS run on favoritism.

Just one example.

A couple decades ago the Dean of the College at ISU ignored the department committe on a new chair and appointed a woman who few in the department would have accepted. This woman proceeded to reduce to tears one a woman whom everyone knew was one of the jewels of the department. She then refused tenure to Roger Eason, who with his wife had created the most important center of Blake studies in the U.S. aat ISU. He and his wife easily got a better job at another school. It is so easy to say in the absttract, let's get the best people. It never particularly works but it does cause endless bickering and back-stabbing among the workforce, whether the workforce is a university faculty or the kitchen staff at Denny's.

Carrol



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list