The discussion of public higher education in Kentucky is making more noise than sense. Too many people, including some who are under obligation to know better, are assuming that the more we spend on our public universities the better they will automatically become. The words "education" and "research" are thrown at us as if they were good beyond question, in the apparent absence of any qualitative standard by which to judge the effects.
In the absence of a responsible consideration of what education in Kentucky ought to be, we are offered public relations slogans and business jargon: "Bucks for Brains," "STEM" (science, technology, engineering, mathematics), "Top 20," "economic development," "business plan," "return on investment," "technological advance," "degree productivity," "a new economic order," "the global marketplace," and so on, evidently without limit.
All this supposedly will cure us of the "Kentucky uglies." Such language conveys no thought, and it is calculated to prevent thought. It treats education as a commodity having no value greater than its value on the "job market," and it conceives of schools merely as economic machines.
And now in its editorial, "Dissing the future," of Jan. 13, The Courier-Journal further obscures the subject of education by comparing "star faculty" to "star athletes" who "won't go where they see no future." Since the editorial is a defense of the "Bucks for Brains" program, one must conclude that "future" means big salaries for "star faculty," presumably with big brains. According to the editorial, "real stars" are valuable because they bring grant money, labs, researchers, investigators, graduate students and prestige.
http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080127/OPINION04/801270442/1016/OPINION
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