A draft report from Sec. Spellings' Commission on the Future of Higher Education was released yesterday. Most of what I have to say about it is here, at the always timely and informative InsideHigherEd.com. One point to add: over the course of the months in which the commission has been meeting, the chairman, Charles Miller, has leveled a number of sharp critiques at the American higher education system. While the report runs to 27 pages, it's actually quite succinct in laying out all of those criticisms along with evidence to support them.
Yet while both Miller and the report have been heavily criticized by various members of the higher education establishment, virtually none of the criticisms actually address, or refute, the charges he's made. Instead, everyone has complained about issues of "tone," calling the report "mean-spirited," "hostile," "confrontational," etc. etc. Despite the fact that the stakes of this debate are enormously high, both for the millions of students attending college and society at large, people seem most concerned that a frank discussion of the issues is somehow...impolite.
As they say in law, if you've got the facts on your side, pound the facts. If you've got the law on your side, pound the law. If you have neither the facts nor the law on your side, pound the table. The chorus of table-pounding from the defenders of the higher education status quo is very telling.
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