GOP Shouting Match, College Ranking Re-Do, and Fractured Sports
Also, a Short Stack of the Week's Best Reading
Welcome to our second edition of PTW (PaideiaTimesWeekly), which we hope brings you the same depth and breadth of information about higher education that our respected quarterly brings you – only faster, thanks to this great new platform called Substack. Enjoy. And let me know what you think.Peter Meyer, Managing Editor
DeSantis Fights Through a GOP Mud-Wrestling “Debate”
Florida governor Ron DeSantis, ridiculed by Donald Trump as “Ron DeSanctimonious” and all but squashed in the most recent polls, came out swinging at last Wednesday’s Republican debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, CA, broadcast live by Fox and “best remembered,” according to New York Times reporter Nicholas Nehamas, “for the seven candidates chaotically shouting over each other as the moderators tried to regain control. However, according to Nehamas, DeSantis “deployed a newly assertive tone against the absent Mr. Trump ” and “ultimately imposed himself on the proceedings, speaking more than any other candidate” much of that showcasing Florida’s best-in-the-nation education record, simultaneously fact-checked by NYT education reporter Dana Goldstein, who pronounced it “True…. U.S. News & World Report ranks Florida as the top state for education overall. On higher education, the state is ranked No. 1, with the publication citing the relatively affordable tuition and fees at Florida public universities and colleges.” See Further Reading for more examples of the Sunshine state’s rosy, if controversial, education record.
Further Reading
Florida Approves a Competitor to the SAT as Conservatives Try To Steer American Higher Education Back to Its ‘Roots’ (NY Sun)
After conservative overhaul, New College of Florida faces federal civil rights investigation (USA Today)
High Stakes in Florida (City Journal)
A Civil Rights Catastrophe at New College of Florida (American Greatness)
Florida universities bathroom rule moves forward (CBS News)
Biden Administration Wants Florida Accreditation Lawsuit Tossed (Inside Higher Ed)
Florida temporarily suspends political ideology surveys on college campuses (Tampa Bay Times)
College-Ranking Inertia and Whiplash
Despite enormous pressure on the behemoth of college ranking publications, U.S. News & World Report’s Best Colleges continues to counterpunch, arriving this week, “with an altered formula and few defectors,” according to the Chronicle of Higher Education. The elite colleges “maintain their dominance,” says City Journal about Best Colleges while calling attention to the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) 2024 College Free Speech Rankings, which “tells a different story.” Using data from student surveys on whether they believe it is “never acceptable” to shout down a speaker on campus or blocking other students from attending a campus speech, or using violence to stop such a speech. Georgetown, the University of South Carolina, and the University of Pennsylvania are all “Very Poor” and Harvard “Abysmal.”
Further Reading
Rankled by Rankings (Inside Higher Ed)
Harvard’s Former President Unwittingly Indicts Campus Radicalism (National Review)
U.S. News college rankings are scrambled as its formula changes (Washington Post)
U.S. News shakes up rankings methodology — but top colleges held their spots (Higher Ed Dive)
The Top U.S. Colleges for Delivering Social Mobility (Wall Street Journal)
The Top U.S. Colleges That Make Their Graduates Richer (Wall Street Journal)
Vanderbilt’s Chancellor Defends His Takedown of the Revamped ‘U.S. News’ Rankings (Chronicle of Higher Education)
Is College Sports Broken?
So says the New York Times in a blistering editorial earlier this week by Jordan Acker, a regent of the University of Michigan, citing the dismemberment of the old Pac 12 athletic conference and other such “money grab” assaults on the “amateur” status of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). Writes Acker, “There is nothing amateur about a model that negotiates billion-dollar deals and pays its coaches and administrators millions while denying athletes the ability to share in the revenue or even to have a voice in determining whether these deals are a good idea.” Needless to say, two bench-clearing hazing incidents, at Northwestern and Boston College, and one multi-million dollar football coach firing over sexual harassment charges make the broken charge easier to make. According to the AP, the big news this week was that Michigan State “terminated what’s left of Mel Tucker’s $95 million, 10-year contract for acknowledging actions that subjected the institution to ridicule, breaching his contract and moral turpitude.”
Further Reading
Revenue-sharing with major college football players seems ‘inevitable. (AP)
Remaining members of Pac-12 take legal action to confirm governance (University Business)
Dartmouth Men’s Basketball Team Makes Latest Bid for Unionization by College Athletes (Wall Street Journal)
At Michigan State, a New Scandal Raises an Old Question: Why Does This Keep Happening? (Chronicle of Higher Education)
Coach Prime Can Recruit. He Can Motivate. Can He Coach? (Wall Street Journal)
Mel Tucker Puts Michigan State in a Familiar and Uncomfortable Spotlight Over Sexual Misconduct (Wall Street Journal)
Short Stack
A Miscellany of the Week’s Other Best
Two Roads to Woke (Law & Liberty) Wokeness is about making historically marginalized groups sacred.
The Future Is Classical (First Things) Atlanta Classical Academy opened in 2014, as a K–8 school. Today, it runs to twelfth grade and has 690 students, with a waiting list of 1,500 kids.
Why DEI Training Doesn’t Work—and How to Fix It (Wall Street Journal) There’s no question that bias exists. There’s also no question that the way organizations deal with it is more likely to hurt than help.
The Government Finally Puts a Number on the Discrimination Against Black Colleges (The Atlantic) Some of the institutions were underfunded by billions of dollars compared with their white peers.
Hail, West Virginia (Claremont Review of Books) American higher education cannot go on as it has.
The Debunker, Debunked (City Journal) Center-left intellectuals would prefer to act as if the revolution of 2020 never happened.
Student loan payments are coming back (The Hill) Student loan payments return Sunday with hope, confusion and fear clouding the restart after a three-year pause.
What the Public Really Thinks about Higher Education (The Chronicle) Americans today believe in the value of a college credential, but they aren’t convinced higher education is fulfilling its promise to society.