And, although I don't doubt that the dumbing down of the educational
system in general (every child left behind), I haven't seen a decent
alternative to tenure that would allowed the truly gifted (and productive)
a way to continue creating and pass on knowledge. Up the tuition?

Tenure is a joke.

I live in a city with a major, world-class university. The top three
employers in the county are the University of Iowa, the University Hospitals
and Clinics, and the School District, in that order. As a result, we
reportedly have some of the best schools in the nation.

These fine folks -- all well-meaning and earnest -- are lavished with every
known benefit, from health care, to paid vacations (3 months long, plus
winter breaks, plus spring breaks!) to "sabbaticals" (more vacation) to
tenure (guaranteed-to-the-grave employment) to university-owned vehicles, to
week-long "wellness seminars" (more vacation), to six-figure salaries. The
list goes on and one, and is quite sickening.

What do we get for all this? Teacher's assistants and grad students are now
doing the lion's share of the actual teaching, while our esteemed professors
do their "research" (more vacation) -- and cannot be fired for incompetence,
laziness, or (as in Churchill's case) lunacy. It's criminal. (In fact,
the TAs and grad students have now unionized, in protest of the "slave
wages" they were paid to do all the professor's work. For once, I totally
agree with a unionizing effort, although I'd rather have seen the professors
forced to do their jobs.)

Then, just to really break your heart, tuition costs have skyrocketed each
year, far higher than the annual inflation rate, to the point where only
rich kids can attend what was once known as a "public" university.

Meanwhile, the football coach is the highest paid public employee in the
state, at well over a million (plus all of his Nike endorsements, which
brings his ANNUAL pay to well over $2 million) -- and the graduation rate
among athletes is astoundingly low.

No, the system is badly broken. Those who say we have the finest
universities in the world clearly have not observed the way they operate.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"