Links for 7/8/10

STEVEN D. LEVITT

Tenure massively distorts the incentives of teachers. Once enacted, it becomes virtually impossible to fire a teacher. For instance, a recent BBC report says that over the last four decades, only 18 teachers in the entire U.K. have been fired for incompetence...

I see only one problem with Knowles’s argument. When it comes to getting rid of tenure, why stop with primary and secondary education? Tenure at universities is equally counterproductive. Let’s do away with it there as well.

Ben Wildavsky

For many years now, the worldwide explosion of college rankings that took off in the 1980s has prompted sharp debates about whether, and how, universities ought to be measured against one another. Some critics ask whether a university-to-university match up, either within a single nation or globally, is really the best frame of reference when a more appropriate comparison might be between academic departments within the same field. Others fear that their own nations’ institutions of higher learning will never be given a fair shake in league tables marred by the methodological biases of foreigners – hence the rise of alternative metrics such as those that occasioned the memorable headline “French Do Well in French World Rankings.”…

Jennifer Howard

the university librarian, Mark Leggott, released a campus letter to let the faculty know the institution would not be renewing its subscription to the Web of Science database…

"Any subscription increase in these challenging times is difficult, but an increase of 120 percent is simply not acceptable," Mr. Leggott wrote. "Accommodating this level of increase lends credence to the vendors' business practices, and we felt it important to make a stand against these practices." Tellingly, the letter cites the recent standoff between the University of California system and the Nature Publishing Group over journal prices…

Gary Berg via Serena Golden

Loans are often not attractive to economically disadvantaged students because of practical and cultural hesitations to taking on loan debt. The numbers indicate that low-income students tend to take out loans less often and for lower amounts than middle and upper-class students…

adjustment issues when attending college fell into three main categories or domains of experience: personal, family and structural. The individual or personal level was filled with stories of students going through identity formation transitions… The family sphere gets us into the cultural issues... Finally, the larger unequal socio-political environment provides a context for the family and personal student experiences. I was surprised by the tension and conflict I heard expressed from students in interviews about their parents. Those especially talented students who make it to college often suffer from extraordinary pressure to succeed because in a concrete way the fate of their families rests with them.