Seven breakthrough solutions

In our journey through the Texas Public Policy Foundation's "seven breakthrough solutions," number three "establishes separate budgeting and reward systems for teaching and research, making it possible to reward exceptional individuals in each area."

Solution one evaluated teacher effectiveness and efficiency on a metric involving teacher pay, class size and student evaluations and was found wanting. Solution two involved rewarding successful teachers based on essentially the same faulty metric. To sum up the first two solutions it seems accurate to call them well intentioned but poorly designed.

Solution number three is a bit trickier. It reiterates solution number two referring to students as customers to legitimize the use of student evaluations. Students are disconnected from the costs of an education however. Tuition is often paid by parents or through student loans, grants or scholarships disconnecting students from the cost-benefit relationship. A student's priorities today are likely far different from their priorities in the future. Classes today educate and fill time while classes in the future will pay the bills. Parents and scholarships aren't financing enjoyment of classes but knowledge learned.

The meat of solution three focuses on researchers who "will be paid based on the sponsored research dollars they attract from government, business and private donors."

The solution provides the caveat that, "faculty with tenure would have the option of shifting to the new, more lucrative reward system but would not be required to do so."

Then, "Departmental and college budgets will be based on the number of students taught and sponsored research funding attracted, with a significant bonus based on student satisfaction."

The final step in solution three intends to "encourage a culture shift to performance pay." This means, "Parking and offices will be assigned based on performance. Only faculty electing to participate under the new system would be eligible to serve in institution leadership positions."

On one hand, paying researchers based on the money they attract is a use of market forces, which could weed out research with poor prospects. On the other hand, research often takes years to understand its implications and garner financial support. The private sector can be shy when it comes to funding research in its infancy and considering state and federal budget deficits, funding options for research are scarce.

There is little doubt this would change the nature of research by tilting it towards more established and potentially viable areas, but whether or not that is a good thing is a difficult value judgment.

Basing professor's research income on research dollars attracted is a significant change in payment structure. It would effectively make researchers pay commission based.

This could bring in new established researchers in fields with ample research investment but it could also discourage researchers in less viable or profitable fields. This too is a difficult value judgment.

Regarding the rest of the implementation, it doesn't seem cost effective to absolve tenured faculty of the new requirements, though politically it is the only option. It is also presumptuous to call it a "more lucrative reward system." Without a doubt the reward system will have winners and losers.

With "departmental and college budgets being based on the number of students enrolled, sponsored funding and bonuses based on student satisfaction," the solutions continue the emphasis on student evaluations and enrollment. This misguided influence is further evidenced by giving away parking spots for "performance" which comes across as a petty consideration in the scope of higher education reform.

Solution three has the most potential as a starting point for reform, but reliance on student satisfaction ratings and class sizes remains a glaring error.

The effects of restructuring research faculty's salaries are hardly certain. It could encourage better research but could leave departments with high research funding and larger class sizes with several high paid and well-funded researchers but leave other departments with few to none.

Too many questions with too few benefits make solution three more risk than reward.

Taylor Wolken is a junior economics major and editor-in-chief of The Battalion.