Open World Conference of Workers
In Defense of Trade Union Independence & Democratic Rights
Reflections on the Conference on Online Education:
What Are The
Forces Driving the Rapid Growth of Online Education?
By DAN KAPLAN, Executive Secretary, AFT Local 1493
I want to offer a personal commentary on two related themes that I
heard articulated frequently at the CSM Conference on Online Education: 1)
the decision to employ and then accelerate the use of online education in
California Community Colleges has not been faculty-driven, that the
origins of this public policy comes from somewhere else; and 2) that in
the implementation of this shift in educational/ pedagogical policy,
administrators have often used various forms of coercion, especially in
relation to part-time faculty who have no security of employment.
There was a certain sentiment that I heard often expressed at the
Conference -even by faculty who articulated different points of view on
the various issues being discussed-that the impetus to use online
education did not come from the ranks of the faculty. What are the driving
forces promoting learning at a distance? No one at the
Conference-certainly none of the featured plenary speakers- offered an
analysis that expressed disagreement with the hypothesis that David Noble
presented at the Conference, and has written about extensively. That is,
that extremely powerful corporations (including software and hardware
corporations, but not limited to just these) have targeted American higher
education as a potentially huge new market that they want to expand into.
This is not to say that no one at the Conference disagreed with Noble's
analysis. But it is to say that those who disagreed with his argument
failed to present an alternative analysis, or to even engage Noble in a
discussion of their differences.
Do Corporations Want to Improve Education or Increase Profits?
Why do these corporations want to do this? Do they want their new
educational technologies to be rapidly integrated into the curriculum of
higher education (before there has really been any serious discussion
among most faculty in the State about the value of these technologies,
while the serious research is very inconclusive and question-begging)
because they want to improve the quality of higher education? Or is it
because the very reason for a corporation to exist is to achieve profit
maximization. As Henry Ford said, he was not in the business of making
cars. He was in the business of making money. He made cars simply as a
means to this end. It is not very difficult to extend the analogy to
online education and the many corporations that support its rapid
expansion immediately. As David Noble said at the Conference, corporations
have already transformed healthcare in this country with the rise of
HMO's. Now they are trying to achieve similar results in higher education
with the creation of what Wall Street is calling EMO's-Educational
Maintenance Organizations! It is important to consider what is motivating
the rapid increase of online education throughout higher education. If
faculty were not the driving force in advocating for this-the people who
actually do the teaching and who should therefore be centrally responsible
for changes in pedagogy-isn't there something wrong with this picture? In
fact, how could such a situation come about? How could a major change in
what constitutes higher education be introduced into the curriculum
without the faculty in control of the process? If the drive toward online
education is not faculty-initiated, then precisely where did this public
policy come from? How public policy is developed in the United States has
been the subject of much original research by U.C. Santa Cruz Professor of
Psychology and Sociology, G.William Domhoff. This research employs the
class dominance paradigm, a particular theoretical approach to studying
how wealth and power are structured and operate in American society.
Domhoff describes how public policy is developed through the efforts of
"(1) a small social upper class (2) rooted in the ownership and
control of a corporate community that (3) is integrated with a
policy-planning network and (4) has great political power in both
political parties and dominates the federal government in
Washington."
Policy Planning and Power Elite
I believe that Domhoff's approach best explains how public policy is
made. Without in any way wanting to play down the importance of the other
three component parts of Domhoff's research paradigm, let me focus on the
role played by the policy-planning network in the construction of public
policy. This network consists, as Domhoff writes, "of (1)
foundations, (2) think tanks, (3) specialized research institutes at major
universities, and (4) general policy discussion groups, where members of
the upper class and corporate community meet with experts from the think
tanks and research institutes, journalists, and government officials to
discuss policy, ideology, and plans (PIP) concerning the major issues
facing the country." Domhoff argues that "the policy-planning
network is, in fact, the programmatic political party for the upper class
and the corporate community, a major element in the power elite." And
that "the think tanks in the network are highly specialized research
groups that produce the PIP that are argued about in the policy discussion
groups."
Think Tanks, Foundations & Institutes That Incubate Policy
Let me say quite explicitly that this policy-formation network is not
in any sense a conspiracy. Rather, what Domhoff is presenting is really an
institutional analysis of the structure of power in American society, of
how it is organized and controlled by the upper class and corporate
community, acting through their power elite, the most politically active
members of the dominant class in society. In the case of the rise of
online education, I think this policy has been promoted by
corporate-funded think tanks most active on matters related to public
education in general, and higher education in particular; foundations
concerned with community colleges; research institutes at elite
universities in the State working on distance education, and various elite
policy discussion groups active in the State on education policy issues.
It is in these kinds of policy arenas where there has already been serious
discussion of why online education should be promoted, what the goals to
be achieved by the expansion of online education are, as well as
alternative policy proposals concerning how best to implement online
education in the California higher education system. This is where policy,
ideology and plans (PIP) are discussed thoroughly. This is where and how
public education policy is made. Faculty, especially from the community
colleges, are not typically part of this policy-making process. Yet, this
is the public policy process in general terms that culminated in the
institutional decision to promote online education in California community
colleges. It was a new policy that the most powerful groups in the
State-economically, politically, and socially-wanted to see implemented,
whatever their reasons might be. In other words, public policy in the U.S.
typically develops without real input from the public, traditional
democratic understandings of American society notwithstanding.
Part Timers & Job Applicants Affected by Online Education Policies
Faculty who are full-time and have tenure, of course, are able to
ignore the whole issue of teaching online if they choose to do so. This is
the main reason, I think, why so many faculty have not yet thought about
many of the issues related to computer-mediated instruction. No one is
going to require tenured faculty members to adopt a pedagogical approach
that they have no interest in. But the situation facing part-time faculty
in California community colleges, some 30,000 men and women, is not so
simple when it comes to the question of teaching classes online. The
situation facing faculty who want to be hired to teach full-time at a
California community college is also now complicated by issues related to
online education. There was quite a bit of discussion at the Conference
concerning both sets of issues.
Horror Stories from Part Timers
I heard more than a few horror-stories from non-tenure track faculty
at the Conference concerning various forms of coercion that had been
applied by an administrator, probably a Division Dean, who wanted to
launch a new class section online and couldn't find anyone interested,
competent to do so, or interested in learning how. The person responsible
for assigning you classes each semester wants you to learn how to teach
online. What if you have simply no interest in teaching your class with a
computer? Lots of part-time faculty feel this way. Some part-time faculty
even leave teaching because they feel their chances of obtaining a
full-time position are minimal given their lack of interest in online
teaching. One faculty member told the story of how he left teaching. He
then tried out technical writing, but found it boring. But he then was
able to obtain a full-time teaching job because of his new technical
background! Ironically, this faculty member is once again not interested
in teaching online! But when part-timers get that rare opportunity to
interview for a full-time teaching position, invariably they are asked if
they have an interest in teaching online, if they have ever designed
and/or taught a class online. To express no interest whatsoever in putting
together an online class almost always turns out-when the final selection
is announced-to be a bad career move. Yet I heard from most part-time
faculty that there was usually no compensation available to design an
online class, no money to purchase any software, no release time possible
to take a class to learn the new technology. Often, there is very little
or no technical support. And some part-time faculty spoke about the
experience of designing a class, paying for it out of their own pocket,
and then the class was not in the end offered. Or it was taught by someone
else, in the most horrible version of the story.
How Are Online Requirements Added to Job Announcements?
Finally, there was another very serious issue that several faculty
members raised in different Conference sessions. Tenured faculty who are
sitting on faculty hiring committees in all sorts of disciplines are now
regularly finding that the job announcement contains language concerning
the desirability of being able to teach online, of being able to convert
your classes to the online format, of being an enthusiastic proponent of
online education. But the faculty members on the hiring committee did not
make the determination that this was a most important and necessary
qualification for a full-time teaching position in their particular
discipline. This language came from the administration, and it was thought
to be a management right to include this language in the materials put
together for recruiting for faculty positions. In other words, the faculty
as discipline experts responsible for curriculum and faculty hiring and
evaluation, is now being eroded. I heard often from faculty at the
Conference that almost all new faculty job announcements contain language
promoting the use of online education. Rarely were the faculty on the
hiring committee responsible for the inclusion of this language.
Online Education Conference Run by Faculty With No Vendors Allowed
I would like to end by noting that the most gratifying comments that I
heard from faculty attendees at the Conference on Online Education
concerned two related observations. The first was that one of the most
interesting aspects of the Conference was that it was organized by faculty
(under the auspices of a faculty union, AFT Local 1493) for faculty! The
other observation that I heard from many faculty members, including from
plenary speakers, was how unusual (and even refreshing) the Conference was
in that there were no vendors there selling their wares. Apparently at all
of the conferences that are held related to online education, corporations
active in the computer industry are in attendance, viewing the event as a
marketplace where business can be conducted. The Conference planning
committee consciously decided early on that the Conference was to be a
forum where different points of view would engage in serious discussion,
and that it would be inappropriate for those wanting to sell various
educational technologies (the value of which would be a topic under
discussion at the Conference) to do so at our event. That this common
sense decision was thought by many to be unusual or different is no doubt
a sign of our times.