Conflict of Interest or Lack of Prudence?

I’ve been curious for some time about conflict of interest issues that may lurk in the investments of appointees to NACIQI and the Secretary’s Commission on the Future of Higher Education. Most members are not seasoned civil servants, some are entrepreneurs with investments (current or past) in proprietary institutions and all are human beings, not angels.

So today’s report in InsideHighered.com on Coca Cola (and other) corporate sponsorship of the Secretary’s “education summit” has raised some eyebrows.

Before jumping to conclusions, consider that the companies themselves do not directly benefit from sponsorship of this sort; none are testing companies. And, various govt. programs have always sought private sector support when appropriate. So this report raises the question of whether the decision to seeking corporate underwriting is prudent.

And,is there an appearance of a conflict of interest? Why the upscale accoutrements that appear to run counter to the Secretary’s concern about affordability of education?

Charles Miller who chairs the Secretary’s Commission is key to these types of conflict of interest questions and he is the proponent of national testing. His comments in this report suggest that he is also clueless when it comes to the prupose of “higher education” as opposed to “training.”

In the Reagan era fellas like Miller used to purchase machine guns for Jonas Savimbi or donate to the Contras. That cohort of conservative entrepreneurs is gone, and in this era Texas businessmen by the dozens like Miller now serve on blue ribbon presidential panels and volunteer for government service while writing big checks to their political patrons.

But their inclinations are as big as Texas, and as bold, and likely to betray conflicts of interests.

Curious George, at 6:50 am EDT on April 30, 2007

What reality Craig?

So Craig, what is the reality of “corporate America,” both in terms of getting involved in higher education and in general?

Joseph C, at 8:10 am EDT on April 30, 2007

Misses the point!

The possible conflict-of-interest problems with arms-length corporate sponsorship differ categorically from the kinds of structural conflicts inherent in the present system of regional accreditation.

In fact, you could say that the downside of the current scheme of monopolistic self-regulation in American higher education dwarfs any of these other potential conflicts.

The inner workings of the accrediting guilds have long prompted florid speculation about cabals and vendettas; and the courts have even faulted SACS, the regional association of the South, for “conflict of interest.”

There is, as well, the lack of objectivity of mandatory reaffirmation self-study, and the so-called peer review which is just another form of self-review. All these represent self-interest and conflict-of-interest at the highest level. This is the reason that these monopolies are characterized as “accrediting guilds.”

The first step in dismantling these higher education guilds is to break them up into smaller organizations that are able to put the public interests first, replacing the institutional foci of the present guilds.

Critics have long lamented the inefficiencies of supersized accrediting guilds. Next, potential areas of conflict-of-interest must be excised, neutralized, and replaced with healthier processes.

The argument that the federalization of accreditation is a threat to educational diversity misses the obvious: the present bloated guild-bureaucracies are far too removed from the schools and public that they serve, and have already effectively eliminated diversity. It is time to downsize and downshift.

Glen S. McGhee, Dir., at Florida Higher Education Accountability Project, at 9:05 am EDT on April 30, 2007

It is interesting how right wingers who are in favor of small government, and are against Stalinist centralized control think that the federal government should be telling educators what to do. Of course its true that the federal government holds the purse strings, and like the right wingers, I am asking whose money it is to begin with. Its hard to say though who has the least credibility when it comes to higher education, the Bush administration, CocaCola, or 1000 other people who haven’t been inside a college classroom in 20 or 30 years.

Jerry, at 10:10 am EDT on April 30, 2007

THE taxpayers??

I love that Charles Miller defends corporate overrepresentation on the committee by noting that corporations are “THE taxpayers” who foot the bill for higher education. I too am a taxpayer...and an college educator, a citizen, an occasional Coke-drinker, a consumer of various corporate-provided products and services, among other things. And though I’ve not been able to find or pay for any loopholes or tax shelters for my admittedly meagre contributions to the federal till, I still think I too should have a say in how those precious dollars are spent. At the very least, I’d like to be represented by people, like myself, who actually educate college students.

It’s not that I think corporations should be excluded from such policy-making bodies, since they do have a legitimate, vested interest in a well-educated populace—though I wonder how much they invest in educating their overseas workers—and they have some useful knowledge to contribute, if not nearly as much as Miller et al would like to believe. But to hand over the problems of higher education largely to private industry that does not, and cannot, know how to teach—-not job-train, but teach—students to make their way in the world, often from one career to another to another, is like allowing Kenneth Lay to help set energy policy. And we know how well that turned out.

Angela Green, at 11:50 am EDT on April 30, 2007

I assume its perfectly legal. But it is interesting that Coke selected this cause to donate rather than some other cause.

Jerry, at 4:10 pm EDT on April 30, 2007

Better Coke than the taxpayers?

If the DOE is going to hold their meetings in such fancy places as the Willard Intercontinental, or the Paradise Point Resort and Spa (http://www.paradisepoint.com/default.aspx?pageid=phototours), the site of the Commission’s meeting in San Diego last year, I’d almost rather that a corporation help pay for it than that the taxpayers foot the whole bill. Almost.

The real question is, why do these meetings have to be such high-class affairs? They ought to be held on college campuses, or at airport hotels.

Edith, at 7:55 pm EDT on April 30, 2007

Better PR

I do agree with Edith and folks that there are better way to use those money and improve their PR... And maybe if we keep talking and sending message to those companies they may change their mind.

Duncan, at 8:35 am EDT on May 1, 2007