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Is There Any Dog There?

By Jim Chen et al.

The tail wagging the dog idea -- getting your ends and means reversed -- has made it into Moneylaw on a number of occasions. I am beginning to wonder what the dog is. USN&WR rankings determine what law schools do ranging from admitting transfer students, lowering class size, and employing their students, at least temporarily.

SSRN has created the cult of the download. Narrow lists so everyone is on a top ten or gerrymandering a category so you can create your own top ten. Rankings of professors and schools are generated on the basis of downloads which you can manipulate yourself.

Teaching evaluations have result in altering teaching styles not in the direction of ensuring that today's student is even better prepared than their predecessors but so the teacher can score a higher number. Some faculty obsess over a tenth of a point here and there. I've had colleagues freely admit that they decided to be funnier to raise evaluations.

Foreign programs have gone from opportunities for students to products that are sold to them oft times in hopes that the professor will get to go and not because there is some gaping hole in educational opportunities for students.

The writing requirement which I suppose at one time was instituted in hopes that people with freedom to study law would "discover" things much like a scientist has largely been diluted to a hurdle, almost a form of hazing, in order receive tenure. 7000 plus articles a year, few of which are read and even fewer of which are written because of inspiration. Instead there is a great deal of casting about -- what can I write about now? Does this edited book of reading count? If is refereed if someone asked me to do it for a symposium?

Grades are inflated in part because, as it has been expressed at my school, 1) We have to give high grades so our students can compete. 2) It hurts the students' feelings to get a C (and increasingly a B). Student ask why not raise grades even more so we can be even more competitive.

If you peel away all of the tails, would we find a dog? I assume this means 1) teachers who do their best to produce students to whom they would entrust the fates of future clients -- even their parents- regardless of the impact on evaluations, 2) writing only when you feel a pressing need to express something that may actually make a difference, 3) honestly evaluating every program to determine what it produces for the students and other stakeholders, 4) admitting students (at least to a state school) so the subsidization is fairly to given to those with promise regardless of the USN&WR affecting LSAT.

My sense is that we would find a dog. My fear is that it may be a chihuahua.

Full post as published by MoneyLaw on March 07, 2009 (boomark / email).