[Pen-l] Micromanagement: Medicine and Education

[Michael Perelman <michael@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

A few months ago, I commented on a New York Times article bemoaning efforts 
to micromanage medical care -- medicine by the numbers:
http://michaelperelman.wordpress.com/2008/09/19/two-vignettes-of-regulation-i/

A few days ago, Wall Street Journal published a similar article, arguing 
that good medical care requires considerable discretion on the part of 
doctors and that micromanaging is destructive.
Groopman, Jerome and Pamela Hartzband. 2009. "Why 'Quality' Care Is 
Dangerous: The Growing Number of Rigid Protocols Meant to Guide Doctors 
Have Perverse Consequences." Wall Street Journal (8  April): p. A 13.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123914878625199185.html

Yesterday's New York Times informed its readers that the Obama 
administration is going to continue the No Child Left Behind nonsense of 
the Bush administration.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/15/education/15educ.html?_r=1&em

While tens of thousands are getting fired and schools are cutting back 
vital programs, mandating multiple-choice tests will somehow save public 
education.  Of course, the schools that cannot afford teachers who have to 
lay out money for tests and to waste valuable teaching time teaching toward 
the test.

My own university is asking us to us provide some sort of quantitative 
measure of our success in educating students. Because we teach a broader 
mix of subjects, we are not faced a cookie cutter approach as extreme as 
K-12, education.  The demand is that we devise our own metric.  Are 
economics students to demonstrate the quality of their education by 
regurgitating market fundamentalism?  

 -- Michael 
Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929

Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
michaelperelman.wordpress.com
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