‘Stakeholders Approach to Ed.’

City University trustees and Chancellor Matthew Goldstein deserve credit for raising academic standards and achieving some cost-efficiencies at the university [John P. Avlon, “Stakeholders Approach to Higher Ed.,” Opinion, November 29, 2005].

Yet, contrary to Mr. Avlon’s opinion, the chancellor’s “New Compact for Public Higher Education” is not “wise” but rather managerially irrational, like most other recent plans for resolving public higher education’s financial woes. (The same holds true, for example, for Acting Chancellor John Ryan’s recent proposal for a 12% increase in spending at the State University of New York.)

This compact (like the SUNY plan) demands increased taxpayer support without systematically evaluating, in detail and with valid comparability, faculty teaching/research, and administrative, productivity (where the majority of expenditures lie) as well as performance – thus avoiding the politically sticky issues of whether some faculty members might teach more and better (they can) or whether there is administrative bloat (there is). Nor is the plan founded upon an explicit system of rewards and withholding of rewards to stimulate productivity and performance.

The compact also proposes to build in annual tuition increases – a sort of deus ex machina presupposing that management is incapable of containing costs and that both costs and tuition can only rise. Thus, it absolves administrators, trustees and politicians of one of their basic duties, that is, controlling costs while providing quality education. Enhancing faculty and administrative productivity, in particular, could well lead to tuition decreases.

What’s needed at the City University of New York and SUNY, and throughout public higher education, is a dose of rational and politically courageous management. Absent such direction – increasingly the rule in other large organizations – there is one stakeholder whose interest will continue to be neglected: the taxpayer. And the public can expect ever mounting costs and managerial inefficiencies, met primarily by avoidable tuition increases.

CANDACE DE RUSSY
Bronxville, N.Y.
Ms. de Russy, a SUNY trustee and Hudson Institute fellow, writes on educational and cultural issues.

‘Sharon Launches New Party’

Ariel Sharon is more than militarily astute; he is politically brilliant. The naming of the new party “Kadima” is right on. His major platform for the party, to abandon the “land for peace” concept of in favor of “independence based on security,” breaks the status quo and boldly opens new political venues [“Sharon Launches New Party,” Eli Lake, Page 1, November 22, 2005].

Kadima will back President Bush’s Roadmap all the way but not by giving up more land. Rather, Israel will support a Palestinian state based on ironclad security. This is a big blow to the terrorists and a boon to the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, and those Palestinians who are serious about finally establishing a state.

The stipulation will not, per say, force Mr. Abbas into a direct confrontation with Hamas and Islamic Jihad because now they will clearly be seen by their terrorist acts as impeding the imminent creation of a state.

Mr. Abbas thus doesn’t have to confront them directly and it is quite possible that he will back the Kadima policy if Mr. Sharon is re-elected and is able to form a new coalition.

Mr. Bush might be taken aback at first but will see the wisdom in the Kadima plan because, for one thing, the Land-for-Peace under the Oslo Accords of a former prime minister, Ehud Barak, ended in failure and in the intifada.

For another, Mr. Sharon is committing his party to the Roadmap while the Likud under Bibi Netanyahu and Uzi Landau has not given any indication that it will back the Roadmap.

Besides, Mr. Bush may have no choice but to back the centrists because the call of Amir Peretz of Labor is utterly anachronistic in its design to move Israel back to the policies it had under David Ben Gurion and Golda Meir.

Neither would Washington support the stalwarts of Likud, which harbors some hardened hawks as Yisrael Beiteinu and members of the Knesset as Avigdor Lieberman and Moshe Feiglin.

When the dust settles after Mr. Sharon’s courageous move, I think many leaders in the religious parties will opt to join Kadima, most especially the National Religious Party, because cities and settlements in Judea and Samaria will no longer be up for negotiation as was feared when Mr. Sharon announced he was quitting Likud to form his own party.

The land surrender buck stopped at the Gaza withdrawal. But before Mr. Sharon, Silvan Shalom and company visit the White House again, they will have to convince more Likud stalwarts to jump the party line for the good of the country. That may not be all that easy. Serious politics in Israel is destined for some heavy wrangling before the general elections of March 28, 2006.

RAY KESTENBAUM
Rego Park, N.Y.

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