from an article in Sunday’s New York Times by Prof David Kirp called “Teaching is not a Business”:
“TODAY’S education reformers believe that schools are broken and that business can supply the remedy…. Marketplace mantras dominate policy discussions…. This approach might sound plausible in a think tank, but in practice it has been a flop.
“While technology can be put to good use by talented teachers, they, and not the futurists, must take the lead. The process of teaching and learning is an intimate act that neither computers nor markets can hope to replicate. Small wonder, then, that the business model hasn’t worked in reforming the schools — there is simply no substitute for the personal element.”
You can read the whole of the article at the NYTimes site. While it’s mostly about primary education and particular intiatives in the USA, it clearly applies to higher education as well.