Over at the fabulous "Empirical Legal Standards" blog, a new program unveiled by the University of Michigan Law School called "Wolverine Scholars" is criticized as a move away from standards and a "rankings grab" designed solely to artficially bump U-M's average Law student GPA so as to also bring U-M up in national prestige rankings (which include GPA as a criteria).

One of ELS's comments points out the "elephant in the room," that the program, which would allow only U-M undergrads with a GPA greater than 3.80 who have not yet taken an LSAT to apply to Law School under "holistic review", would give U-M a perfect opportunity to bypass Proposal 2 (since it can't ask other undergrad schools for racial IDs, and since a student on U-M's own campus will have a reputation including racial identity that can be easily ascertained by fellow U-M Law School admissions officers with a few phone calls) because it further clouds the process and eliminates a standard of measurement (the LSAT test, meaning that future racial compositions couldn't be easily challenged because some of students wouldn't have comparative LSAT data EVEN AVAILABLE for review). The nice think about ELS's though, in a way, is that it ignores the race preference issue and is critical of U-M solely because the new system is standardless and will create other unintended consequences.

Read the whole analysis, and you'll get the gist of what's going on. We're following the story deeper as well, so stay tuned.

Zarko Research enjoyed 2007.

It was a year in which the Michigan Education Association (MEA) sued (May 8) to stop us from using FOIA to uncover misuse of taxpayer-funded resources by union leaders in the Howell Public School system during a collective-bargaining battle. Nothing wrong with aggressive bargaining - just don't use public resources to tip the hand in your favor. The Detroit News opined in our favor here.

Since that litigation began, Zarko Research has properly joined the matter. The story related to the Howell e-mail FOIA lawsuit spawned this whole category here, and has already resulted in a limited production of e-mails.

In July, this blog again set trends in publishing the salary databases, with serious statistical analysis of employee growth rates and salary increases, of the University of Michigan and Michigan State University. The data debunked the notion that higher-education tuition increases were a result of lack of legislative appropriate or "cuts" by the legislature. The increases are explained by grotesque growth rates in bureaucracy and administration at all universities - where competition is either perverse or non-existent. Here is The U-Michigan analysis and the
MSU analysis.

Finally, in August and September, Zarko Research spawned new blogs, with the idea of increasing the penetration and prominence of our publishing business to more niches, locally and statewide. This blog remains intended for the issues we've focused on in the past, and for a "hodgepodge" of other miscellaneous issues not easily fit into the boxes of "OutsideLansing.com" and "OaklandPolitics.com".

OutsideLansing has broke significant original news, including the filing of a campaign finance complaint against billionaire Jon Stryker in November, and FOIA'd e-mail from Central Michigan University on the Dennis Lennox case cited by Dawson Bell in the Detroit Free Press just this month. OaklandPolitics tapped into the presidential election news cycle, breaking the story of Paul Garfield's termination from the Ron Paul campaign, covering Duncan Hunter's speech here in Pontiac with original video, and covering a number of other issues.

And the force is with both blogs as the statewide columnist Jack Lessenberry has equated Zarko Research to "Zark-Vader".

Of course, there are a thousand little threads leftover I haven't mentioned, and several of them will wind their way into 2008, but look forward to more of the same and some curveballs. Full speed ahead.

For readers familiar with my work in 2003 Wall St. Journal expose and FOIA work (resulting in another FOIA win for ZR, but only after U-M stalled it long enough to evade impact on the case) attempting to get the simple numerical underpinnings of the so-called expert testimony of Patricia Gurin which eventually became part of the rationale behind Grutter v. Bollinger, yesterday's commentary in the WSJ by Gail Heriot (now a Commissioner for the US Commission on Civil Rights!).

Take William Kidder, a University of California staff advisor and co-author of a frequently cited attack of Sander's study. When Mr. Sander and his co-investigators sought bar passage data from the State Bar of California that would allow analysis by race, Mr. Kidder passionately argued that access should be denied, because disclosure "risks stigmatizing African American attorneys." At the same time, the Society of American Law Teachers, which leans so heavily to the left it risks falling over sideways, gleefully warned that the state bar would be sued if it cooperated with Mr. Sander.

Sander's work on cascading and the implication that race preferences might actually reduce the number of blacks that become lawyers (increased students but increase bar failure rates that more than offset it) is the kind of the work that you apparently only get to do once in the diversity industry. The red-herrings of privacy are oft repeated - but the data almost never contains that personal information because by law and good practices that stuff has to be protected even from the routine users of the data when it is created.

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This one's a real doosy. Perhaps inspired by the language of the automobile industry, an Oakland University Professor has produced a real clunker, as reported in the Oakland Press:

"As you look at how systems live and die, we're entering the death rattle," Dessert said. "We're entering a phase where there will be no escaping."

That's pretty apocalyptic. I think I'll either have to bone up on my physics and black hole spatial mechanics, or re-read Revelations. What exactly is this guy talking about:

An Oakland University engineering professor well known for developing workplace efficiency strategies argues that Michigan is losing its manufacturing sector to other states and nations because its K-12, higher education and private sector systems have failed to develop a creative, inspired and highly skilled work force.

Oh, wait, this is the same higher education system that is growing every year. Forget about the fact that the University of Michigan and Michigan State hired 3% more people on average every year, that one of their Presidents took an $80,000 dollar twenty-five percent pay raise, and the top 1000 U-M employees average almost 6% pay raises annualized over the last six years while other employees only averaged inflation or less.

That's a death rattle at 80 mph and accelerating.

This is not to say that the professor isn't a serious guy or doesn't have some good ideas. He apparently is and does, we're just short on the specifics.

The assessment has spurred some controversy but is not one that Professor Pat Dessert came up with overnight.

The seasoned professor employs advanced mathematics to model how various components of large and multifaceted systems interact. He can also use his theory to pinpoint potential efficiencies within those systems.

Three years ago, Dessert applied the Unified Systems Theory that he developed to glean insight into state economic challenges and what the future holds for Michigan workers.

The author and editor of the rather long-article just waste the space and don't get to anything other than the jingo. Some obvious truisms, requiring no deep plumbing of the universe for insights, are stated:

Many of Michigan's high school graduates are not adequately prepared by the K-12 system to succeed in college, Dessert said.
...
"When systems are aligned, they work well. The real problem is that we're not aligned," Dessert said.

But the only real solution offered is one program where hands on auto-racing demonstrations by NASCAR-types motivated students in some demonstration project. Unfortunately, its just not the type of program that is "scalable," that is, can be exported to large numbers of schools. It's hard to know here whether it's the mathematician who doesn't have other ideas, or the journalists who failed to find them.

Finally, while no explicit appeal for "more money" is made for higher education, the reporter finds the Oakland ISD both disagreeing with the mathematician and then contradictorily blaming any failure on a lack of money for her pre-kindergarten programs.

Oakland Schools Superintendent Vickie Markavitch objected to the notion that K-12 schools have failed students. She says the majority of graduates who go on to college find success there.

"I don't think it's a misalignment issue," Markavitch argued, noting that comprehensive curriculum enhancement in both career-focused and general education programs has targeted both postsecondary study and emerging career opportunities.

Students who do struggle in college, Markavitch said, likely faced academic challenges early in their careers because of a lack of adequate prekindergarten programs in Michigan.

"Until we begin to address the gap that exists when children enter kindergarten, we will not adequately address the gap that exists when children leave the 12th grade."

That's about as crass as it gets. If our only problem was pre-kindergarten programs, you'd think the problem would have been solved by now. But its radically untrue, as well. I live in the small town of Clawson, a medium sized school district by all accounts, and have studied its problems closely. Aside from the town not having the social or financial problems of an inner-city or rural school district, the Clawson schools are considered a fairly successful performer (slightly above average when the whole student life cycle is averaged) when it comes to testing measures. But there is a fall off in students passing the measures that starts in about 7th grade and is very noticeable upon graduation. Students seem to lose touch emotionally with the idea of and methods of school as they become teenagers. This isn't rocket-science, folks. We all experienced those years of our lives. It takes a different teaching paradigm to reach those students. Yet Clawson just hired a superintendent whose primary experience was K-6, despite the numbers, an alternative choice with high school experience, and citizens who pointed out where the improvement needs to come. And the Oakland ISD (which provides intermediate services to Clawson, ironically) superintendent has the same myopia. And even with high schools, its not money that will solve the problem. It's creativity, focus, attention to hiring (and the ability to fire) the right people for the right spots, and proper segmentation of specialties to cater to the individual needs of different students as they grow on their own tracks. How can ZR say this confidently - because there are high schools, even in inner-cities, rural districts, and the average Clawson's, that aren't showing the traditional dip in performance. It's simple policy modeling from that point - its finding and copying rather than reinventing already invented wheels. I'm also lead to ask the question of whether K-12 administrations are dominated by elementary teachers. I have no data on this issue - its just a thought.

State Senator Mark Schauer (D, Battle Creek) has attacked State Senator Bruce Patterson's (R, Canton) claim that university cost control failure is the main reason for tuition increases. The liberal blogging machine, supported by self-proclaimed journalist and occasional mainstream media freelancer Eric Baerren, is rushing to attack Patterson by flipping truth on its head. Baerren's sources are "reverse engineering" Patterson's numbers and an anonymous "friend" researcher at Central Michigan University.

Central Michigan is now the third university Zarko Research turns its data analysis talents toward CMU by necessity since that is the subject of Baerren's defense. At the bottom is an image (click for fuller readable size) that shows the Excel spreadsheet of the first and last of nine years of CMU spending, using CMU's own budget summaries.

To be fair, we compared CMU to inflation and the legislator and created a final line that assumes the legislative appropriation grew with inflation and compared it to the expenditures. Even if the legislative appropriation outpaced inflation and 100% went to reducing tuition (or any category), tuition would have skyrocketed. And guess what - two conclusions of Zarko Research's U-Michigan and Michigan State analyses are enhanced. Administrative growth accounts for the majority of increases AND AGAIN liberal elite administrators are paying themselves double inflation adjustments while put the rings to their lowly staff (inflation or less depending on adjustments). In fairness, the Michigan legislature (and Governor) have not kept pace with inflation over the last 5 years, and deserve a small amount of the "blame" --- but when you look at these numbers, which factor in a "model" assuming the legislature met the Proposal 5 standard (increase by inflation or 5%, whichever is less -- represented on the bottom line of the sheet), the average tuition increase is barely dented. The numbers say it all - administrative growth, health care, and raw supply overhead are the killers in relative terms.

Wizardkitten fills us in on a Wednesday tirade by Canton's own Bruce Patterson. Patterson's response to Mark Schauer's statement that Republicans in the state Senate are responsible for prompting big tuition hikes at the state's public universities?

It's the fault of universities. She quotes part of his speech:

I venture to say that the problem isn't in the amount of appropriations; it's in the failure of the governing boards of these universities to contain costs. That's why students are suffering tuition hikes of inordinate amounts--a failure to contain costs.

I venture to say that Bruce Patterson is wrong ... very wrong.

Baerren ventures a long ... long way. Let's follow.

The first university on Patterson's list was my own alma mater of CMU, which Patterson cited as having increased faculty compensation by $15,000 per Full Time Equivalent over the last five years. Is this true? I have no idea, so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that he didn't pull the number out of thin air.

But, the question is what this costs the university. Here, Patterson's facts were surprisingly in short supply. But, thanks to e-mail, we can fill them in by simply contacting the university. The university, as of November of last year, employed 1,105 FTE as faculty (the university employs another 1,513 FTE as staff). By sticking my pointer finger straight forward and pushing some little black buttons on my calculator, I deduced that 728 FTE multiplied by the $15,000 in extra compensation over the last five years equals $16.5 million. Mind you, this isn't something that comes in one big chunk, but was spread over the last five years (and through a couple of faculty contracts). On the other hand, state support for CMU has decreased by roughly $10 million over the last decade, and today -- according to an official I spoke to there -- funding levels are approximately what they were in the late 90s.

In 2003-2004 (which I don't fill in in the chart because of time considerations), there was a one-time $9 million cut from $89 million to $80 million, but that is still higher than the 1999-2000 appropriation ($79M), and it was during the fiscal year following 9/11 and national recession (which never ended in Michigan), and it was actually the decision of Granholm. One should expect that during times of recession everyone has to make concessions. Since 2003, legislative appropriation has stagnated and slightly increased, but at less than inflation. Again, to be expected during a stagnant economy. But it didn't fall 10 million "over the last decade" - if rose $10 million from 2000-2002 (13% in two years) and the legislature took that back during the recession at Granholm's suggestion (there's a nice 2003 CMU press release blaming Granholm, but I don't have the link handy). ZR doesn't blame her for that action - it was necessary and appropriate. But it was a cut of an increase - not a full cut. But even if we adjusted for inflation and gave CMU an inflation-locked increase (exactly as if Proposal 5 of last year existed), it would make a tiny dent in the gross tuition increases - which in raw terms doubled during the 9 years and in average percentage terms adjusted for inflation and a compensating legislative increase, rose at more than 5% annually, and more than 6% annually gross.

But let's follow Baerren and Schauer on their venture of reasoning.

How does this break down, in terms of pay and benefits? If it's just salary increases, CMU's faculty received salary hikes of about $3,000 a year ... which, if this is what has Patterson so exorcised, means he's angry about pay raises that are just a little bit more than COLA increases (this, for a university primarily regarded as a regional teachers college and trying to cultivate a national reputation in advanced nanotechnology research). There are raw numbers, and there is context. Patterson had one, lacked the other.

We'll address this competition thing in a moment, but Baerren is the one devoid of context. It's not the faculty hikes that are the killers - although ZR thinks they are bit high. Look at the image provided - the big increases are the "other/administrators" and the supply costs and, as everyone admits, the killer in benefits. Administrators are fleecing us for more than double the inflation rate consistently - year in and year out. They're also shorting staff and faculty -- this is not about competition in attracting quality nanotech - its about padding the President's pockets and his staff. Proposal 5 doesn't sound so bad in this environment (evil, but lesser of two) - and if we could put a spending growth cap on with it?

If Patterson were including total compensation, to include benefits, then he is also alluding to increases in health insurance. In this regard, the university has taken steps to keep costs down, because during the 90s -- seeing rising health care costs coming down the pike, they started a self insurance program, which has been successful.

Baerren's venture has found the cliff. He has bought into some sales pitch by the university. Benefit growth is the highest of all categories - not successful. Is there probably a grain of truth being exploded into a mountainous lie somewhere in that claim - sure: CMU pobably did do some self-insurance in some program, or it tweaked something else, and their claim a "potential savings" that no one really can measure. But it's clearly facing the same problems everyone else is (and look, health care is soaring, but the market has spawned the greatest innovations in life-saving technology humanity has ever witness and its expensive sci-fi kind of stuff).

Baerren ventures into the land of the hook, line, and sinker. He believes what he's told, like any good reporter would:

The interim vice president of finance told me during an interview last month that the university has been more successful doing this than educational institutions and governments that haven't. In short, they anticipated rising costs, and took steps to mitigate their impact on costs ... the kind of thing meant to bring under control costs Sen. Patterson intoned darkly were out of control.

Judge for yourself. The key question:

There are two questions here ... is this outrageous, and has CMU passed along to its students an unfair share of that burden?

The answer to the first is no. As Wizardkitten notes from a Gongwer article, Michigan university compensation is in line with other Great Lakes universities.

First, all universities suffer from the academic elitist view that they are worth ever escalating amounts with no checks in place from the market (let's bring back those anti-trust lawsuits filed against the Ivies in the 80s and 90s -- and Democrats usually like anti-trust laws but not when it impinges on their constituencies) and with government subsidies providing a "free shock absorber" to prevent market forces from stopping administrative growth. Second, the "in-line" analysis is obsfucated by the fact that universities literally collude in trading their data (through a process called the "Data Exchange")(anti-trust!) and that the "comparative data" from universities is all "in-line" because they try to be "close" to each other. The argument justifying salary explosions is that is "normal" and everyone else is doing it so we must. Classic collusion - although not always "conscious" - the system has built the collusion in, from the top cascading down.

In short, if you want to compete -- and I think we do -- then you need to spend money like you're serious about doing it. And, unless Gongwer is lying to the people of Michigan, the state's universities are doing what they need to do to compete against universities in neighboring states -- quality professors aren't going to work for free, you know (in fact, I know a local chemistry professor involved in nanotechnology research who tells me that he got offers from bigger, more research intensive universities but that he decided to stay at CMU because they offered him better research facilities ... he's also just released the first textbook in an emerging part of chemistry).

Reporter resorts to his friend the "local chemistry professor" in nano-tech. Hard for us to verify or cross-examine and analyze, but its a nice anecdote.

The answer to the second is also no, at least in the case of CMU.

As most of us know, CMU hiked its tuition by 21 percent this year, and the compensation costs for their faculty have risen by $15,000 per over the last five years. In fact, for all of the universities Patterson cited, only the University of Michigan -- Ann Arbor campus' faculty costs have increased more (and, why, I wonder, would a university competing for students with Ivy League students see its faculty salaries increase faster than everyone else?). Clearly, CMU's administration is screwing its students, and clearly the Board of Trustees -- appointed by the governor -- are guilty of lax oversight.

Not so fast there, Sparky. CMU's tuition hike of 21 percent is the only tuition hike its freshmen class will see. That is, unless some of them go on the Bluto plan and stay undergraduates for seven years, their tuition will remain what it is this year for their entire careers.

So, what is CMU's 21 percent tuition hike averaged out to four years? About six percent for a student who finishes his or her degree in four years; or five percent for five years. This puts the university, with its $15,000 over five years increase in compensation, close to the bottom rung about impact of their students.

He can't even get the basic division right here - but what guarantee is there of no additional hike? And the real measure is not what the hike is for the 2008 freshman amortized - its what the hike is for the 2009 freshman - which could be 30% if the school chose.

The flip side of this is that CMU plans to make another $1.39 million in cuts come October. Where is this money coming from? Well, the state took money away from the university it said it was going to give it, which has put CMU's budget out of whack.

Chump change, but Baerren even admits its not a "cut", its a reduction of an increase that the state "said it was going to give". So much for the reform-type of cuts.

They're waiting for school to start and professors to return to classes before making the cuts[non-increases], because for some silly reason university officials think that professors should have a say in whether or not proposed cuts[non-increases] will ultimately hurt[not pad] their ability to attract and retain quality students and faculty.

Finally, as a quality journalist, Eric has eliminated the ability of his critics like Zarko Research from commenting on his website, and endorses Michigan Liberal's similar censorship. If we could comment, we might be able to at least correct a few of his factual errors - there probably not intentional, but they're negligent.

The University of Michigan Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Office (LGBT-O) has decided that it must change its name for these reasons. Let me note up front that while I oppose "gay marriage," I believe we should at least be respectful of all human beings, and I don't write this to make fun of anyone or judge lifestyles. But if the liberal argument is that conservative government shouldn't interfere with individual lifestyles, then U-Michigan, a government the size of a mini-state, shouldn't have bodies that promote or hinder those lifestyles.

Hat tip to The Stranger out of Seattle for picking it up. Even some liberals like Donn Fresard in Ann Arbor, think its "silly."

It's more than silly. Look at the bureaucracy and bureaucratic mass that is involved in this "name change." It's as if they have nothing else to do, so they create a huge amount of work. And the name change itself is Orwellian.

Even "office" doesn't "reflect the work that we do for and with Allies."

*The current Office name does not reflect the work that we do for and with Allies."

How far can we take this linguistic assualt? "Office" isn't inclusive enough? By the way, what's government doing choosing "Allies" among its own citizens? Inclusiveness suggests everyone - not just "Allies". I thought diversophiles weren't supposed to see the world in "us v. them" terms. So much for true diversity.

The Ever-Changing Target of Diversity

What's the real thrust, other than to create work for the array of diversity bureaucrats who could find anything else to do with their time?

# The community is more complex than the letters L-G-B-T

*The letters LGBT, as representative of the identities lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender, are no longer inclusive of the diversity of the community.

Hmm. The "letters" ... "are no longer inclusive of the diversity." It's changed? ZR has repeated used the term the "fad" to describe diversity. The "diversity" movement has pinned American values on an ever-changing, malleable fad. Principles and values - like equality - do not change. That's why values are valuable.

Below the fold I paste the whole document for your humor:

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Time to revive an old ZR analysis of U-M data manipulation. Read that along with with last week's ZR exclusive on U-M administrative growth, and yesterday's piece by Marisa Schultz of the Detroit News who writes here about the statewide wave of tuition increases.

And guess who's allegedly to blame again - anybody but the administrators at the schools. The legislature isn't appropriating enough of your money.

Hammered by six years of state appropriations reductions, U-M has taken considerable cost-cutting measures, from motion sensors that activate lights only when someone's in a classroom to reducing the number of deans in the College of Engineering, said U-M Provost Teresa Sullivan. "But finding additional things to cut is getting harder and harder."

In 1960, state funds comprised nearly 80 percent of U-M's budget; now that's 24 percent, and tuition is the largest stream of revenue, she said.

"We are in a situation in which our state appropriation has been under considerable pressure," Sullivan said.

Wait, there hasn't been "six years of state appropriations reductions" - there have been six years where legislative appropriations have stagnated or modestly increased. More importantly, that quote on the 1960 comparison of "relative % of legislative funding" is an extension of the fabulous lie first perpetrated by former president James Duderstadt in the mid-90s, when he pointed out that U-M's 1986-1996 "share" of state funding as a percentage of U-M's overall funding fell from 18% to 12%, and blamed the legislature for the "cut". Sullivan deserves credit for the novelty of expanding the time-frame to 1960 to increase the magnitude by a factor. Still, ZR debunked the original horrible twisting of statistics which applies today, pointing out that U-M averaged 17% growth in administration over the same time while the legislature gave 8% more over the time. That's twice the rate of inflation (quadruple for expenditures and other revenues including tuition increases and federal sources) - the legislature lived up to its end of the bargain, yet U-M blamed it on them in the bustling 90s and still uses the same old saw today.

Although the Detroit News writer is doing the best she can with the beat she's assigned, the problem is when you're forced to take the word of U-M officials you're in for some surprises.

"Time and time again we've made the cuts and we've done the reforms," said Regent S. Martin Taylor, noting U-M has slashed $120 million in costs in five years. "We've done those things and then we recognized that (in order) to keep Michigan great, we have to increase revenues."

Just last night State Senator John Pappageorge told a Rochester gathering a story. You go into your boss's office and ask for a $5,000 raise. After much discussion about your value and productivity, and the budget of the company, your boss gives you a $2,000 raise. You walk out of the office and tell your office-mates you just took a $3,000 pay cut.

In the University of Michigan shadow world of budgeting, an increase can be a cut. A look at the Provost's data reveals how words can be twisted - but ZR's favorite is when James Duderstadt tried to play the same trick in the mid-90s and ZR broke it down with this analysis showing that the decline was really an increase but decline relative only to outrageous 17% annual growth by U-M bureaucracy.

If U-M "cut $120 million" in expenses, it doesn't mean that it reduced its overall bureaucracy by that size. Either they cut a hypothetical $120 million that they might have spent in ideal circumstances, they cut something they were going to cut anyway or was at a natural end, they cut something but spent twice as much elsewhere, or any number of explanations. Regardless, I'd like to see the documentation of exactly what their cuts were, and methodology. And even if they saved a $120 million in future costs, its nearly a $3 billion dollar budget. Compare these explanations with last week's ZR statistical analysis of the last five years of U-M administrative growth.

Flip S. Martin Taylor's statement around. Instead of, "(in order) to keep Michigan great, we have to increase revenues," it should be "to keep Michigan great, we have to decrease costs." Does it really matter whether a student pays for his university education in tuition - or through his or her parents and future taxes. It's just a shell-game either way. The key is to reduce costs and provide better value. And with the salary analysis ZR has done, clearly that isn't happening.

Zarko Research again provides insight into the vaunted, but bloated, University of Michigan.

Like the ZR analysis of Michigan State University salary database trends over the last two years when it asked for a 9.6% tuition hike last week, ZR has been collecting U-M databases. An analysis of five year trend data provides a clear insight into why U-M tuition rates explode. There are 38,000 employees at U-M - and 3500 of them make more than 100K annually, a number itself that has an impressive growth rate.

The engorging is top-heavy - an outlandish growth rate among $100,000/year employees, percentage increases in the "Top 1000" by two measurements that are consistently in the 5% range (with a 7.5% average spike, and 20% total spending spike in 2001-2002, reflecting probably a "preparation" for bad times given the strong economy the previous year and the obvious signs of crisis down the road. But there has been no "crisis" for the purses and wallets of U-M bureaucrats, even as the Michigan economy has crashed. They keep churning out nickel increases while the Governor wants to appropriate extra pennies from the plebes to make up the difference.

Education is important. But out-of-check, unaccountable cost increases for top-level administrators do not guarantee any student a fair education. Check the tables yourselves. It's all there - or actually, its' all in Mary Sue Coleman's $600,000 (plus hidden benefits) salary. Imagine if that money went to students instead!

The Michigan State University tuition is rising 9.6%. It's president, Lou Anna K. Simon, is making excuses at this very moment on WJR 760 AM radio's Paul W. Smith show. The question is why?

For several months, Zarko Research has possessed the complete salary database of MSU (and the University of Michigan), for several years. Enough data that, unlike the Lansing State Journal's publication of one year's worth of state employee data, can be analyzed for trend and aggregate information.

The biggest reason for these tuition increases is that outrageously paid administrators can't help but continuing to both increase their own pay and their own number of employees. For example, U-Michigan has roughly 38,000 employees, up 5% from last year, with nearly all of the top 1000 employees in 6 figure incomes. President Mary Sue Coleman makes more than the President of the United States or Governor of Michigan, by over 50% in the former case, at an outlandish and ever increasing $600,000 annually. The argument is made that U-M needs to pay these rates to "remain competitive" - yet Ms. Coleman is the highest paid public university president in the nation. A slow reigning in of the salary - even if we weren't number one in the category - would hardly destroy the university. Indeed, we may be "competitive" in elite liberal circles of thought, and professors might love us mightily for what we do to their pocketbooks, but "competitiveness" is also measured by price and value. As a former U-M alum, I love the school, but the price-value delivered to students isn't "competitive" from an outsiders' perspective.

At 38,000 employees, U-M is both approaching a 1-to-1 ratio of employees to students and is nearly as bloated as the State of Michigan, which employs 55,000 persons (on a much larger budget with larger mission). And that's not saying there isn't room for efficiency in the state - its saying U-M is a bureaucratic beast - not a lean wolverine.

The story at MSU isn't quite as bad in raw appetite but the outline is similar.

ZR will be publishing these lists - at least their top 1000s, along with contextual analysis and statistics.

Smith Interviews Cox on Libby
In other radio interview news, Attorney General Mike Cox is criticizing the George Bush pardon of Scooter Libby. Smith's logical question to the AG is whether he was taking the position to buttress his potential 2010 run for Governor. I'd suggest it reinforces recent on-the-street speculation that Cox might run against Carl Levin for US Senate - a move that would be endorsed by ZR. The Libby question is more focused on foreign policy and judiciary questions that such a race would entail, and Cox's maneuver makes sense. With even left wing blogs reporting on Andrew "Rocky" Raczkowski's recent fundraising letter to challenge Levin a second time, the time is now to think about who will challenge Levin. And Rocky - although a nice guy - shouldn't be the person. There would be little downside in having Cox run in 08 for the seat - and while even a Cox win is remote, he's a serious contender - serious enough to require some thought and resource from Levin, whereas Rocky isn't.

A google news search shows that no mainstream media outlet appears to have covered the change public comments policy at today's University of Michigan Board of Regents meeting. ZR chastises the media for its complicitly - although the public comments doesn't affect a media right (speaking is typically not done by the media), any assault on access rights is bound to come back and later hurt the media.

The Detroit Free Press first look at the Board meeting was this positive look at the two race-neutral scholarships the Board adopted to comply with Proposal 2. No doubt this was newsworthy, but as a capsule of the meeting woefully incomplete (both the stadium controversy and the Open Meetings Act issue must). It is possible we'll see more detailed analysis in the slower non-wire news cycle.

But in searching for open meetings issues, we found this interesting, now two-week old piece, about guess who? The MEA and a quorum of school board members illegally meeting in March over a teacher complaint.

Four Ypsilanti school board members violated the Michigan Open Meetings Act when they attended a March 8 meeting of teachers and staff who complained about then- High School Principal Layne Hunt, according to the Washtenaw County Prosecutor's Office.

Criminal charges, however, will not be filed, Deputy Chief Assistant Prosecutor Steve Hiller said in a memo released Wednesday to The News. Hiller wrote there is not enough evidence to prove that Amy Doyle, Andy Fanta, Cameron Getto, and Tom Reiber intended to violate the state law.

Hiller's nine-page memo dated June 5, stemmed from a meeting the board members attended at the Michigan Education Association's office on Carpenter Road in Pittsfield Township. Doyle and Getto have since resigned from the board. After much controversy at the high school, Hunt resigned as principal March 28.

It's nice to know a County Prosecutor got involved (that's one of the great things about the OMA, they do have that discretion although we rarely see it used), and that the ultimate outcome was two board members doing the right thing and resigning. Here, the MEA used its own offices, not to subvert FOIA but rather OMA. It's unknown as to whether Principal Hunt should or shouldn't have resigned, but its clear the pressure was on him, to the point of illegal secret meetings.

UPDATE on Ypsilanti secret meeting.

This Ypsilanti Courier piece gives us far more detail on the issue of the secret meeting:

Washtenaw County Deputy Chief Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Steven Hiller ruled last week that a March 8 meeting with Ypsilanti High School teachers and staff who had concerns and complaints about then-principal Layne Hunt was in violation of the law.

Hiller said he would not prosecute the matter, however, because he could not prove there was intent to commit the violation.

In a nine-page memo, Hiller outlined the case against the four trustees, Amy Doyle, Andrew Fanta, Cameron Getto and Thomas Reiber, who attended the meeting after a communications snafu. Doyle and Getto have since resigned from the board.

Hiller then concluded the board members had broken the law by deliberating on the issue of firing Dr. Hunt. If the trustees deliberated and/or made a decision regarding the issue, the meeting would have been a violation of the OMA because no notification was given and no minutes were taken.

But, attendees at the meeting insist the session was for information-gathering only and no deliberations or discussions were held.

"It was for information-gathering purposes only," insists Kelly Powers, president of the Ypsilanti Education Association. "That's what they [the trustees] said at the beginning of the meeting and that's what happened. They listened and took notes."

Big things come in small packages. One of the great things about little newspapers is they cover their local stories in better detail than the regional newspapers we are all accustomed to seeing. And the internet finally picks most of them up now.

You have to love that Orwellian spin coming from Kelly Powers, of the YEA (Ypsilanti Education Assocation). "Information-gathering purposes only". "Deliberations" on the other-hand is a pretty big thing to define. I suggest that if you gather information - or prostrate yourself in front of a union leadership group who is feeing it you your daily dose - you are deliberating (perhaps in a non-meaningful way, but ... ). Deliberating is the act of working toward a decision. Collecting information is a vital and integral component of working toward that decision. The difference that YEA alleges is superficial.

The reason we have an open meetings act is so that no "special" (interest) sub-set of the population has secret access to our public official in the decision-making process. The Michigan Education Association, NEA, and its satellites (HEA, YEA, etc), fight long and hard for their special privileges and access. And whether its unions or corporations, it's time to say no more.

David Boyle, a liberal Democrat who has fought in favor of race preferences but is now fighting the University of Michigan Athletic Department's expansion and commercialization of seats (luxury) at the historic Michigan Stadium, has sent me this hat tip. While ZR takes no formal position on Michigan's move to change the feel of the Stadium, we sympathize with the treatment and strong-arming of those who have objected. As usual, Michigan "leaders" have ignored public input and engaged in tactics to avoid debate and public engagement.

The University of Michigan Board of Regents, a body dominated 6-2 by Democrats, is considering a policy change on its public comments rules. The plan is to reduce the number of comments from 12 maximum to 10 maximum - retaining the 5 minute limit per person. They've also added a clause that gives priority to individuals who have not spoken to the Board in the previous two months.

This is yet another disgusting, anti-Democratic move by an administration and institution that seeks every bit of control and governmental edge it can obtain. Reducing public comments is just a visible symptom of the large disease infecting the university's administrative process.

The Michigan Open Meetings Act would seemingly come to the rescue in such a situation, and it may, but its not entirely clear. MCL 15.263(5) is the key section of the OMA here:

(5) A person shall be permitted to address a meeting of a public body under rules established and recorded by the public body.

U-M would argued that its established rules (which now require a 24 hour advance sign up and max out 12 "first-come, first-serve" speakers) are recorded, and that's the end of the story. A variety of common-law requirements however, including the due process clause of the 14th Amendment, require such policies to be reasonable. For example, what if U-M kept lowering the number of speakers, in a "slippery slope", say to 8 then 6 or 1? What number is reasonable? Obviously a policy that allowed zero people to speak would be illegal, and a policy allowing say, only 1 speaker per meeting, would be unreasonable. 12 speakers - the current policy - seems to ZR to already be an unreasonably small number for a statewide body with a constituency of 7 million registered voters and thousands of out-of-state alumni, donors, and stakeholders.

Another consideration here would be the plain word and grammatical reading of section (5). Is not the phrase, "A person shall be permitted to address a meeting ...", even if under rules, not clear in its requirement that any person seeking to address a meeting entitled to address the meeting? It would seem that even the current U-M rule restricting the number of speakers to 12 is in violation of that requirement. While the law would seem to allow the public body almost complete flexibility in such things as time limits and other rules to insure order, it would seem that any restriction on number would violate the rights of persons to address a meeting.

If anyone has 11 people who want to speak at the next meeting, it would certainly be an interesting legal challenge to set up!

Whether you're on the left like David, an opponent of race preferences like myself, or of any logical political stripe, you can find solace and agreement with David's new website, Fire Mary Sue Coleman.com. While that would be nice start, we'd note that the administrative beast that is U-M is much broader-based than its figure-head and it is only a short-term fix.

ZR sort of got the previous entry wrong (although we weren't wrong, we just commented on only part of a story) with regard to U-M's new found position. Hell is still warm.

The AP report cited in the entry places U-M's position against BAMN's doomsday scenario in proper light, but this story by Marisa Schultz at the Detroit News, captures another angle on U-M's position where they've just outright denied what should be obvious from the data. U-M's assistant law school dean Sarah Zearfoss (a memorable last name), stated that the weight of the preference before Proposal 2 ended preferences was no more than "usual," although, unfortunately, we don't have quotes on this one either:

Many of the students admitted when race was a factor would still have been admitted when affirmative action went away, Zearfoss said. Race was given no more consideration than usual before the ban took effect, she said.

This is a critical claim. If true, it leads one to wonder how there were 6 times more students admitted before the effect date than after, and it buttresses, I hate to say it, BAMN's claim that the effects would be catastrophic since the post-effect date RATE would be a good indicator of the future rates. Of course, the truth is found neither in BAMN's claims nor U-Michigan's. The data for the undergrad school showed that their first half rates, when compared to previous year's first half rates, were way out of whack. The sheer magnitude - 6 to 1 from front to back - along with the fact that the overall class of both periods combined produced roughly the same minorities (blacks are only down 4 tenths of a percent, Hispanics actually increased 2 tenths of a percent, native American fell 5 tenths of a percent [note: tribal membership is still a category which by U-M claims it can give preference so theoretically Proposal 2 should have no effect, but the magnitude of such numbers for means that even tiny "normal statistical fluctuations" can mean big differences]) - means that either U-M gamed the system early to offset some of Proposal 2's effect or that U-M has always had a "de facto quota" and they try to fill "slots" quickly and once they reach the "goal" (roughly 6.5% blacks) they start actively discriminating against later minority applicants. Maybe that's what they've been doing for years - a true hidden quota (without ever putting the measurement on paper) - that is front-loaded. While I don't doubt the quota part, I doubt U-M would have intentionally front-loaded it's quotas over the time of an application season, so I buy their claim.

Again, if that is true, U-M engaged in "traditional discrimination" for years - that is, against blacks, by setting a ceiling for them and discriminating against the individual blacks that happened to be later in the process.

The data graphic hot-linked at left is also a nice piece of information showing exactly how small the overall decline was. While BAMN's point about the drop-off after the effect-date is reason for concern, it's not reason to predict the end-of-the-admissions-world -- the most plausible explanation is that U-M so-front-loaded its admissions to compensate. When there is a normal cycle, you'll (or at least should) see a marginally greater overall decline but not an earth-ending one, but no substantive difference in time period rates.

Rarely do I agree with U-Michigan spinsters. But here's one of those times. I'd note that they have changed their view to come around to our (MCRI) position, so this is a new one.

WOOD TV reports this AP story:

The University of Michigan Law School released admissions numbers this week showing that just 5.5 percent of minority applicants after Dec. 28 had been accepted into the upcoming law school class, based on activity through May 9. That compares with about 36 percent on or before Dec. 28.

A group called By Any Means Necessary says the numbers show that Proposal 2, approved by voters last November, is having a "catastrophic" effect on minority enrollment at the law school. BAMN opposed Proposal 2 and is challenging the new law in federal court.

But an assistant dean at the law school, Sarah Zearfoss, said that claim is false and irresponsible, and that it's premature to draw any conclusions. She said this year's admissions cycle was disrupted by Proposal 2. Law school officials said they accelerated the admissions process hoping to avoid legal complications of the affirmative action ban.

Now that's stunning. She admits to something this blog has revealed in several other ways - speeding up the process to avoid Proposal 2 and front-load preferences to before the deadline, although the reporter fails to give us any hard quotations on it.

"It's really hard to predict what this means," said Zearfoss, who makes admissions decisions for the law school. "In my opinion, it's irresponsible to say `Look at how catastrophic it is'."

Shocking. I never thought a U-M spokesperson would 1) deny the sky is falling 2) call BAMN's claims thereof irresponsible. But it has happened. It must be chilly in Hell right now.

Of course, U-M has a vested interest in downplaying the effect because it's political base worships at the alter of diversity. So trusting anything coming out of U-M is only slightly better than trusting BAMN (at least with U-M, we can predict with confidence that their claims are based on their logical political interests, with BAMN one must use a more emotional algorithm to predict their insanity).

Zearfoss said the partial numbers from this admissions cycle don't provide a true picture of what the law school's incoming class will look like. She said this cycle's pool of applicants was strong, especially among minority candidates. She said that makes it difficult to tell what role, if any, the timing of the admissions decisions had on individual applicants.

Marisa Schultz at the Detroit News reports that U-M is now guaranteeing an early response to students that file an application early (by Oct. 31). This is interesting because of the success U-M had in racially-unbalancing its early admissions in 2007 before Proposal 2 officially went into effect.

Under a new program U-M will implement for the fall 2008 term, students who submit applications by Oct. 31 will hear back from U-M no later than Dec. 21.

"Early Response will benefit prospective students and their families in many ways, especially among students for whom Michigan is their top choice," Ted Spencer, associate vice provost and executive director of undergraduate admissions, said in a statement. "It will provide certainty earlier in the process and lessen the anxiety of a long wait."

The traditional application deadline is Feb. 1 and U-M continues to make admissions decisions well into the spring.
...
"We are adding this new program to ease the process for those who want to decide sooner where they will go to school," Lester Monts, senior vice provost, said in a statement. "It will also provide the university with a more exact means of monitoring and controlling our admissions flow, which is growing increasingly heavy each year."

While there is nothing overtly illegal about such a policy, and there are clear benefits to student applicants with such an early offer system in place, such "control" implies that, if one is monitoring racial balance during the whole process and engaged in an unquantified "holistic" review including racial or gender preferences, that one could increase the mental weight counselors assign to race later in the process if they don't get enough minorities early. It also gives the University of Michigan a chance to focus its (legal) socio-economic outreach to the front-end so that it could make up for it on the back, which would be an illegal circumvention of Proposal 2. Either would be difficult to prove.

The U-Michigan page on the policy is here.

Marisa Schultz of the Detroit News reports here on the what is allegedly the effect of Proposal 2. Before imagining the sky falling, remember that U-M predicted that in the wake of a preference elimination that numbers would fall from 12% to as low as 4%. Here's the actual picture.

African-Americans, Hispanics and Native Americans make up 10.7 percent of the freshmen who have paid enrollment deposits to reserve a place at U-M this fall, compared to previous years when minorities typically comprised 12-15 percent of each class.

The figures paint the most complete picture yet of what the first class admitted under Proposal 2 will look like. Proposal 2, the Michigan constitutional amendment that banned the consideration of race, gender and ethnicity in university admissions, took effect in January for U-M, midway through its admissions cycle.

And on cue:

"With one- half of a year with Proposal 2 and you are already seeing a drop (in minority students)," said George Washington, attorney for By Any Means Necessary, a pro-affirmative action group suing to overturn the amendment. "You are really talking about more of a drop next year."

Surprisingly, the news story uses an interesting word:

The dip in minority representation comes at a time when a record number of students applied to U-M, with applications topping 27,400. Applications from black, Hispanic and Native American students also went up, but the number accepted dropped.

Shockingly, U-M spokepeople actually something interesting:

U-M officials did not comment Wednesday on the diversity of the class. However, they said it should be one of the "most highly qualified and intellectually dynamic ever admitted."

Hmm. One wonders if there's a correlation to Proposal 2 and that.