George Leef
| George Leef | |
|---|---|
| Born | George Charles Leef 4 February 1951 Milwaukee, Wisconsin |
| 🏳️ Nationality | American |
| 🏳️ Citizenship | United States |
| 🎓 Alma mater | Duke University Carroll University |
| 💼 Occupation | Author, Commentator |
| Notable work | Free Choice for Workers (2006) |
George Charles Leef (born February 4, 1951) is an American writer, commentator[1] and director of research of the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal.[2] His writing and advocacy have advanced libertarian and free market ideas.
Early life and career[edit]
Leef was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and attended the nearby Carroll University in Waukesha, Wisconsin for a Bachelor of Arts degree, graduating in 1973. He attended Duke University School of Law in North Carolina, receiving a Juris Doctor in 1977.
Michigan[edit]
Moving back to the Great Lakes region after his time at Duke, Leef became a faculty member at Northwood University in Midland, Michigan, where he taught business law, economics, and logic.[3] In 1984, Leef ran for Michigan's 10th congressional district as candidate for the Libertarian Party. He only received 0.5% of the vote, losing to Republican candidate Bill Schuette.[4]
Leef joined the newly created Mackinac Center for Public Policy, led by Lawrence Reed, in 1988 as an adjunct scholar. Leef then worked as a legislative aide to Michigan state Senator David M. Honigman during his full two terms in office (1991-1996). Honigman was part of Republican Governor John Engler's free-market policy reform period and authored a significant number of bills. After Honigman left office in 1996, Leef was president of a professional consulting firm based Michigan and continued to publish editorials and studies with the Mackinac Center until 2005.
North Carolina[edit]
In 1997, Leef joined the North Carolina-based John Locke Foundation, becoming Vice President as well as a contributing editor of their newly created publication, the Carolina Journal. The foundation also set up an internal group dedicated to national higher education policy with a specific interest in the North Carolina educational system; Leef directed this project. The education-focused group became an independent entity in 2003 and was named the Pope Center. It was renamed to the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal in 2017 and Leef continues to direct its activities.[citation needed]
Work and advocacy[edit]
Leef describes himself as a libertarian and expressed support for Ron Paul's candidacy for president in 2008.[5] From 1996 through 2012, he was the book review editor of The Freeman, a libertarian journal published by the Foundation for Economic Education. His time at FEE overlapped with his former Northwood University and Mackinac Center colleague, Lawrence Reed's leadership of that organization.[3] He has published opinion articles, book reviews, research studies and commentary in a wide variety of publications.[6][7][8]
Higher education[edit]
Leef has been a n critic of the value and quality of higher education and has used experiences gained during his time as a professor at Northwood to illustrate his points.[9]
In May 2000, he produced an essay questioning the merits of student fees in higher education followed by an article in the Pope Center's Clarion later that year questioning whether government spending on higher education enhanced the economy of that area or state. He edited a collection of ten education-reform themed essays named Educating Teachers: The Best Minds Speak Out.[10] His most cited work on the topic of higher education in 2002, was a co-authored paper with Roxana D. Burris for the American Council of Trustees and Alumni , Can College Accreditation Live Up to its Promise? The paper contains a history of college accreditation then advocates for various reforms. It advances the idea that accreditation does not ensure educational quality and gives students, parents and other stakeholders very little useful information. It also proposes that accreditation should provide information about schools educational outputs, not just their inputs and that accreditation should be decoupled from eligibility for federal student aid funds.[11]
The paper spurred significant policy conversations surrounding the Higher Education Act which was set to expire in 2003. At an October 2002 hearing of the U. S. House of Representatives subcommittee on Twenty-First Century Competitiveness, Leef's work was cited in the testimony of former university president and Senator Hank Brown, saying "I wish to encourage you to read the study that has just been released on higher education accrediting by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni. The study...raises important questions about the accreditation system that should have been raised years ago."[12][13][14] Leef himself testified as an expert during a hearing organized by the Department of Education in 2003. He encouraged reform of the Higher Education Act, saying "if we severed the link between accreditation and eligibility for federal student aid funds, institutions would be free to decide whether accreditation is worth what it costs."[15]
The 2006 reform-minded Spellings Commission acknowledged that college accreditation had significant shortcomings and they picked up the recommendation in Leef's paper about education inputs versus outputs. They concluded that accreditors should make performance outcomes, including completion rates and student learning, the core of their assessment. Ultimately, the Higher Education Act was reauthorized in 2008 with few major reforms.[11]
Leef continued to advocate for higher education reform, a viewpoint which had gained widespread acceptance on the right.[16] He published a criticism of the SAT testing board in 2010.[17] In 2011, he was interviewed by Andy Nash of the National Association of Scholars and spoke about how the "credential bubble" might pop, saying "why spend $100,000 or more to find out what you already know?"[18] By 2015, the Higher Education Act was again up for reauthorization and Leef's work was cited in testimony before the US Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions in the testimony of Anne Neal.[19] Senator Lamar Alexander included Leef's work in his position paper on reforming the law.[20]
Leef has faced criticism for his intellectual positions on higher education, with Jane Mayer referring to him derisively in an article primarily about Art Pope[21] and Chris Fitzsimon of NC Policy Watch describing Leef as full of "anger and hyperbole" on this issue.[22] Leef traded written barbs with John Wilson of the American Association of University Professors on the topic of Art Pope and the Pope Center.[23]
Labor[edit]
Throughout his career, Leef has published commentary on labor laws, generally against unions, against prevailing wage and supportive of free market alternatives to unemployment compensation. Some articles he has published have included Michigan's Prevailing Wage Act: A Disaster for the Taxpayers (1990), Union "salt" poisons the well (1996) and Unemployment Compensation: The Case for a Free Market Alternative (1998). In 2005, Leef published his most recognized work, Free Choice for Workers: A History of the Right to Work Movement.[24] In 2005, Leef testified before the US House of Representatives Committee on Small Business during a hearing on the National Right to Work Act.[25] In 2013, Leef's article "Prevailing Wage Laws: Public Interest or Special Interest Legislation?" was cited in testimony before the Connecticut Labor & Public Employees Committee by Leo Paul, a representative of the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities, in an effort to encourage that committee to adjust their prevailing wage thresholds.[26]
Selected publications[edit]
- Free Choice for Workers: A History of the Right to Work Movement, Jameson Books (2006) ISBN 978-0915463978 Search this book on
. - Can College Accreditation Live Up to Its Promise? with Roxana D. Burris, American Council of Trustees and Alumni (2002) ISBN 978-0970805829 Search this book on .
References[edit]
- ↑ Jenkins, Sally (April 15, 2014). "College athletics have many problems, but a union is the wrong way to try and fix them". The Washington Post. Retrieved March 23, 2021.
As commentator George Leef remarked in a recent analysis...
- ↑ Mulshine, Paul (December 6, 2020). "Student loans: Uncle Sam's been pulling off a scam on college kids". NJ.com. Advance Publications. Retrieved March 23, 2021.
George Leef, a scholar at the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal in North Carolina
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Leeson, Robert (November 30, 2019). Hayek: A Collaborative Biography: Part XV: The Chicago School of Economics, Hayek's 'luck' and the 1974 Nobel Prize for Economic Science (1 ed.). Palgrave Macmillan. p. 80. ISBN 978-3030405205.
George Leef, Ebeling's former Northwood University colleague and book review editor of FEE's The Freeman.
Search this book on
- ↑ "Partisan Ballot". Clare Sentinel. October 31, 1984. Retrieved April 4, 2021.
- ↑ "Forum: January-February 2009". Duke Magazine. January 31, 2009. Archived from the original on October 1, 2020. Retrieved April 5, 2021. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ "MLK's "content of character" quote inspires debate". CBS News. January 20, 2013. Retrieved March 23, 2021.
- ↑ McAdams, Ann (March 10, 2020). "CFCC leadership concerns make state, national headlines". WECT. Retrieved March 23, 2021.
...George Leef wrote for the National Review.
- ↑ Scherer, Juliet; Anson, Mirra (April 2, 2014). Community Colleges and the Access Effect: Why Open Admissions Suppresses Achievement. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 80. ISBN 978-1137336019.
In a 2012 Chronicle of Higher Education series questioning whether or not higher education has developed into 'an engine of inequality,' George Leef described college degree inflation...
Search this book on
- ↑ Carnevale, Anthony; Smith, Nicole; Strohl, Jeff (February 21, 2014). "Too many college grads? Or too few?". PBS News Hour. Archived from the original on November 11, 2020. Retrieved March 23, 2021.
The BLS numbers have contributed to growing skepticism about the value proposition of higher education by many vocal and influential public figures, such as...George Leef
Unknown parameter|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ Finn Jr., Chester E. (October 17, 2002). "Educating Teachers: The Best Minds Speak Out". Thomas B. Fordham Institute. Archived from the original on April 5, 2021. Retrieved April 5, 2021. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ 11.0 11.1 Gaston, Paul L. (December 4, 2013). Higher Education Accreditation: How It's Changing, Why It Must. Stylus Publishing. ISBN 9781579227623. Search this book on
- ↑ "College Access and Opportunity Act of 2005 : report of the Committee on Education and the Workforce on H.R. 609". U.S. Government Printing Office, 2005. Washington DC. 2005. Retrieved April 18, 2021.
- ↑ Assuring Quality And Accountability in Postsecondary Education: Assessing the Role of Accreditation. U.S. Government Printing Office, 2002. Washington DC. 2002. ISBN 9780160694028. Retrieved April 18, 2021. Search this book on
- ↑ Richard Morgan (October 11, 2002). "Lawmakers Call for More Accountability From Accreditation System". The Chronicle of Higher Education. Archived from the original on April 19, 2021. Retrieved September 7, 2012. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ "Testimony of George C. Leef, on behalf of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni". The U.S. Department of Education. Retrieved April 19, 2021.
- ↑ Fertig, Jason (August 3, 2011). "Success Without College". Academic Questions. National Association of Scholars. 24 (3): 291–299. doi:10.1007/s12129-011-9233-z. Retrieved March 23, 2021. Unknown parameter
|s2cid=ignored (help) - ↑ Beer, Kara (September 29, 2010). "Leef and the "college bubble"". Philanthropy Daily. Archived from the original on April 5, 2021. Retrieved April 5, 2021. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ "Video: George Leef on Higher Education - Oversold and Underperforming". InsideAcademia.tv. National Association of Scholars. May 2, 2011. Archived from the original on November 25, 2020. Retrieved April 5, 2021. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ "Testimony of Anne D. Neal" (PDF). The U.S. Senate. June 17, 2015. Retrieved April 19, 2021.
- ↑ "Higher Education Accreditation Concepts and Proposals" (PDF). The U.S. Senate. Senator Lamar Alexander. March 23, 2015. Retrieved April 19, 2021.
- ↑ Mayer, Jane (October 3, 2011). "State for Sale". The New Yorker. Archived from the original on May 9, 2018. Retrieved April 5, 2021.
George Leef, the director of research at the Center for Higher Education Policy, has described the funding of higher education as “a boondoggle” that robs taxpayers
Unknown parameter|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ Fitzsimon, Chris (June 18, 2010). "The Follies". NC Policy Watch. Retrieved April 5, 2021.
- ↑ Walter, Scott (November 26, 2011). "Big donors on campus". Philanthropy Daily. Archived from the original on April 5, 2021. Retrieved April 5, 2021. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ Hutchison, Harry (May 17, 2006). "Compulsory Unionism as a Fraternal Conceit? Free Choice for Workers: A History of the Right-to-Work Movement". UC Davis Business Law Journal. UC Davis School of Law. 7 (1). SSRN 902676. Retrieved March 23, 2021.
- ↑ "Testimony of George C. Leef". U.S. Government Printing Office. September 8, 2005. Retrieved April 5, 2021.
- ↑ "Labor & Public Employees Committee" (PDF). Connecticut Conference of Municipalities. October 29, 2013. Retrieved April 19, 2021.
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