Founded seven years ago, an intensive MBA program in Austin pioneered the customer satisfaction philosophy that is driving facets of education reform at other Texas public universities today.

The Acton School of Business, a nonprofit institution taught by non-academics in the entrepreneurial field, was born from the collective idea of four former University of Texas at Austin professors. Since its inception, the one-year program has rewarded its instructors with financial bonuses based on weekly student evaluation reviews. The questionnaires ask students to rate their professor and course experience on a five-point scale. High professor ratings can lead to a $30,000 bonus, while low ratings nudge professors out at semester’s end. A forced curve system is said to circumvent bias from students based on grades.

“We are very focused on students as customers,” said co-founder Jeff Sandefer, an oil and gas entrepreneur. Ranked by BusinessWeek as one of the top 10 entrepreneurship professors in the country, Sandefer likened the classroom to a free market. “We break the idea that promotes ‘teacher as parent’ and ‘teacher as approver.’ We let classes set their own level which is always further ahead than ours.”

The bonuses, said Sandefer, are completely dependent on if, “the student got what was promised to them.”

Incentive pay for professors based on student evaluations is one of seven major education reform initiatives pushed by conservative think tank Texas Public Policy Foundation, of which Sandefer is a board member. TPPF spokesperson David Guenthner said TPPF’s idea was inspired by two schools: Acton and The University of Oklahoma, according to the Bryan-College Station Eagle.

“The evaluations provide useful information to students about professors’ teaching styles and to instructors who want to know what works and what doesn’t,” Guenthner said in a phone interview. “Having the awards connected to the evaluations certainly is an incentive for professors to continually improve their teaching quality.”

When asked if Acton’s merit-based system should be applied to other schools statewide, Sandefer said the small business school is unique, and though a replication would benefit larger institutions, it may not translate as well. Acton has about 30-40 students per year and a dozen professors. The Texas A&M University System has more than 100,000 students.

“I don’t know. We are such a different place. I think understanding customer satisfaction would be a great thing for an A&M or a UT, but Acton is what Acton is,” he said. “I think the other schools will have to decide what is best for them.”

Unlike Texas’ major public universities, Acton’s instructors have professional backgrounds in major companies and lucrative posts, said Sandefer. In other words, the $5,000 salary per class is a small sum for some deep-pocketed instructors, and the bonuses likely do not have the same effect on them as they would have on professors at large universities.

Today, traces of the Acton method can be seen in the voluntary $1.1 million pilot program instituted in 2008 at the A&M System, which doled out up to $10,000 in bonuses per faculty member based on anonymous student evaluation reviews taken after each semester. Starting at the main campus, Prairie View and Kingsville locations, the incentive program now reaches all 11 campuses. A&M is said to be the first Texas public university to sign on to this type of financial rewards system, and one of the few nationwide.

“This is customer satisfaction,” A&M Chancellor Mike McKinney told the Eagle. “It doesn’t have to do with tenure, promotion, status. It has to do with students having the opportunity to recognize good teachers and reward them with some money.”

The initiative, he said, fits with higher-education reforms supported by Gov. Rick Perry, who appointed all nine A&M Regents, including Regent Phil Adams, who is also a TPPF board member.

This week, A&M announced a plan to revise the evaluations at their central campus at College Station, cutting the bonuses down to $800-$1,500, changing the program’s name to emphasize “appreciation” rather than “excellence” and instead of asking 16 questions, the evaluations will only ask two, directly paralleling Acton’s two-question survey.

The revisions, not yet finalized, will go into effect after administrators receive feedback from various campus student leaders, said Jason Cook, communications director for the A&M System. The changes would be the first to the program since its introduction two years ago.

Cook said the program’s revamp is a product of the, “ongoing dialogue with students and faculty as to how we can make a program of this nature better.” Roughly 600 professors have been awarded $2 million overall since 2008.

Upon its arrival, the program sparked discontent from some faculty members who feared the evaluations would result in a popularity contest or generate added pressure. Higher education critics contend the evaluations are a step toward creating a consumerist university culture. The Faculty Senate at College Station went so far as to, “advise non-cooperation with the effort,” according to Inside Higher Ed.

Greg Scholtz of the American Association of University Professors, laid out several concerns regarding reliance on student-based evaluations, including the tendency for students to measure personal style, gender, and other matters extraneous to the quality of teaching and the possibility of diluted course content and grade inflation. Though student opinions should be taken into account, faculty peers should play the primary role in such evaluations, especially when they are employed to determine merit raises, said Scholtz.

“Student evaluations should never serve as the sole basis of such reviews, and any system that would establish such a basis is a definite step in the wrong direction,” he said.

(Image:Wikimedia Commons/Kalogator, Image by: Mat Mahurin)