Andrew Coulson has written an excellent comment on this for Cato@Liberty. The point he focuses on is the revelation by the perp (the guy who cranks out the phony research papers) that students in education schools seem to be the worst cheaters. Why should that be? After all, ed schools are notorious for their Mickey Mouse coursework. But they’re also notorious for their bargain-basement admission standards, happily enrolling students with very low SAT scores. Beyond that, however, is the monopolistic nature of public education, where teachers are rewarded not for the quality of their performance, but for just being there.
Coulson finishes with a flourish: “We’ve organized education in this country in a way that decouples skill and performance from compensation, and instead couples compensation to the mere trappings of higher learning (e.g., masters degrees). We’ve created a powerful financial incentive for existing and future teachers to cheat. Maybe not such a good idea.”
Exactly so.