“The timing could not be worse for new state-by-state faculty tenure rates to be released by the National Center for Education Statistics.
Not just because tenure protection is a hot-button higher education issue in Wisconsin, but because the fall 2013 numbers incorrectly suggest the University of Wisconsin System has the highest percentage of full-time faculty with tenure protection in the nation, followed by public universities in Rhode Island, Minnesota, New Hampshire and Maine.
Minnesota’s public universities had the distinction of the highest faculty tenure rate in 2011 – 72% – compared to Wisconsin’s 48.7%. (The 2012 numbers were not required to be reported.)
….The revised numbers that UW-Madison officials say are accurate show the flagship’s tenure rate in fall 2013 was near the national average — 46.5% instead of the 76.8% mistakenly reported to the National Center for Education Statistics.
If the 2013 numbers had been correct, another 30% of UW-Madison’s full-time faculty would have been awarded tenure between 2011 and 2013, which UW System data proves did not occur. The national center’s statistics put UW-Madison’s tenure rate in 2011 at 48.5%, which officials said was accurate….”