Sen. Ron Johnson’s call to replace college classroom instructors with videos sounds like a corporate refrain that celebrates efficiency in education at the cost of effectiveness, said University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Clif Conrad.

“I find that very troubling,” Conrad said Monday.

The Republican senator from Wisconsin, who is locked in a tough re-election battle with former Sen. Russ Feingold, last week denounced the "higher education cartel” for raising prices and preventing reforms that would make college more affordable, like using the internet to access lessons by “one solid lecturer.”

“If you want to teach the Civil War across the country, are you better off having, I don’t know, tens of thousands of history teachers that kind of know the subject, or would you be better off popping in 14 hours of Ken Burns’ Civil War tape and then have those teachers proctor based on that excellent video production already done?” Johnson asked at a luncheon forum hosted by WisPolitics.