Report Prompts More Testing, Performance Data Disclosure at Colleges

October 3, 2007

A year ago, the U.S. Department of Education, in the report from its Commission on the Future of Higher Education, called on colleges to provide a quality education at low cost by improving accessibility, affordability, and accountability. Now, "something is changing out there," said Patrick M. Callan, head of the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, as reported in the Sept. 24 Chronicle of Higher Education.

"We are in the infancy in American higher education of being able to describe to our publics — whether they're state legislatures, Congress, parents, philanthropists — what we're doing, and to what effect," said Education Secretary Margaret Spelling, who had instituted the commission.

Yet the report from her commission has already caused hundreds of U.S. colleges to adopt standardized achievement tests and to compare the results — publicly. Further, several college groups are about to ask members to post students' performance-related data on their websites — all in an effort to achieve a new openness about college costs and completion rates, which just might lead to competition for freshmen and lower costs for students.

The 430-member American Association of State Colleges and Universities and the 216-member National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges, for instance, plan to introduce a common system of data presentation on college websites later this year, focusing on projected costs of attendance and standardized-test results, as part of a voluntary system of accountability project.

The 15-institution University of Texas system, which has been testing freshmen and seniors under the Collegiate Learning Assessment, already posts results. The CLA, which is designed to measure critical thinking, problem solving, analytic reasoning, and writing skills, is the kind of outcomes-based assessment that the commission suggested colleges embrace. Another is the National Survey of Student Engagement, whereby students are asked how much time they spend in class discussions and about their participation in other programs and activities.

Mark G. Yudof, chancellor of the University of Texas system, favors competition. "The idea of stimulating universities to do this is very valuable," he said.

Charles Miller, commission member and former head of the University of Texas' Board of Regents, said that opponents of meaningful testing of students' accomplishment fear that they will be shown to be "not adding any value that's measurable."

Many elite U.S. colleges' curriculums are so "watered down," he said, that "what the kids gain is they get the stamp of approval — they come in as top students, they leave as the top whatever. But what is the value of that?"

Source: Chronicle of Higher Education, Sept. 24, 2007.