Posted on 11/05/2009 9:26:38 AM PST by Sopater
Misleading statistics put other nations in better light, researcher argues.
When comparing the United States’ higher education system with those of other developed nations, a new report says, policymakers are misreading the data and relying on flawed statistics.
That conclusion comes in a report, “The Spaces Between Numbers: Getting International Data on Higher Education Straight,” that was scheduled to be published this week by the Institute for Higher Education Policy, a research and policy group based in Washington.
The findings are important because they call into question many of the statistics that are commonly used to make the case that the United States has lost its standing as the world leader in higher education. The drumbeat of bad news coming in recent years from reports by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and others has provided the statistical underpinnings for national rallying cries to improve colleges and universities.
In unveiling his College for All plan in July, for instance, President Barack Obama pledged that, “by 2020, America will once again have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world.”
The new report suggests, however, that, because of problems with the data that the Paris-based OECD uses, the nation’s colleges and universities may not be as bad off as they are sometimes portrayed to be.
“What I’m saying is we’re asking the wrong questions. We have the wrong indicators, and the ones we have are a mess,” said Clifford Adelman, the report’s author. “But we can still develop the ones we need.”
Experts on this side of the Atlantic Ocean say that Mr. Adelman may have a point about the quality of international data, but that the statistical problems don’t necessarily change some of the negative conclusions being drawn about American higher education.
(Excerpt) Read more at edweek.org ...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.