there once was a time, when an "A" meant something... CAUSE IT WAS REAL!!!
Posted on 02/09/2006 6:21:53 PM PST by neverdem
A higher education commission named by the Bush administration is examining whether standardized testing should be expanded into universities and colleges to prove that students are learning and to allow easier comparisons on quality.
Charles Miller, a business executive who is the commission's chairman, wrote in a memorandum recently to the 18 other members that he saw a developing consensus over the need for more accountability in higher education.
"What is clearly lacking is a nationwide system for comparative performance purposes, using standard formats," Mr. Miller wrote, adding that student learning was a main component that should be measured.
Mr. Miller was head of the Regents of the University of Texas a few years ago when they directed the university's nine campuses to use standardized tests to prove students were learning. He points to the test being tried there and to two other testing initiatives as evidence that assessment of writing, analytical skills and critical thinking is possible.
The Commission on the Future of Higher Education, appointed last fall by the secretary of education, Margaret Spellings, has until August to make a report on issues that include accountability, cost and quality. Educators are wary. "To subject colleges to uniform standards is to trivialize what goes on in higher education," said Leon Botstein, president of Bard College. "Excellence comes in many unusual ways. You cannot apply the rules of high-stakes testing in high schools to universities."
In an interview, Mr. Miller said he was not envisioning a higher education version of the No Child Left Behind Act, which requires standardizing testing in public schools and penalizes schools whose students do not improve. "There is no way you can mandate a single set of tests, to have a federalist higher education system," he said.
But he said public reporting of collegiate learning...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
The main plus about having a college degree of any kind is that it proves the ability to finish a project of minimum difficulty and medium duration.
Oh, that's right. We don need no steekeen Constitution.
We, as parents, are responsible to see that the money we spend on college education is spent as at "reputable" college or university.
No one coerces a person to send their son or daughter to any particular institution of higher learning.
Let the buyer beware...we don't need government to "rate" colleges. Just buy a copy of USNews College Edition, LOL.
Go to hell Miller.
Your omnibenevolent, omniscient, omnipotent Federal Gummint will now bestow upon higher education all the benefits they have wrought on the K-12 system over the last forty years. (/sarc) Thank God I graduated HS in 1964 because it seems to have been all downhill from there for the public schools.
there once was a time, when an "A" meant something... CAUSE IT WAS REAL!!!
Honestly, the easiest tests I took in undergrad were the ACS-certified objective Chemistry examinations.
Indeed.
But of course, the idea that the Constitution should limit the government's powers to inflict good upon us is a quaint and outmoded one.
Looking ahead, I wonder how this would work in practice. For instance, I teach Engineering. Would the federal government require a test for my engineering students? If so, who would write the test? Who would administer it? How would the test influence the curriculum?
The current accreditation system is bad enough. I fear that government involvement will only make it worse.
Giving standardized tests to college students who have no incentive to take the tests seriously seems kind of silly. Plus, if they want to compare test scores, why don't they they just look at the test scores that students are already taking for graduate school admissions and/or certifications like the tests engineers take to get their PE's?
Bad, stupid idea. Are they planning on writing a standardized test for every single major out there?
Well, '65 was still a pretty good year...
Definitely.
"If so, who would write the test?"
Some NEA hack who doesn't have the remotest idea about the curriculum.
"Who would administer it?"
some appartchick, depending on which party is in power.
How would the test influence the curriculum?"
If it's 'Progressive':
1. How well do your ideas conform to the latest fad?
2. How independently do you think?
3. Are you willing to not question the diktats of the State?
If it's 'Corporatist' (i.e. Big Government Republican ):
1. Do you believe that you are property of the Company?
2. Will you slavishly train those who will work for bottom dollar wage and who is intended to eventually replace you?
3. How well do you say 'yes' at the drop of a hat?
There are way too many standardized tests now without adding more in college. Just because someone does well on standardized tests doesn't mean that person is going to be a success. How many merit scholars have people met that lost their scholarship, didn't finish college, and go admitted solely on test scores without looking at the whole person?
This is dumb and waste of tax dollars but then I think standardized tests are pretty much a waste of tax dollars when teachers start preparing kids to take standardized tests instead of what lies ahead in their lives including college. Passing a math standardized tests means zero, zip, nada because a large portion of high school students in college have to take some form of remedial math.
I'll say it loudly, NO NO NO!
For all of the faults of our universities, they are still the envy of the world.
Under no circumstances should we allow the fed government to do to them what it has done to K-12 schools.
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