…and i’ll find me a soapbox where i can shout it

I came across an article in the U.S. News from March 4, 2007 that had less to do with high school education than it did college, but discussed critical elements of NCLB and the possibility of applying it to higher education, a connection I feel is close enough to allow me to write on this really interesting article.  As future educators, many of us college students going into teaching can be found griping and complaining about the flaws of standardized testing and the other standards that will likely be a hinderance to our creativity in the classroom.  Just wait to see how we will react if the government starts demanding more accountability from its universities.

Before I start dissecting this article, I want to make one thing clear:  I take an interest in college’s providing proof that they are giving their students a quality education because I am paying a lot of money and hope that it will translate into something.  I think that taking on this issue at a federal level is in no way the solution.  That being said…

Later this month, U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings will meet with college leaders to discuss the findings of her Commission on the Future of Higher Education and its plan to assess college learning through one or a number of standardized tests. “For years the colleges in this country have said, ‘We’re the best in the world; give us money and leave us alone,’” says Charles Miller, the chairman of the commission. “The higher-ed community needs to fess up to the public’s concerns.”

Amen.  There is an idea among college students that you put up with ridiculous expenses, become your homework’s slave each semester, and cram all night for exams the night before all to get a piece of paper that says you did so.  This becomes evidence that you are more qualified for a job that will pay a lot better than one you could have found before entering college, and eventually the student loans pay themselves off.  It isn’t just other students I have heard this from, it is adults, successful adults, that admit to not getting a whole lot from college.  Now I am sure they learned more than they realize, but is this really a system that will allow the U.S. to catch up academically with the countries that have recently been moving ahead of us?

I agree with the above quote in its message about making colleges accountable, but I definitely do not agree with the idea of standardized tests to do so.  Why would we be so naive to believe that a standardized test could be created to measure how effective our colleges are when in reality we still have not a clue how to do so on the high school level? 

“No one wants standardized No Child Left Behind-style testing in colleges—not parents, not students, not colleges,” says David Ward, president of the American Council of Education. Adds Lloyd Thacker, author of College Unranked: Ending the College Admissions Frenzy, “The danger is that the soul of education will be crushed in the rush to quantify the unquantifiable.”

I think there are other ways to measure colleges that seem a lot more effective than standardized testing.  The article mentions employment rates or enrollment into higher education one year after graduation, and I think this is a start.  The problem is colleges are obtaining a lot of information that would be a great measure of their universities, but are not coming public with the results.  I think legislation passed on a state level that would require colleges and universities to make certain records open to the public would force them to fix any discrepancies in their education in order to keep students out of high school applying to their institutions, an easy solution that could have very rewarding results.