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9486 in the collection
Colleges pressed to show results
As you read this article, ask yourself if you ever met anyone who chose his college by looking at the US News World and Report (stupid) ratings.
By Ana M. Alaya
The Bush administration has made accountability a hallmark of its education policy, pressing public schools to perform on test scores or face strong sanctions under the No Child Left Behind Act.
More recently, it has set its sights on colleges, suggesting an exit exam for graduates and questioning whether accreditation organizations are running cover for poorly performing institutions.
Now, an official from New Jersey has stepped into the debate as it begins to heat up.
Peter Burnham, president of Brookdale Community College, one of the largest of the state's county colleges, has been elected chairman of the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, which oversees more than 500 public and private colleges and universities in the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and five Eastern states, including New Jersey.
In a recent interview at the college in Monmouth County, Burnham, 63, said the debate boils down to every parent's question about college:
"'How do I know that Sally and Johnny are getting what I'm paying for?' That's what this is all about," Burnham said. "If mom and dad invest their hard-earned dollars, or even if it's the student themselves, how do we prove that what they're getting is in fact meaningful and how do our standards help us validate that?"
For the past several years, U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings has put pressure on colleges to prove their effectiveness. A commission she assembled last year found that the American higher education system is "unduly expensive" and has yet to "successfully confront" the impact of globalization, new technologies and a diverse and aging population.
Spellings is particularly critical of the large, complex, voluntary public-private accreditation agencies, including the Middle States Commission, which serve as gatekeepers by determining whether colleges are eligible to receive billions of dollars from the federal government in grants and loans. The agencies also decide whether colleges can start certain degree programs, open new campuses and other matters.
At a recent meeting of an advisory committee overseeing all accrediting bodies, Spellings said accreditors need to emphasize "results" over "process" and release the meaningful data families crave.
"If you ever doubt the need or appetite for your mission," Spellings told accreditors, consider the popularity of the annual college rankings by U.S. News & World Report magazine. Its Web site was viewed 10 million times within 72 hours of release this year.
Burnham bristles at some attacks, vehemently disputing the notion that membership-owned accreditors are engaged in "mutual backscratching."
As a longtime participant in the accreditation process, Burnham said he has seen a "high level of integrity" and that peer review allows college representatives to help, rather than penalize, each other.
He also opposes using standardized tests (like the SAT high school students take) at the college level, and is no fan of the U.S. News rankings, which he says distorts the real issue of whether a student is learning in a classroom and instead uses graduation rates, tuition and fundraising measures to compare colleges.
Burnham's position mirrors that of many college presidents who have voiced concerns that the rankings and standardized tests impose a "one-size-fits-all" approach to colleges that have many different missions.
"The beauty of American higher education that has made it the envy of the world is that it provides these incredibly diverse ways of learning," Burnham said, "and yet were we to fall into the trap of standardization. ... where all of the expectations are identical. ... We would lose that capacity to educate uniquely."
Burnham said issues like dropping literacy levels, weakness in students' computation skills and concerns that American education is falling behind the rest of the world are partly a result of social trends larger than higher education. But they are also, to an extent, a failure of the system to adjust to today's students.
Driven students adept at plucking information from the Internet may struggle to sit through 15-week courses and meet their requirements, he said. So colleges need to adapt their methods and better explain the value of class work.
The firestorm over accountability won't end anytime soon, observers say. Some colleges are answering Spellings' call to provide more information to the public, and some are experimenting with national testing.
The Association of American Universities, whose members are 60 leading public and private research institutions, has committed to collecting and providing to the public basic information about undergraduate performance, such as graduation rates, time to degree and careers pursued following graduation.
"We are looking at different ways to assemble information to better assess graduation rates, and so we have a better idea of true transfer rates," said Matt Owens, an assistant director of federal relations for the AAU.
Meanwhile, nearly 200 colleges and universities, including some in New Jersey, are voluntarily using the Collegiate Learning Assessment exam to test sample groups of students when they are freshmen and then seniors to measure institutional contribution to student learning.
The exam, unlike other standardized tests, is based on essays rather than short answers, and examines critical thinking, problem solving and writing, rather than aptitude.
Richard Hersh, co-director of Collegiate Learning Assessment, said while more colleges are embracing the exam, assessment remains threatening to many.
"Suppose we find out we're not doing as well as we think we're doing," said Hersh, a former college president. "Most of us don't always want to go to a doctor and we don't always want to share the diagnoses."
— Ana M. Alaya<
Star Ledger
2007-01-01
INDEX OF OUTRAGES
Pages: 380
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