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News Analysis: The Case Against Assessment Tests
Daniel Pink points out that when a group of medical students from Mount Sinai School of Medicine visit an art museum, it's not a field trip, but rather part of their diagnostic training. University personnel need to stand up and make this point to the U. S. Department of Education. . . or they'll find themselves in the same fix as K-12 teachers, reading scripts shipped in from publishing conglomerates.
By Jeffrey J. Selingo
Washington
The history of economic cycles shows that recessions are a mixed bag for higher education. Sure, less money is tapped from state budgets and donors, but enrollment often spikes, particularly among adults who find themselves suddenly unemployed and in need of new skills, or among recent college graduates who delay entering the job market by going for another degree.
But don't tell that to many of the more than 250 presidents, senior administrators, faculty leaders, and trustees who gathered here this week for The Chronicle's third annual Executive Leadership Forum. Several of them repeated the line popular with some economists now: This time is different.
What seems to worry these campus officials the most is proving the value of college to students, parents, and politicians at a time of rising tuition and tightening credit. As one private-college president told me during a break, What makes a bachelor's degree from my institution worth $35,000 a year?
The value of a bachelor's degree has long been demonstrated using the lifetime earnings of college graduates compared with the earnings of those who completed only high school. That gauge, however, doesn't take into account differences among graduates of individual colleges. So, in recent years, spurred in large part by Education Secretary Margaret Spellings's National Commission on the Future of Higher Education, some people have called for a better measure: assessment tests.
Higher-education leaders have railed against such one-size-fits-all efforts, and those at the Chronicle forum heard perhaps one of the strongest arguments against a test from the opening speaker, Daniel H. Pink, best-selling author of A Whole New Mind.
Both the economy and society are moving away from the logical, linear, and computerlike attributes of the left brain, Mr. Pink said, to a conceptual age when the big-picture capabilities of the right brain will be increasingly important. "Professionals will need to toggle between both sides of their brain," he said.
At first the message probably worried some in the audience as a sermon against math-and-science education. Not at all, said Mr. Pink. Indeed, the "idea that math and science are routine disciplines is one of the most dangerous things going on in this country today," he said. "The idea that math and science are turning kids into vending machines for right answers is really dangerous." He showed a picture of a group of medical students from Mount Sinai School of Medicine visiting an art museum. It was not a field trip, but rather part of their diagnostic training.
"Certain kinds of diagnoses defy routine, and there is so much medical information today for one to learn that delivering the right answers sometimes means asking the right questions," Mr. Pink said. "The best physicians have the observation skills of a painter or sculptor."
Despite his opposition to linear thinking, a large part of Mr. Pink's message can be boiled down to his list of six abilities that matter most in the new economy:
Design: "Design literacy has become as indispensable as knowledge of spreadsheets today," Mr. Pink said, describing design as a way to solve problems. As an example, he pointed to new color-coded prescription bottles that highlight the most important factor in preventing medical errors—the name and dosage of the drug.
Story: "Facts are everywhere, and they are free," he said. "What matters more is putting them in context and delivering them with emotional impact." Context is important to Mr. Pink. In fact, he disagrees with economists that "this time is different" when it comes to the economy. He says trends are typically overhyped in the short term and underhyped in the long run.
Empathy: This is a skill, he said, that is difficult to automate and outsource.
Play: The ability to bring humor to serious tasks.
Meaning: Life is about meaning, not just accumulating "stuff."
Symphony: He described this as "the killer app." Most people tend to think of successful leaders as focused. "The opposite ability—the ability to step back, see the big picture, and connect the dots—is more important," he said. A study by Daniel Goleman of a battery of tests given to the "stars" of a dozen organizations found just one cognitive ability set them apart from everyone else: pattern recognition. Those stars had the big-picture thinking that enabled them to pick out meaningful trends from a mass of information and think strategically.
Colleges and universities must focus on educating students so they are able to develop such abilities. Otherwise, Mr. Pink said, their graduates will be skilled only in routine work. That may help them on an assessment test, but when that routine work is automated and outsourced, it won't help much on the lifetime-earnings side of the equation.
— Jeffrey J. Selingo
Chronicle of Higher Education
2008-06-12
INDEX OF OUTRAGES
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