Trying to Find a Measure for How Well Collges Do

Justine
Posting #3
Education
Title: Trying to Find a Measure for How Well Collges Do
Author: Richard Perez-Pena
Publication: The New York Times
Date: 4-7-12
Length: 2 pages

Every since the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, elementary, middle and high schools have all been taking standardized tests, and having the results made public, in order for the people to know how well the school is doing. Well, now people want the same for colleges. This is a tricky business because all the colleges have different standards for incoming students, but in January, the New Leadership Alliance for Student Learning and Accountability, a coalition of higher education groups, released a paper advocating for gathering "evidence of student learning". One way to do this would be standardize tests that tested problem solving, analytically thinking and working collaboratively. Many people, though, like Alice P. Gast, president of Lehigh University, say that there is no really to test such things. There has already been much backing of the standardized test, from Texas making college standardized test scores public in 2004, to books about the questionable quality of American colleges. The most important boost, though, was in 2004 when Margaret Spellings, the education secretary at the time, released findings that strongly backed and demanded pubic standardized test scores to be made public for all colleges. Although the tests haven't been mandated by the government, the issue has become more of a hot topic. Currently there are a few different test systems. The Voluntary System of Accountability has three tests that they ask colleges to take and then for the colleges to post the scores on their website. Another group, the National Survey of Student Engagement, measures factors that are a good indirect way to assess actual learning. Both of these systems, though, do not have nearly enough participating colleges for any real data to be collected , or the schools do not publish the scores every year, if at all.

Conclusion:
Standardized tests for colleges would allow for the public to measure the actual effectiveness of colleges much better. Currently there are a few options for tests, but the scores are often not made public and not every college uses them. Measuring the effectiveness of a college is also difficult because they have different academic standards for their incoming freshman. Many people do not think there is a good way to measure such things as critical thinking and collaborative ability, which are two things that college really improve in students. If the government were to make such test mandatory, there would need to be a lot of work on the tests themselves and on what the outcomes would mean.