As the Spellings Commission on the Future of Higher Education readies its final report, three important education groups have released studies and recommendations on the topic of higher education accountability—a primary focus of the commission.

One of the studies, from the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges, proposes a set of accountability measures, such as consumer data, student engagement data, and outcome measurements, which would measure the added educational value an institution brings to its students. Once collected, these measurements could be used to compare a college's performance with its own past record and with the records of peer or comparable institutions.

NASULGC's proposal, "Elements of Accountability for Public Universities and Colleges," which the association is still circulating as a draft for discussion, is for a voluntary system that institutions would use with accreditation agencies and education governing boards. Given the multiple missions, structures and student bodies that make up American higher education, NASULGC acknowledges, its proposal is not for a "one-size-fits-all" national system. The association also does not address what tests or methods would be used to measure student learning and who would be responsible for collecting and maintaining it.

Enter Education Testing Service. Its  report, "A Culture of Evidence: Postsecondary Assessment and Learning Outcomes," does not shy away from a broad national system to measure student learning and education effectiveness at two- year and four-year institutions. The report calls for measuring four areas of student learning:

• Workplace readiness and general skills
• Discipline-specific knowledge
• "Soft skills" such as teamwork, communications and creativity
• Student engagement

ETS recommends a number of national tests including, not surprisingly, its own GRE and MAPP tests, to help establish a systematic, data-driven approach to measuring student learning. It  lists 18 possible measures that could be included and suggests the creation of a national "expert panel" to review the assessments and determine which ones are applicable for both two-year and four- year institutions. From there, the six regional accreditation agencies could integrate the testing system into their accreditation reviews.

One aspect the ETS proposal fails to develop is the operation of the expert panel.  Who would serve on it? Would it be appointed by the federal government?  The accrediting agencies? Testing experts?  And to whom would it report? 

Both the NASULGC and ETS proposals focus on assessing institutional performance, not individual student achievement. Thus they skirt addressing the student privacy question, which has been a source of concern to the public ever since the commission began exploring the idea of creating a national student record database earlier this year. A third study, conducted by the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, reveals how the general public feels about this idea.

NAICU conducted a survey of 1,000 American adults and asked three questions to determine public attitudes toward a "federal system for tracking each college student's academic, financial aid and enrollment information in a central database." Although the survey was limited to three questions, it does show the initial apprehension the public has about individually collected and reported data on students. By nearly two to one, 68 percent—compared to 27 percent—of the respondents think that enough information is already collected at the college and university level. Sixty percent believe that collecting individual student data is costly, intrusive and has no application to policy issues.

The AFT has consistently stated that a standardized, one-size-fits-all model of measuring student outcomes is not appropriate for our system of higher education. Imposing a single test on the broad range of students at multiple institutions, working within multiple disciplines with multiple goals for their education, would lead to unreliable, invalid results. Plus, the AFT is wary of calls for the creation of "expert panels" to assess learning outcomes that don’t indicate the requirement that faculty and academic staff be part of the panel. Ensuring quality in higher education system does not mean adding more federal direction and control to the evaluation of higher education institutions. The AFT supports a voluntary accreditation system with faculty involvement in shaping what is monitored and how. [Barbara McKenna, Lindsay Albert]

August 10, 2006