ACCOUNTABILITY

WHEREAS, America's public institutions of higher education should be—and in fact, are—accountable to both government agencies and private accrediting agencies for providing students with a quality education and for the proper management of public funds; and

WHEREAS, the cornerstones of institutional accountability are:

·        the annual review and approval of institutional budgets and activities by state legislative and executive agencies;

·        the extensive peer review required by multiple private accrediting agencies;

·        state and federal laws and regulations governing the management of public funds and consumer information; active competition for students and grants among thousands of public, private non-profit and for-profit higher education institutions;

·        active competition for students and grants among thousands of public, private non-profit and for-profit higher education institutions;

·        continual internal review of higher education personnel, usually on an annual or biennial basis.  In the case of college faculty, these evaluations routinely include classroom observations by managers or peers and a review of student evaluations.  Professors are required to present extensive documentation about their curricular and committee work and relevant research interests.  In addition to the rigorous evaluation that leads to the granting of tenure, tenured faculty are evaluated throughout their careers when they seek, among other things, promotions, merit pay (at institutions that use that system), preferred class assignments, professional development funding, sabbaticals and research grants, and when they offer research for publication; and

WHEREAS, the higher earnings of college graduates, the predominance of college graduates in decision-making positions in both the private and public sectors, the benefits of college and university research to economic development and medical research, the fact that students are rushing in unprecedented numbers to get into colleges and universities—all provide the clearest possible evidence that higher education is producing the "outcomes" that count; and

WHEREAS, despite the demonstrable success of public higher education, there is an increasing drumbeat of calls to impose new "accountability" measures on colleges and universities.  These would include requiring standardized and quantifiable "outputs" (i.e., as fixed graduation rates, short-term job placement data and even standardized tests) and would be coupled with rewarding or punishing colleges and universities for failing to meet these "goals"; and

WHEREAS, among other things, measures such as these impose a costly and excessive administrative burden on faculty and staff and lead to a more standardized curriculum, this in the face of the fact that one of the greatest strengths of American higher education is its diversity in goals and programming; and

WHEREAS, the 2004 AFT report, Student Persistence in College:  More than Counting Caps and Gowns, demonstrated unequivocally that measuring graduation rates is the wrong way to address questions of student persistence in college:

RESOLVED, that the AFT monitor and oppose federal legislation that would interfere with the academic autonomy of colleges and universities, including the imposition of standardized graduation rates and testing; and

RESOLVED, that the AFT investigate the establishment of a vehicle to foster the exchange of information among affiliates about accountability measures being discussed at the federal and state level, as well as private accrediting agencies; and

RESOLVED, that the AFT challenge the nation's private regional accrediting agencies to abandon their excessive reliance on standardized output criteria and return to the enforcement of standards that lead to real accountability, such as preserving the full-time tenured faculty workforce and maintaining effective shared governance.