As college gets more and more expensive people will ask for value
received- unfortunately, the only way such people can measure value is
by who earns what in which field- "has the education in that field "paid
off"? I considered my education successful not because of what I
earned- or even if I worked in the field for which I was educated. My
schooling was successful because it resulted in a life that was CHOSEN,
interesting, of use to myself and others. Nevertheless, I WAS eminently
prepared for the field I chose NOT to enter- till 20 years later. Achim
(Mills) is right on one hand- Freedom is not quantifiable. Yet, does
anyone doubt that they could probably decide if certain classes value
does or does not justify the cost. (Yes- our OWN do- it's the other
guy's we'll question...)
-----Original Message-----
From: Koeddermann, Achim
Sent: Monday, March 10, 2003 6:01 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: FW: Education Department Hears Appeals to Make Colleges
More Accountable for Student
I am strongly opposed to the "objective" pretense of such assessments:
we get tricked into becoming a new from of school, and the truly
important content of my discipline is only assessable quantitatively if
we sacrifice the learning expereince: the essence of a university, its
freedom to teach, is in danger if we streamline. What we will get is
more accounting, not accountability. I hope to be able to teach what
counts, without counting: liberty is not to be quantified, as J St. Mill
correctly assessed.
Achim Koeddermann
-----Original Message-----
From: [log in to unmask] [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Monday, March 10, 2003 9:32 AM
To: [log in to unmask]; [log in to unmask];
[log in to unmask]
Subject: Education Department Hears Appeals to Make Colleges More
Accountable for Student
3/10/03
<http://chronicle.com/icons/space.gif> Education Department Hears
Appeals to Make Colleges More Accountable for Student Performance
By STEPHEN BURD <mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Kansas City, Mo.
Two panels of student-aid experts, state officials, business leaders,
parents, and students selected by the U.S. Education Department urged
the Bush administration on Friday to hold colleges more accountable for
the academic performance of their students.
The Education Department put together the panels to speak here at a
special session of the agency's annual student-aid conference devoted to
the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, the law that governs
most federal student-aid programs, which Congress is scheduled to begin
considering later this year. Education Department leaders, including
Sally Stroup, the department's assistant secretary for postsecondary
education, moderated the panels. Ms. Stroup said that the administration
would consider the advice of the panels when drafting its proposals for
reauthorizing the act, which expires at the end of the year.
Bush administration officials have repeatedly said that they will use
the same principles that guided their efforts to improve elementary and
secondary education, such as demanding greater accountability and
performance from public schools, to guide their approach to renewing the
Higher Education Act. While such talk has alarmed many college lobbyists
and leaders, who fear that the administration intends to ratchet up the
government's oversight of colleges, most of the panelists agreed that it
is appropriate for the government to make sure that colleges do a good
job educating their students, retaining them, and graduating them in a
timely manner (The Chronicle,
<http://chronicle.com/weekly/v49/i04/04a02301.htm> September 20).
"If we are going to maintain taxpayer support for federal
higher-education programs, I believe we must provide taxpayers with the
confidence that their tax dollars are being well spent," said Richard T.
Jerue, vice president for government relations and corporate development
for the Education Management Corporation, which primarily operates
for-profit art institutes and culinary colleges. "Quality and
accountability are the ways to assure that."
In his presentation, Mr. Jerue promoted a proposal by the Career College
Association, which lobbies on behalf of for-profit institutions, that
would require colleges to create an "Institutional Report Card." Such
reports, he said, "would give students, parents, policy makers, and any
other interested party tangible information about a particular school,
its mission, goals and objectives, what it purports to do, and its
success in doing that."
As part of that proposal, institutions would be required to report the
rate at which they graduate their students, as well as other factors
that "attempt to assess what happens to the student while he or she is
in school," he said. Colleges could report on their retention rates or
transfer rates, depending on the missions of the institutions
In addition, Mr. Jerue said, colleges would be required to provide
"outcome measures" that would try to answer the question "What
value-added did the student receive from the education they just paid
for?" Factors such as job-placement rates, average starting salaries,
licensure information, graduate- and professional-school admission
rates, passage rates for competency tests or certification exams,
student/alumni satisfaction surveys, or employer satisfaction surveys
could be considered. "The outcome measures will necessarily be different
depending on the mission of the particular institution involved," he
said.
Another panelist, Jeanne Adkins, talked of how, as director of policy
and planning for the Colorado Department of Higher Education, she helped
develop measures for judging the performance of the state's public
colleges.
Ms. Adkins, who is now the director of the Colorado Student Loan
Program, the state's student-loan guarantee agency, said she believes
that the performance measures, which are taken into account when the
state legislature divvies up new spending for the public colleges each
year, have been "a success for consumers and for institutions." Colleges
that originally opposed the reporting requirements, she said, have
recently sent out news releases pointing to the improvements they have
made in raising their graduation and retention rates.
Ms. Adkins, however, told the department officials that if they decide
to move forward with accountability measures, they should not just try
to duplicate the Colorado model. Any policy that the Bush administration
and Congress develop, she said, should give states the authority to
design their own accountability systems. "Flexibility, rather than rigid
guidelines," she said, "brings far more good information -- and
potential change -- in our view,"
Department officials indicated on Friday that they will move ahead with
accountability proposals, but did not specify exactly what those
proposals would be. Ms. Stroup told Ms. Adkins, "As we talk about
accountability in the coming months, my guess is that we will hear the
same sorts of 'why this can't work' or 'why we can't do this' as you
heard in Colorado four years ago."
After the panels concluded, department officials allowed members of the
public to speak on reauthorization. College lobbyists, who had been left
off of the panels, reiterated their opposition to proposals that would
increase the federal role in holding colleges accountable for the
performance of their students. They said, however, that they would
support efforts by the government to make data that colleges already
provide to the federal government, states, and college guidebooks more
widely available to students and their families.
"The Department of Education already collects a boxcar full of data from
institutions of higher education," said Terry W. Hartle, senior vice
president for government and public affairs at the American Council on
Education. "It might be that what we ought to be thinking about is
making the public more widely aware of what's available" on the
department's Web site.
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