Now that the Spellings Report is out, and the Secretary has announced a plan of action, the pundits and bloggers have made their opinions known (see, e.g. Lombardi’s column in Inside Higher Education and the subsequent comments, or Seery’s column in the Huffington Post and subsequent comments). The comments generally range from slightly neutral to quite negative. They run from discussions regarding the difficulty of measuring the important outputs of higher education, to claims that this report is simply part of a larger Bushian conspiracy against progressive thought. Along the way are numerous statements that only academics have a right to judge the academy, and that government should stay out of it.
My take is a bit different from those of many commentators, as readers of this blog will recognize. I believe that the concerns raised by the Report regarding the future global dominance of American higher education are very real, and supported by considerable data (see e.g.Measuring Up 2006:The national report card on higher education , or Education at a Glance 2006). I believe that comments by various faculty (see blogs mentioned above) that learning in college is the responsibility of the student, not the faculty, are simply wrong, and that there is real joint responsibility for good outcomes. In general, we in the academy have not kept up our end of that joint responsibility because we have ignored research that shows how we could change our teaching to improve learning outcomes significantly. As a result, many of our students are not learning what they need for success in a knowledge economy. (see previous related posts How people learn May 1, 2006, A D- in science education April 14, 2006, How are we doing teaching cognitive skills? July 4, 2006)
The good news is, as the knowledge economy grows in importance, higher education becomes more critical to the health of a nation. The bad news is, as higher education grows more critical to the health of the nation, more people have a stake in its continued excellence and so demand a different type of input. Consequently, overall, much of the report is focused on one of the catch-words of the global economy: transparency. How can the “investors” in higher education - parents, students, government- better know what they are being offered so that they can invest more wisely? Much of the focus of government is on making elements of the economy more transparent in order to increase the effective use of capital: why should higher education expect to be sheltered from these general conditions of transparency as we become even more central to the economy?
All things considered, we are not transparent at all. We publish lots of input data, but very little output data, and that that is published shines little light on what is going on in particular institutions. The Spellings Report begins to question what kinds of data could help to describe what we do and how effective we are in doing it. Because it is relatively virgin territory, the suggestions are considerably less than perfect in my opinion, but nevertheless generally have merit. In particular, more attention needs to be placed on appropriately measuring institutional student learning outcomes, and in making that information available. The Secretary has encouraged individual institutions to do this, a good approach that enables each institution to place the measured outcomes in the institutional context. Although I worry a lot about increased information gathering by the government, I can easily understand why government, in particular, would want to have a better handle on the flow of students through the various pathways of the higher education system. I believe that a major societal question that must eventually be addressed is “ as we move increasingly to a knowledge-economy, market-driven world, what is the appropriate and necessary role of government in higher education in order to assure the health of the nation?” Lack of information of the type Spellings wants almost precludes our posing that question at this time.
All of the caveats made by Lombardi regarding the improper uses of data are completely realistic appropriate, and correct. However, I believe it is unrealistic to imagine that we will not have to become much more transparent and provide much more information on what we are actually accomplishing (as opposed to what we say we are accomplishing). We ultimately will be much better off if we take the lead in creating useful data, and aggressively supporting its appropriate use by accrediting groups, government, and commercial ranking services. It would be a catastrophe if our foot-dragging and lack of attention allowed homogenization of higher education to be an outcome of a reasonable demand for data.
I close with a few comments on the utility of transparency in higher education. Higher education in the US is remarkably diverse. Among the 4000-5000 colleges and universities in the US are a significant number that clearly are among the very best in the world, at least as currently measured. Those world-class institutions accept only the very strongest students, and their faculties contain many of the leading thinkers of the day. As pointed out by Frank in Winner Take All Society, these institutions have achieved levels of reputation that become self-fulfilling. For various societal reasons (not necessarily educational outcomes!), the students and faculty of these institutions are very widely sought out, thus more successful, thus further increasing the reputations of the institutions. It is highly unlikely that increased transparency will change the desirability of these institutions for prospective students. However, for the vast majority of institutions of higher education in the US - and the vast majority of students in the US - transparency could provide very important and useful information that could lead to better matches between student and institution, and considerable institutional improvement.
See also my previous posts on the Spellings Report: A preliminary report from the commission on the future of higher education June 27, 2006, and Report from the secretary of education's commission on the future of higher education Aug. 10,2006.
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