Panel Explores Standard Tests for Colleges (WH appointed)

[rodeodance]

Miller also yes that he is "not envisioning a higher education version of the No Child Left Behind Act,"---but this new panel sure has the earmarks of NCLB.



http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/09/education/09testing.html?_r=1&th=&oref=slogin&emc=th&pagewanted=print
February 9, 2006

Panel Explores Standard Tests for Colleges
By KAREN W. ARENSON

A higher education commission named by the Bush administration is examining whether standardized testing should be expanded into universities and colleges to prove that students are learning and to allow easier comparisons on quality.

Charles Miller, a business executive who is the commission's chairman, wrote in a memorandum recently to the 18 other members that he saw a developing consensus over the need for more accountability in higher education.

"What is clearly lacking is a nationwide system for comparative performance purposes, using standard formats," Mr. Miller wrote, adding that student learning was a main component that should be measured.

Mr. Miller was head of the Regents of the University of Texas a few years ago when they directed the university's nine campuses to use standardized tests to prove students were learning. He points to the test being tried there and to two other testing initiatives as evidence that assessment of writing, analytical skills and critical thinking is possible.

......

[fasttense]

1. I wonder if the crazy king george would have passed the test. n/t

[Renew Deal]

2. Another bureaucracy.

For guys that claim they like small government, they sure don't.

[rodeodance]

3. this metaphor of referring to students as 'products" has a long history.

......"The unanswered question in higher education is: How good is the product?" said Robert Zemsky, a commission member who is a professor of education at the University of Pennsylvania. "A growing number of people are beginning to want answers. What higher education is about to learn is that they can't play the 'trust me' game anymore."

[no_hypocrisy]

4. Just another facade to allow * to stop federal funding of universities.

They set an impossible standard to attain, they don't fund the mandate, knowing that the majority will not succeed, and pull the present federal funds from the institutes of higher learning.

[cybildisobedience]

6. and to possibly put a stop to "indoctrination" of liberal ideas

as if.
But, really, the LAST thing this cabal wants is critical thinkers. Better to force college students to spend their time NOT honing critical thinking skills, but immersed in even more memorization and spit back.

[HereSince1628]

5. They most assuredly want to pump up the conservative content.

Amazing how the Bushies want all free enterprise except the free enterprise of ideas.

I doubt they will notice that the combination of professional/state regulated licensing and certifications and assessment criteria now in use a majority of schools subject college students to standardized tests.

[Canuckistanian]

7. If David Horowitz's name is invovled in any way

This is to be avoided like the plague.

[JDPriestly]

8. No! No! No!

Tell me this isn't true. That's the end of education. From now on it's just indoctrination. The libraries are next. Then the bookstores. And then we have nothing.

They want total mind control.

Anyway don't we already have the Graduate Record Exams? Are they trying to replace them?

The whole point of universities is free exploration of ideas -- creative thinking -- learning independently -- professionalism -- not rote learning.