Gray lady inks higher ed report

Final adoption of a report by the federal Commission on the Future of Higher Education got some media play, mostly from an Associated Press story in papers including The Los Angeles Times, Forbes and The Dallas Morning News and a New York Times news service story that ran in the Gray Lady herself and got picked up by papers including The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, The Minneapolis Star-Tribune, The Register Guard in Portland, Ore., and The Gainesville (Fla.) Sun.

Today's Chicago Trib carried the AP story, with a graf contributed by staff reporter Jodi S. Cohen. It was a quote from a top University of Illinois administrator, and it demonstrates why some educators wonder if the commission didn't get in over its head just a little, especially on testing issues:

Richard Herman, chancellor of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, said the best measure of success is what students do after college.

"I am not opposed to the idea of additional measurements, but . . . using a limited number of metrics to measure the success of a college education is inaccurate," Herman said. "Our mission, I believe, is to prepare tomorrow's leaders. I would argue on those grounds that we have been enormously successful. Tell me what written test measures that."

In spite of the sweeping nature of the blue-ribbon commission's mandate, Sam Dillon's lede in The Times managed to get it all in:

WASHINGTON, Aug. 10 — A federal commission approved a final report on Thursday that urges a broad shake-up of American higher education. It calls for public universities to measure learning with standardized tests, federal monitoring of college quality and sweeping changes in financial aid.

The panel also called on policy makers and leaders in higher education to find new ways to control costs, saying college tuition should grow no faster than median family income, although it opposed price controls.

The report recommended bolstering Pell grants, the basic building block of federal student aid, by making the program cover a larger percentage of public college tuition. That proposal could cost billions of dollars.

Didllon's story, like the AP story, noted that David Ward of the American Council on Education refused to sign off on the report and explained his refusal to sign is significant because ACE is "the largest association of colleges and universities [and Ward] was the most powerful representative of the higher education establishment on the commission."

Dillon's story noted that controversial language in earlier drafts of the report was toned down at the last minute. Some of it involved standardized testing:

... in the last six weeks, the commission issued six drafts, watering down passages that had drawn criticism and eliminating one this week, written by Mr. Miller, that had encouraged expanding private loans as a share of student financial aid.

A proposal on standardized tests was also weakened at the last moment. Previous drafts said that “states should require” public universities to use standardized test, but the final version said simply that universities “should measure student learning” with standardized tests.

How that policy recommendation translates into actual mandates, of course, remains to be seen.

The commission was formed in September 2005 to discuss access, accountability and cost issues and to report to U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings in a year's time. What happens next is not clear, although commission chair Charles Miller envisions more consultation with corporate and government leaders. He didn't mention educators, but that may be an oversight in the New York Times story. Dillon reported:

The members seemed at odds on how to carry their recommendations forward. Some, like former Gov. James B. Hunt Jr. of North Carolina, called on President Bush to incorporate them in the Congressional agenda.

Mr. Miller said the next step should be more “national dialogue” with governors and corporate leaders. He seemed upset by what he characterized as wrangling with representatives of the status quo.

“You can’t act on the recommendations today because you encounter one set of defenders and then behind them another set of defenders, and you get into all these battles,” he told reporters after the panel voted.

Dillon's story noted that some member organizations represted in ACE have endorsed drafts of the report, including the American Association of State Colleges and Universities and the American Association of Community Colleges. Other reaction was more in line with Ward's. Said Dillon:

Other important groups in the council issued withering critiques.

The Association of American Universities, which represents 60 top research universities, noted that the report “deals almost exclusively with undergraduate education.”

Robert M. Berdahl, a former chancellor at the University of California, Berkeley, who is president of the universities association, said, “What is needed is something much richer, with a more nuanced understanding of the educational engagement and how it is undertaken.” said

Another council member, the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, which represents 900 private institutions including liberal arts colleges, major research universities and church- and other faith-related colleges, attacked the recommendation to develop a national database to follow individual students’ progress as a way of holding colleges accountable for students’ success.

The association called the proposal a dangerous intrusion on privacy, saying, “Our members find this idea chilling.”

Several groups said the report spent much ink discussing increases in students’ work skills, while slighting the mission of colleges and universities to educate students as citizens.