Yesterday, NPR had this story:
Commission Mulls Standardized Testing in Colleges
by Claudio SanchezMorning Edition, February 14, 2006 - The Bush administration has appointed a commission that is considering standardized testing for college students. The testing would be meant to measure the quality of higher education in the United States. [Listen]
This is a horrible idea, for many reasons. Here are just some:
1. Unlike public K-12 education, students aren't required to attend college. Students choose to go to a university if they want advanced education in a narrower field, such as engineering or art history or business, than what K-12 education provides them. This choice to obtain specialized education precludes any significant level of standardization because the educational outcomes are inherently different. Unlike high school, where our government has decided that nearly all graduates should know pretty much the same thing, universities teach to divergent outcomes.
2. Those who craft up the curricula at most universities in the US have doctoral degrees in their fields. That means they have greater knowledge about what is important to know about their areas of knowledge than any bureaucrat without similar background and education. So why would someone with less awareness and expertise in a particular field be better off creating a curriculum than someone who has spent his/her life studying that area?
3. A nationwide, standardized curriculum would limit the flexibility of colleges and universities to adapt to the rapid changes in technology, science, and other technical and non-technical fields that our graduates need to not only compete, but lead, in the global marketplace. A standardized curriculum will be inherently less agile, putting our world-class institutions at risk of falling behind other advanced nations. Our K-12 systems are already sub-standard compared to our peer nations -- do we really want to drag our colleges and universities down as well?
4. There is an inherent inconsistency in wanting higher graduation rates, more consistent knowledge across graduates, and cutting-edge curricula: You only get to choose two of those three. If you desire standardization in outcomes and are willing to make the content such that a higher percentage of the population can grasp it, then it will hardly be cutting-edge. If you want to a higher graduation rate for those with a cutting-edge education, then you will have to accept fewer into the programs (assuming there isn't some miraculously sudden increase in the competence of high school graduates being produced in this country). Finally, if you want more standardization of students having a cutting-edge curriculum, then you will need to cull those who aren't likely to graduate with a high degree of learning (i.e., flunk-out rates will be higher).
5. Finally, this is also a political philosophy question: why on Earth would Americans, most of whom do not prefer the government to meddle in affairs when it isn't necessary, desire this "big government" initiative when it will only increase the size of an already bloated government? Problems are rarely best fixed through added bureaucracy, and I'm still not sure why a lack of standardization in college curricula is even considered a problem.
If the Bush administration is worried about college graduates not having fundamental skills, such as calculating a 15% tip, perhaps it needs to go back and figure out why its "No Child Left Behind" program is letting kids with no knowledge of fractions and percenates. We don't teach those skills in college, as we assume students already have them when they get here. If the problem truly revolves around the inputs to the college system, rather than its outputs, then put the focus where it belongs and leave our colleges alone.
Public institutions are already facing increasingly daunting financial problems all across the country -- why burden them even more just to try and fix a problem with the K-12 system the government already has attempted to mend?
