They can't be serious!:
I finished my lesson planning and other pedagogical preparations early this morning and thought I'd check to see what was happening in the world today so I could find something with which to open my class before we plunged into the universe of normal distribution. The New York Times was kind enough to publish this gem (free registration required) on the U.S. Department of Education's new commission that was assembled to discuss whether or not to implement standardized testing in institutions of higher education. To clarify, these test would be separate from the GRE, LSAT, MCAT, or any other test required for admission to graduate school. Think high school graduation tests.
I certainly have my doubts and concerns about such a plan. I don't believe it is possible to construct a one-size-fits-all exam when each college or university is so unique. Furthermore, a college education is so individualized, making a catch-all exam difficult to create. The applications of basic writing, analytica, and critical thinking skills differ between disciplines. From my own experiences first at a private, liberal arts women's college and then at larger public coed institutions, as well as comparisons to my siblings' experiences (one is at Georgia Tech and the other at the University of Delaware), I'm just not convinced that, even if it were developed, a standardized test could give a true measure of what students gain in college. There are simply too many intangibles.
Fortunately, Charles Miller, the chairman of this commission, says that "he was not envisionaing a higher education version of the No Child Left Behind Act," but instead clarifies, "'There is no way you can mandate a single set of tests.'" With no single set of tests, would the comparisons be valid? Would the results even be meaningful? What is the fundamental purpose of a college education in this age?
This commission's goal appears to be looking for a quality control measure on a college education to "prove that students are learning." The first step in quality control really should be assessing how many students going to 4-year colleges actually need to be there. While I agree that everyone should have some form of post-secondary education, I feel that too many students are attending colleges instead of vocational schools. I don't consider myself an elitist, but more of a realist. As much as we all believe that "all men are created equal," that ever-present debate between nature and nurture results in people with varying strengths and weaknesses.
Even more than that, standardized testing at this level is a slap in the face to faculty members (and future faculty members) who have worked hard to achieve their levels of expertise and try to share that knowledge with students who may or may not be open to reception, as mentioned above. No one can force a student to learn. That motivation must come from within, and there is very little motivation from a standardized test. We're seeing those results as the NCLB students grow up. Teaching to a test is not teaching. High stakes tests may work on schoolchildren, but not on the young adults of America.
I finished my lesson planning and other pedagogical preparations early this morning and thought I'd check to see what was happening in the world today so I could find something with which to open my class before we plunged into the universe of normal distribution. The New York Times was kind enough to publish this gem (free registration required) on the U.S. Department of Education's new commission that was assembled to discuss whether or not to implement standardized testing in institutions of higher education. To clarify, these test would be separate from the GRE, LSAT, MCAT, or any other test required for admission to graduate school. Think high school graduation tests.
I certainly have my doubts and concerns about such a plan. I don't believe it is possible to construct a one-size-fits-all exam when each college or university is so unique. Furthermore, a college education is so individualized, making a catch-all exam difficult to create. The applications of basic writing, analytica, and critical thinking skills differ between disciplines. From my own experiences first at a private, liberal arts women's college and then at larger public coed institutions, as well as comparisons to my siblings' experiences (one is at Georgia Tech and the other at the University of Delaware), I'm just not convinced that, even if it were developed, a standardized test could give a true measure of what students gain in college. There are simply too many intangibles.
Fortunately, Charles Miller, the chairman of this commission, says that "he was not envisionaing a higher education version of the No Child Left Behind Act," but instead clarifies, "'There is no way you can mandate a single set of tests.'" With no single set of tests, would the comparisons be valid? Would the results even be meaningful? What is the fundamental purpose of a college education in this age?
This commission's goal appears to be looking for a quality control measure on a college education to "prove that students are learning." The first step in quality control really should be assessing how many students going to 4-year colleges actually need to be there. While I agree that everyone should have some form of post-secondary education, I feel that too many students are attending colleges instead of vocational schools. I don't consider myself an elitist, but more of a realist. As much as we all believe that "all men are created equal," that ever-present debate between nature and nurture results in people with varying strengths and weaknesses.
Even more than that, standardized testing at this level is a slap in the face to faculty members (and future faculty members) who have worked hard to achieve their levels of expertise and try to share that knowledge with students who may or may not be open to reception, as mentioned above. No one can force a student to learn. That motivation must come from within, and there is very little motivation from a standardized test. We're seeing those results as the NCLB students grow up. Teaching to a test is not teaching. High stakes tests may work on schoolchildren, but not on the young adults of America.
posted by Melanie @ 11:12 AM
9 Comments:
Yeah. I was kind of under the impression that the beauty of college is that it isn't standardized. Standardized tests lead to standardized methods of teaching towards the test. And yeah, I doubt that NYU and Bob Jones are going to have much common ground as far as methodology are concerned. Even less so when you throw Cal Arts in there. Ooh! and then there's the issue where most colleges and universities are private. Can't really standardize that! And the public ones are owned and run by their respective states, which already have effective standards in place. And apparently the purpose of this would be to insure the quality of knowledge obtained by voluntarily consenting, legal paying customers. These aren't like the kids who need to be protected from crackpot theories and ID. These are institutes for adults to pay to learn. The degrees obtained have only the meaning that any given person chooses to attatch to them. This is tax money wasted to no good end.
Clearly, a winner all around.
Ok, let me base all of my objections to this on my alma mater, NYU, and prove why standardized testing in college is bullshit
-I paid a lot of money to go to that school. You know why? Because I researched, I knew the reputation, I visited the place, and saw the type of students they usually picked. Very few people choose colleges at random, and if they do they deserve what they get. I mean, even if you have little to no money for college, you still have some choice.
-Building on that – I knew people at NYU who took the most ridiculous organic chemistry-type classes possible and are smarter than I ever will be. I also know kids who got through college drinking and handing in maybe one or two papers ever. And I read some of those papers, they were awful. I went to a good school. They’re going to be a wide variety of learned skills at any university, because you get what you put into your education. That’s part of being a freakin’ adult.
-I went to film school. I feel I had a very well rounded education at NYU, and I never took one math course my four years. You know what? I didn’t want to further my education in math and science. If I learned nothing in those disciplines, I was fine with that. I mean, I wasn’t going to scream and leave the room if someone started talking about chemistry in my classes, but it just wasn’t the reason I was going to pay 30 grand a year to go to school in New York, you know? And I’d hate for others to pick their school based on my test scores, because a lot of people did pay that money for those courses – they majored in it.
-I can’t speak for other people, but I’d say the purpose of college is to prepare you for your life and your career. If you learn nothing at college and are shocked coming out of it into the ‘real world,’ that’s mostly your own fault. And frankly, a majority of jobs in this country have skills that you don’t learn in class so much as you learn with study habits, balancing job and classes, and learning to live on your own.
Anyway, I’d write more but I have to go back to staring at photos of a freak show family with hooks in their back. I love my job….
I agree with Boudicca that enforcing tests makes no sense without agreement on the goal of post-secondary education.
Not only that, there are gradients of vocational and liberal arts. What about Colgate, where one can receive an education degree? What if two people are getting this degree, one for a theoretical interest and the other to teach at a public school? Is this degree to be tested on a vocational basis or a liberal arts basis? For which of the two students?
This whole plan strikes me as more faulty reasoning from the predictable crowd. Let's not consider if our approach to education is headed in the right direction, no, let's just test the same thing over and over and over again.
I went to high school. Yes, it's true. To call certain classes a waste of time would be charitable. How is memorizing dates and facts for a test going to make people better citizens? It doesn't seem to have worked so far.
High school, as currently construed, is a holding pen for people until they go into the workforce (with little training gained from secondary education) or post-secondary school (with little training for post-secondary education).
Shorter version: fewer tests, more thought.
Y'all are no fun! What is this "agree with me" nonsense? :)
Not only do I agree with you, this whole thread has given me a great idea for an editorial this week!
For a very good analysis of this story, check out this post:
http://www.progressiveu.org/061919-standardized-testing-in-higher-education-in-two-words-incredibly-foolish
As much as I want to advocate for the prince of lies here, I find that I must agree in large part with opposition to this plan. I also agree with Cato's assertion that there are certain basic reasoning skills (reading, writing, basic numeracy and analytic skills) which form an indispensible foundation of competent and meaningful membership in modern society. These skills can, and by all means, should be tested.
As for higher education, many of you have correctly identified the problem as being one of differing goals among seekers of said education. For many, higher education is primarily a set of creditials, purchased in order to gain access to a certain set of job opportunities. For others, the goal is a general broadening of intellectual interest and ability, and for most it is probably a mixture of both. Thus, there are as many standards by which to judge higher education as there are expectations about its purpose. However, I would argue that for most of the common views of higher education, there exist already numerous sources of (relatively) reliable information about schools' effectiveness. If you are interested in film school, say, primarily because you would like to become a big director in hollywood, then film schools are more than happy to disclose employment data on their graduates, which, to me, seems the very information most germaine to your goals. If, on the other hand, you are hope that college will give you the sort of intangible "well roundedness" that will get you into public office or the like, you might do well to examine a list of luminaries who matriculated at a given college (also available). Or you might peruse any one of a number of guides devoted entirely to capturing and ranking those intangible elements of education. (or you could try visiting the school ::shudder::) If your selection of a law school is based largely on the sort of salary you expect to earn in your first year out, those numbers are available. Generally, where there is a large demand by the consumer, (in this case for accurate and unbiased information) someone will step in to provide it. Why bother wasting tax dollars trying to provide rankings that are all things to all people when the private sector is doing it already?
That, plus I can only imagine that this could only apply to public universities, much like the standards for private and parochial are of their own keeping. The states already have ways of maintaining standards for their public universities, so why does there need to be a federal oversight on top of it?
Cato -- You inferred almost correctly in my post. I agree with you that there are certain critical skills each product of the education system should possess, and it is expected that we would want a tool to measure this.
I don't entirely dislike the idea of standardized testing. I found the Iowas perfectly reasonable during elementary school and enjoyed the SATs in high school. The standardized Georgia Graduation Test was a joke, but we all got a kick out of it anyway. My primary objections lie with NCLB and the ultra-high-stakes standardized testing that leaves little room in the curriculum for anything other than test material. I also am consistently abhorred at the federal government's major education mandates that lack the funding the fully implement them. Many education "reforms" are great in theory but fall flat in practice. I fear the future citizenry of America will be skilled in answering multiple-choice tests but will be woefully clueless in everything else.
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