College-level NCLB pot simmers

While the mainstream media have largely ignored the Bush administration's proposal for nationwide standardized testing of college students along lines of the K-12 No Child Left Behind tests, it continues to get notice in college and university newspapers. Friday's edition (March 17) of DiamondbackOnline.com, the University of Maryland's independent student newspaper, carried a story headed "Faculty criticize standardized test plan." Citing a New York Times report on the Education Department's Commission on the Future of Higher Education, which is conducting hearings on the proposal, Diamondback reporter Theodore J. Sawchuck said:

[Maryland] Office of Institutional Research and Planning Associate Director Sharon Anne La Voy said while the panel’s aims are admirable, the tests would cost too much and measure too little.

“Accountability isn’t in and of itself a bad thing,” she said. However, La Voy doubted the faculty would give up their freedom to teach what they want, or that the test would accurately measure what they teach.

“I have a hard time thinking they’d abandon that and teach to the test,” she said. “Can you measure what you’re getting out of college on a multiple-choice test?”

Sawchuck's story cites statistics suggesting a large number of colleges and universities already use standardized tests. (One of them, although it escaped the Diamondback's notice for obvious reasons, is SCI.) Sawchuck says:

Though this university does not, many colleges nationwide use some form of standardized testing. David Chadima, a consultant with ACT Educational Services, said some 340 schools use ACT’s Collegiate Assessment of Academic Proficiency. According to the Educational Testing Service’s website, about 700 schools use its Major Field Test. The CAAP costs between $11.55 and $17.85 per student while the MFT is $24.

The University of Texas System is among many colleges nationwide who use some form of standardized testing. Pedro Reyes, UTS associate vice chancellor of academic affairs, said students can fail the Collegiate Learning Assessment and still graduate. He said the system bears the cost of the test — $6,000 for 200 tests — to assess the effectiveness of its teaching methods.

Reyes' observation is noteworthy because blue-ribbon commission chairman Miller is a former UT trustee who favors the CLA test. In any event, the story said the University of Maryland doesn't hope to be emulating the schools that already do standardized testing anytime soon:

Standardized testing requires a tradeoff between the cost of the test and quality of the information gained, said Robert Mislevy, a professor in the College of Education.

“It’s almost inevitable that the better you want to do it, the more it’s going to cost,” he said. “Information costs money.”

Until the government mandates standardized testing, the university has no plans to implement it on their own, which pleases assistant professor of Afro-American studies Jessica Gordon Nembhard.

“Standardized tests are just too narrow because they have to be standardized,” she said. “They usually end up missing the nuance that tells us if students are actually learning anything.”