Data-Driven Accountability Emphasized In Higher Ed
For years, as the careers of public educators have increasingly been tied to precise measurements of student performance, the inhabitants of the higher education realm have continued to live in what Kay McClenney, a senior lecturer at the University of Texas, calls “a world of anecdote.”
But recently, she says, a “sea change” seems to be emerging, as public institutions of higher learning increasingly find themselves evaluated less on long-standing reputation and more on what the numbers actually say. Higher ed is abuzz with a push for “accountability” that has taken multiple forms of late. Examples include a document developed ...
Comments (2)
Anne Solomon via Texas Tribune on Facebook
This was the purpose of TASP 25 years ago. Could have made a big difference in Tx education but nobody wanted to take it seriously. Especially the Lege and college administrators.
James Aldridge
Your first four paragraphs contain one, four, four, and three sentences. Shame on you, and shame on the teacher who made you an ignoramus.
One day my son came home from school, and I asked how he had done on whatever the state assessment test was at the time. He said he thought he had done well, but couldn't remember how many sentences are in a paragraph. Cranking my jaw up off my shoes, I went on to discover that paragraphs have five sentences. The teacher who taught him that was exemplary. Any teacher who taught him to actually write needed bopping about the head and shoulders by an indignant bureaucrat.
Bogus assessments produce a number, which makes administrative bureaucrats happy, but nothing else. Worse, if they are high stakes, they force us to distort our programs to inflate the number, as in demanding that everyone write five-sentence paragraphs. Real assessments are great, but they involve a lot of time, money and expertise. I can't seem to find anyone in Austin who cares that much about it.