U.S. Panel Weighs Accountability in Higher Education

Boston

College presidents last week told a federal commission considering ways to bring more accountability to higher education that some measures for assessing a college’s effectiveness, including graduation rates and standardized tests, might present problems.

The Commission on the Future of Higher Education, established in September by Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings, is charged with examining how colleges and universities can better prepare students for the workforce and considering ways of increasing access to college. It held the latest in a nationwide series of public hearings here in Boston, an area known for its concentration of top universities, on March 20. The commission will deliver a report to Ms. Spellings by
Aug. 1.

The panel’s chairman, Charles Miller, said in an interview this month that he would like to see more emphasis on demonstrated student learning at the postsecondary level. He said the commission might include language in its report urging colleges to use standardized tests to measure students’ problem-solving, critical-thinking, written-communication, and other skills, in both their...