Washington – Looking to extend its education policies into America’s colleges and universities, the Bush administration outlined new proposals Tuesday that some higher-education officials fear will lead to standardized testing at the collegiate level and trample on students’ privacy.
Education Secretary Margaret Spellings said sweeping changes are needed to make higher education more affordable, accountable and understandable to Americans who are shelling out tens of thousands of dollars annually to pursue college degrees.
In a speech at the National Press Club, she laid out a series of proposals developed by her Commission on the Future of U.S. Higher Education, which she appointed a year ago.
In concept, they would extend to colleges the principles from the No Child Left Behind program, which seeks greater accountability from America’s elementary schools by requiring them to impose standardized tests and publicize their results.
Seeking to reassure nervous educators, Spellings said the White House had no interest in federalizing the country’s 3,706 public and private two-year and four-year institutions. Instead, Spellings said, she wants a transparent system that makes shopping for colleges and universities as easy as shopping for cars.
Many academics question the wisdom and motive for perhaps the most controversial proposal: a massive database to track students as they progress on campus. The process would be similar to the way students from kindergarten through 12th grade are monitored, Spellings said. Information from the database would help illustrate how colleges and universities are performing.
David Warren, the president of the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, said such a database could intrude on students’ privacy: “They’re creating a data system that, if you breach the system, it can track back to the student, that will have everything from the student’s life in college, K-through-12 and far beyond.”
Spellings also said colleges must improve measurements of student performance through testing. The commission’s report mentions the Collegiate Learning Assessment, an exam that 134 colleges have used since 2002, and the Measure of Academic Proficiency and Progress as two good gauges of academic progress.
Spellings also discussed trying to make college more affordable. But she didn’t address the commission’s suggestion to increase Pell Grants – the main federal aid for low-income students – to cover at least 70 percent of in-state tuition costs.
