Resources
Accountability, Assessment, Accreditation
Spellings' Commission on the Future of Higher Education
- Pre-publication Report of the Commission
- A Test of Leadership: Charting the
Future of U.S. Higher Education
- Final report of the Secretary's Commission on the Future of Higher
Education.
- Reports presented to The Commission
- News articles on the Commission's Report
IPEDS
- Department of Education Proposed Increased
Data Collection via IPEDS
- "The U.S. Education Department is quietly moving ahead with plans
to significantly expand the information and data it collects from
colleges each year through an online survey — including an entirely
new section that would require institutions to report on the accountability
measures they use and their scores on those tests or tools." "The
two most significant categories of new information that the department
is requesting (which, if approved by OMB, would be voluntary in 2007-8
and required in 2008-9) would be what the department calls “a new
accountability part” and an expanded section of information about
financial aid, which seems to be designed to help the department come
up with a method of reporting on the “net price” that different categories
of students might really pay (as opposed to the “sticker price” that
gets widely reported) to attend a particular college." 2/19/2007
Papers from other Associations, including AACC, and editorials
National Conference of State Legislatures
- American Higher Education Must Be Reformed,
State Legislators Say
- National Conference of State Legislatures
- Blue Ribbon Commission on Higher Education
- Analysis of NCSL report
NASULGC
- Elements
of Accountability for Public Universities and Colleges
- Toward
a Public Universities and Colleges Voluntary System of Accountability
for Undergraduate Education
- This is the third discussion draft, the second was Elements of
Accountability for Public Universities and Colleges. August 2006
- Article on the NASULGC Accountability
Paper
- Addressing the Challenges: Facing
American Undergraduate Education
- sets forth a number of challenges before higher education and embraces
change to deal with them
- AACC Statement
on the Final Report of the Secretary of Education’s
- Rising Above The Gathering Storm:
Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future (2006)
- The National Academies was asked by Senator Lamar Alexander and
Senator Jeff Bingaman of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources,
with endorsement by Representative Sherwood Boehlert and Representative
Bart Gordon of the House Committee on Science, to respond to the following
questions: What are the top 10 actions, in priority order, that federal
policymakers could take to enhance the science and technology enterprise
so that the United States can successfully compete, prosper, and be
secure in the global community of the 21st century? What strategy,
with several concrete steps, could be used to implement each of those
actions?
- Editorial on access, by two former private
college presidents
- The Elephant in the Student Aid Office
Education Trust
- Engines of
Inequality - Diminishing Equity in the Nation's Premier Public Universities
- Insider Higher Ed: Flagships Flunked on
Access
Assessment of Learning
- National
Assessment of Adult Literacy - NAAL Home
- What is NAAL? The 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy is
a nationally representative assessment of English literacy among American
adults age 16 and older. Sponsored by the National Center for Education
Statistics (NCES), NAAL is the nation’s most comprehensive measure
of adult literacy since the 1992 National Adult Literacy Survey (NALS).
In 2003, over 19,000 adults participated in the national and state-level
assessments, representing the entire population of U.S. adults who
are age 16 and older, most in their homes and some in prisons from
the 50 states and the District of Columbia. Approximately 1,200 inmates
of federal and state prisons were assessed in order to provide separate
estimates of literacy for the incarcerated population. By comparing
results from 1992 and 2003, NAAL provides the first indicator in a
decade of the nation’s progress in adult literacy. NAAL also provides
information on adults’ literacy performance and related background
characteristics to researchers, practitioners, policymakers, and the
general public. NAAL Components NAAL includes a number of components
that capture the breadth of adult literacy in the United States: *
Background Questionnaire—helps identify the relationships between
adult literacy and select demographic and background characteristics;
* Prison Component—assesses the literacy skills of adults in federal
and state prisons; * State Assessment of Adult Literacy (SAAL)—gives
statewide estimates of literacy for states participating in the state-level
assessment; * Health Literacy Component—introduces the first-ever
national assessment of adults’ ability to use their literacy skills
in understanding health-related materials and forms; * Fluency Addition
to NAAL (FAN)—measures basic reading skills by assessing adults’ ability
to decode, recognize words, and read with fluency; and * Adult Literacy
Supplemental Assessment (ALSA)—provides information on the ability
of the least-literate adults to identify letters and numbers and to
comprehend simple prose and documents. http://nces.ed.gov/NAAL/index.asp?file=AboutNAAL/WhatIsNAAL.asp&PageId=2
- State Assessment of Adult Literacy
(SAAL)
- The State Assessment of Adult Literacy (SAAL) is an assessment of
adult literacy within a participating state. Conducted in conjunction
with 2003 NAAL data collection, SAAL collects additional data within
a participating state.
- National Forum on College Level Learning
- Welcome to the National Forum on College-Level Learning, the first
attempt to measure what college students know and can do across states.
In this Pew-sponsored pilot study, five states (Illinois, Kentucky,
Nevada, Oklahoma, and South Carolina) have collected information on
college-level learning from tests that students now take when they
leave college, national assessments of adult literacy, surveys of
students and alumni, and tests of general intellectual skills given
to a representative sample of students. The results make it possible
to assess both the intellectual capital available to these states
and the contributions that their colleges and universities (two and
four year, public and private) collectively make to it. The attached
documents should give you a more complete understanding of the project.
- ACT : WorkKeys
- WorkKeys® assessments give students and workers reliable, relevant
information about their workplace skill levels. Combined with information
about skill levels required for jobs, assessments information can
help users make better career and educational decisions.
- MAPP OverviewMeasure of Academic Proficiency
and Progress (MAPP)
- The Measure of Academic Proficiency and Progress (MAPP) test is
a measure of college-level reading, mathematics, writing, and critical
thinking in the context of the humanities, social sciences, and natural
sciences. The MAPP test is designed for colleges and universities
to assess their general education outcomes, so they may improve the
quality of instruction and learning. It focuses on the academic skills
developed through general education courses, rather than on the knowledge
acquired about the subjects taught in these courses.
- Collegiate
Assessment of Academic Proficiency (CAAP)
- The Collegiate Assessment of Academic Proficiency (CAAP) is the
standardized, nationally normed assessment program from ACT that enables
postsecondary institutions to measure, evaluate, and enhance the outcomes
of their general education programs.
- NPEC Sourebook
on Assessment: Definitions and Assessment Methods for Communication,
Leadership, Information Literacy, Quantitative Reasoning, and Quantitative
Skills
- The NPEC Sourcebook on Assessment provides descriptive information
about commercially developed instruments that are designed to assess
communication skills, leadership skills, information literacy, quantitative
reasoning, and quantitative skills for use in postsecondary education
settings. The information provided for each instrument includes the
content area it assesses, its cost, content, its reliability and validity,
strengths, and limitations when this information was available. This
sourcebook also examines definitions and important student outcomes
in each of the 5 areas and cites resources that provide more in-depth
information about the issues involved in measuring these 5 areas.
Audiences who might find this publication helpful include faculty,
assessment professionals, institutional researchers, and others who
are involved in selecting assessments and developing assessment processes.
- Collegiate
Learning Assessment
- The Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA) is an innovative approach
to assessing your institution’s contribution to student learning developed
by CAE with the RAND Corporation. Our measures are designed to simulate
complex, ambiguous situations that every successful college graduate
may one day face. Life is not like a multiple choice test, with four
or five simple choices for every problem. So we ask students to analyze
complex material and provide written responses. The CLA measures are
uniquely designed to test for reasoning and communications skills
that most agree should be one outcome of a college education. Most
CLA participants assess their institution cross-sectionally, testing
a sample of first year students in the fall and a sample of seniors
in the spring. You receive two reports, the first after fall testing
that looks at how your entering class compares to other CLA participants
(adjusted for SAT or ACT scores). Then after testing of seniors in
the spring, you receive a full Institutional Report that evaluates
your schools value-added on a comparative basis. Testing every year
allows you to measure for effects of changes in curriculum or pedagogy.
You also receive an annual CLA in Context report that looks at the
results nationally and helps your institution consider ways to utilize
the CLA results.
- Measuring
Up | Learning Assessments - Ewell
Advise for Media on Covering Learning Assessment
- Report
on Covering the Assessment of Learning Outcomes in Higher Education
- this report will help journalists understand the history, context,
and efforts to measure learning in America’s colleges and universities
so that they may expand their coverage to take note of these activities.
- 2006_hechinger.pdf
(application/pdf Object)
- Article on the Variety of Assessments Already in Place
Other Assessments
Editorial Projects in Education - From Cradle to Career
- From Cradle
to Career: Connecting American Education From Birth to Adulthood
- Executive Summary
- From Cradle
to Career: Executive Summary
- Chance for Success
Index Map
- The new Chance-for-Success Index, developed for the report by
the Editorial Projects in Education Research Center, provides a
state-focused perspective on the importance of education throughout
a person’s lifetime. The index is based on 13 indicators that highlight
whether young children get off to a good start, succeed in elementary
and secondary school, and hit crucial educational and economic benchmarks
as adults.
- Indicators and
sources for "From Cradle to Career"
- Community College Survey of Student Engagement
- The Community College Survey of Student Engagement (CCSSE) provides
a much-needed tool for assessing quality in community college education.
CCSSE results help colleges focus on good educational practice — defined
as practice that promotes high levels of student learning and retention
— and identify areas in which community colleges can improve their
programs and services for students. All our work is grounded in research
about what works in strengthening student learning and persistence.
- Measuring Quality: Choosing Among Surveys and Other Assessments
of College Quality
- A co-publication of the Association for Institutional Research and
American Council on Education, Measuring Quality: Choosing Among Surveys
and Other Assessments of College Quality provides advice to college
presidents and provosts on using national surveys as part of an institutional
self-assessment plan. It was written by Victor Borden, Associate Vice
Chancellor for Information Management and Institutional Research at
Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) and Jody
L. Zak Owens, Research Assistant and Graduate Student in higher education
and student affairs at Indiana University. The publication is intended
to give institutional researchers, presidents and provosts a clearer
understanding of a rapidly expanding set of outcomes measures in order
to make more informed choices about the use of these tools. The guide
also describes in detail 30 of the major national surveys and assessments.
Although the guide does not rate or recommend these services, it suggests
the criteria campus leaders should use to determine the use and usefulness
of any survey instrument or service, based on specific campus needs,
capabilities, and goals.
- Measuring Up | The National Report
Card on Higher Education
- Analysis of Measuring Up 2006
- NAICU | Colleges, Universities & Accountability
Learning Outcomes
Assessment of Learning
- A Warning on Measuring Learning Outcomes
- An essay by Trudy Banta on the problems with the use of learning
assessment to measure value-added and to compare institutions.
College Learning of the New Global Century
- A report of the Association of American Colleges and Universities
outlining curricular goals for all colleges. 1/10/07
- College Learning for the Global Century
- A report from the National Leadership Council for Liberal Education
& America's Promise
- Article from Insider HigherEd
Council for Higher Education Accreditation
- Report on 2007 Annual Meeting
- "Accrediting officials have heard the message ad nauseum: Policy
makers and the public need more evidence that colleges are educating
their students, and it's up to higher education - accreditors included
- to produce that evidence....The reaction from the audience of
college officials and accreditors suggested that at this point,
outright opposition seems to have morphed into resignation, and
even partial embrace. But it was equally clear that while they generally
accept the idea that colleges must prove that they are educating
their students, they have serious problems with the underlying premise
that the only truly useful ways of measuring student learning outcomes
are those that allow for comparing a college against its peers."
Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce
- The New
Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce
- The National Center on Education and the Economy created the New
Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce to chart a course
for the United States in a much more complicated global economy.
The Commission released its recommendations to the public on December
14, 2006. The final report proposes a restructuring that America’s
economic preeminence hinges on the preeminence of our educational
system. Unfortunately, America has been lagging behind on key educational
indicators for quite some time. Nothing short of radical change
will turn the situation around. The final report will propose a
restructuring of educational priorities that will have a major impact
on all levels of education – from preschool to college and beyond.
The 2006 report is titled Tough Choices or Tough Times.
- Tough Choices
or Tough Times
- Executive summary
- Inside Higher Ed: Seeking a New Skills
Revolution
- Starting in the 1980’s, a worldwide market of low-skill labor
began draining jobs overseas, threatening the wages of Americans.
In response, the Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce
— a bipartisan group of business, government, and education leaders
— laid out a plan in 1990 for the United States. The group suggested
that the country focus its economy on high end products and services
to keep wages from declining. On Thursday, [12/14/06] the commission
released a new report, “Tough Choices or Tough Times,” which is
calling for a complete revamping of the educational system to ensure
that America can remain a global leader. Because these changes affect
so many aspects of the educational system — college admissions,
teachers’ unions, and the funding of local school districts — members
of the commission acknowledge that they face an uphill battle.
- Chronicle: Panel on Work-Force Skills
Calls for Drastic Overhaul of America's Education System
- Debate Grows as Colleges Slip in Graduations
- New York Times
Accreditation
- Overview of U.S. Accreditation - 2006
- The Condition
of Accreditation, U.S. Accreditation in 2005
Benchmarks and Metrics for Institutional Effectiveness
Stewardship
- Jobs, News and Views
for All of Higher Education - Inside Higher Ed :: A Sustainability
Report Card
- College Sustainability Report Card
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