Members of a federal commission on higher education are looking at standardized testing as a possible way to measure the effectiveness of colleges and universities.

This arose in response to recent surveys asserting that college graduates are not as literate as they should be, and the need for tangible results in exchange for the money invested in higher education by both the state and federal government.

But faculty and administrators at SF State think that high-stakes standardized testing of graduating college seniors is the wrong answer.

“Part of the beauty of higher education is being able to explore, being able to think of new ideas, being able to take risks,” said assistant professor of education Jamal Cooks. “I think that would be horrific, to say that everyone has to learn in the same way.”

Kenneth Monteiro, dean of the ethnic studies department and psychology professor at SF State, shared similar concerns.

“I am worried,” said Monteiro. “Not because tests are bad, but because people can be bad with them.”
Standardized testing on a massive scale such as this has at least two major flaws, according to Monteiro.

The skills that the tests would be trying to measure would have to be well defined, which he argues has not happened with other standardized tests such as the SAT and IQ tests. Also, the motives behind the test are questionable.

“Is the standardized test about insuring the quality of the education or is it about controlling the education that the student gets?” asked Monteiro.

While everyone agreed that accountability is necessary, apprehensions were widespread.

“I am not against assessment or accountability, but large-scale, multiple-choice, individual testing won’t get any of the results they are looking for,” said Judith Kysh, a professor in the education department at SF State.

“Students take the test, they pass the test, and then they forget the material,” said Kysh. “Then when they need to use the information, it is not there.”

Linda Buckley, vice president of assessment and accreditation at SF State, agrees that standardized testing is a simplistic approach to a complex problem, and she sees other problems with instating a system similar to No Child Left Behind.

“The first problem is that it doesn’t give you a good measure of the value added,” said Buckley, referring to the fact that standardized tests do not take into account the skill level with which a student entered and left college. “The second problem is that institutions start to teach to the test.”

“You end up with a curriculum that is controlled by bureaucrats instead of by experts in the field,” said Buckley.

Despite these concerns, Charles Miller, the chairman of The Commission on The Future of Higher Education, commented in an e-mail that was printed by the New York Times this month that, “what is clearly lacking is a nationwide system for comparative performance purposes, using standard formats.”

The story goes on to say, “he said public reporting of collegiate learning as measured through testing ‘would be greatly beneficial to the students, parents, taxpayers and employers’ and that he would like to create a national database that includes measures of learning.”

One survey, conducted by the American Institute for Research, found that roughly 20 percent of students attending four-year institutions have only basic math skills, which they define as, “those necessary to compare ticket prices or calculate the cost of a sandwich and a salad from a menu.”

In 1999, in response to dialogue between the California state legislature and the CSU system, the CSU Accountability Process was instituted. This process includes yearly system reports and individual campus reports submitted every other year.

“The CSU system believes that the citizens and taxpayers of California deserve to know how the university is doing at fulfilling its essential mission, and spending its state appropriations each year,” said Keith Boyum, associate vice chancellor of academic affairs for the CSU system. “This is simply strong public administration.”

In 1997 SF State released New Perspectives on Assessment at SFSU, which seeks to evaluate curricula and student outcomes, as measured by retention, percentage of graduates who continue their education and average GPA among other indicators.