Be afraid, be very afraid. When you’ve gotten me in a conspiratorial mood over the past few months you may have heard me grumbling about how higher education is the next target of the U.S. Department of Education and education reformists. Think of No Child Left Behind days of national testing, “rigorous” academic standards (read national curriculum) and the like but for universities.
No, you say, Higher Education is different! We’re the best in the world…etc.
Here’s the scenario that happened in K-12 education…see if it sounds familiar: a group of concerned business leaders get together and say that the education is failing to prepare the work force for high tech and competitive jobs (anyone heard Bill Gates recently on why they are setting up research centers in India and China). The Department of Education and members of Congress start talking about how these education institutions can be both locally controlled, and more “accountable” (this is a key word in education circles… it is often operationalized as standardized testing and methods for federal control) considering the sizable federal investment. State wide projects are highlighted on how they can improve (it always seems to be Texas). No Child Left Behind gets passed with bipartisan support.
Now…read this ( http://insidehighered.com/news/2005/12/09/commission ):
“Miller sought to shake that complacency from his very first statements at Thursdayâ??s meeting â?? and he even got a head start on that. A profile of him that appeared in Thursdayâ??s edition of USA Today quoted Miller as calling it â??highly probableâ?? that the commission would recommend instituting some kind of national testing to measure college studentsâ?? learning, along the lines of whatâ??s done in elementary and secondary education.”
Then look at the commission set up by the U.S. Department of Education here: http://www.ed.gov/about/bdscomm/list/hiedfuture/meetings.html
Note this presentation: “A Transparent Approach to Higher Education Accountability: Developed and Implemented by The University of Texas System”
Now listen to this piece from NPR:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5205322
Even if you don’t buy into conspiracy theories, I think it would do us all some good to keep up with the workings of this commission.