Perspectives n2: Value-Added Assessment

For most of its history, American higher education has operated according to a “trust the academy” philosophy for gauging academic quality, specifically, the value added to students’ knowledge by institutions. The faith of universities’ stakeholders is required, because the existing quality assurance system is built largely upon input measures (e.g. SAT/ACT scores, spending per student), rather than metrics related to educational outcomes. While efforts to develop more robust assessments of student learning in higher education are underway, they exist at the margins rather than mainstream. Progress in this area has been stymied by a lack of consensus on how or even whether to pursue student learning assessment, aided by an implicit sense that the United States, as a world leader in higher education, does not need such an initiative.

It is time for states and their colleges and universities, in conjunction with regional accrediting agencies, to lead the development of a consensus model for assessing the value added from undergraduate student learning. Public institutions are the logical leaders for such a movement, because they educate the vast majority of the nation’s undergraduate students, thus providing a “critical mass” for examination and best practice cultivation. Also, a value-added system could better reflect their contributions to student learning, as the prevailing philosophy of “quality = price + selectivity” does not fit the admissions profile of many public institutions. Public higher education arguably has the longest and most substantial history of “first steps” in the area of public accountability. What would such a model entail?