stimulant

Really, when she was first appointed, I was optimistic. But I’ve lost that optimism.

Last week, Secretary Spellings spoke at a meeting of the National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity (NACIQI). Reading through the transcript, I was struck by how deeply conflicted and fundamentally screwed up Spellings’s vision of education is. Surprised by how poorly thought out her positions were, I looked into her background, and discovered what felt so familiar about her mistakes: she has never taught. People with limited or no teaching experience frequently say things that make sense on the sound-bite level, but are fraught with contradiction upon closer inspection.

Like this:

All of us know that our higher education system is in a period of transformation. Where a college degree was once a sign of privilege, it’s now all but a prerequisite for opportunity. As a result, our postsecondary system is now called upon to serve a larger, more diverse group of people with diverse and ever-changing needs who are entering into an ever-changing labor market. […] As higher education changes, so must our accreditation system. Instead of only looking at process, we must work to emphasize results.

How do you reconcile crass credentialism with an emphasis on “results?” On the one hand, Spellings acknowledges college’s history of classism. On the other, she concludes that the triumph of credentialism necessitates egalitarianism. This is some train wreck of a syllogism: credentialism intrinsically opposes the egalitarian ideals Spellings cites in highlighting the need for education to “serve a larger, more diverse group of people with diverse and ever-changing needs who are entering into an ever-changing labor market.”

And then to call for a focus on results, instead of process? Spellings’s claim is that we can make the process of giving credentials more meaningful by requiring they more closely couple to the results of one’s education. All the hoodoo goes on in those few words: “requiring they more closely couple.” And therein lies the “assessment debate,” which frankly, I find difficult to engage without bringing along with me a slew of philosophical baggage that needs to be handled, first.

Setting that aside,

We are the only independent gatekeepers in the accrediting system. Without us, the process would be organized and governed by the same people it’s meant to evaluate. […] We do not expect medical or financial professionals to do their work without independent oversight.

This is plainly false. Both doctors and lawyers are examples of self-regulating bodies. The American Medical Association (AMA) is full of doctors; bar associations are full of lawyers and judges. I’m not suggesting that we should use our health and legal systems as models; however, it is valuable to point out that self-regulation is possible. Thinking in terms of gatekeepers and independent assessment creates top-down solutions characteristic of bureaucracy. In an industry plagued by complaints of administrative lethargy, I can’t imagine that the right step to take is to introduce reforms requiring even more bureaucracy.

Students rely on us to oversee issues from student outcomes to student lending. […] on behalf of consumers, be they students, families, or institutions, we have the right and the responsibility to ask for more and better information. […] In any enterprise, informed consumers can make smarter choices. The more knowledge students have, the easier it is to find the school that suits their needs. And the easier it is for taxpayers to see what their investments yield.

We rely on you implicitly and ignorantly! One of the most frustrating and frightening tendencies of a ballooning government is to obfuscate under the protection of self-righteousness. Bureaucracies are rarely malicious; it is their good intentions that lead them so far astray. Rather than concluding that a position as a public servant entails license to act on our behalf (as you see fit), it should conservatively entail the obligation to act on our behalf. I think a better first step would be to make the role the government plays in higher education transparent. I am far more concerned about the freedom and flexibility accorded colleges than potentially fraudulent accrediting bodies.

Spellings points out — rightly — that more data are needed. But she bites off more than she should in claiming that the government has a right to parse and dole that data out. I’m not asking the government to answer the “assessment question” for me. If the government wants to interpret that data and generate reports from it, fine. But first, please tell me what data you’re after, then work out how you’ll make that data available to me before jumping the gun and telling me what I should do.

Most students don’t know that different types of accreditation exist until they encounter hurdles. Every year, millions repeat coursework because their credentials don’t transfer. As a result, billions of dollars are wasted, not to mention lost time, productivity, and talent.

Let’s get this straight: talent is wasted if not validated by accreditation? This is an excerpt from the same speech in which Spellings proclaims the importance of putting results ahead of process! It is unconscionable to perpetuate a system whose mere incompetence and irrelevance is capable obviating talent.

Let me repeat: no one-size-fits-all measures. No standardized tests. All I ask is that institutions be more clear about the benefits they offer to students. Through the accrediting process, we can help bring this about.

I get it: you want to distance yourself from your miscarried NCLB poster child. But when was the last time governmental intervention made for more clarity? I know that’s taking an unfair (well, unsubstantiated) shot; however, I am convinced that the government’s reputation as the epitome of poor, wasteful organization and unnecessary bureaucracy (alongside the military) is well-deserved.¹ I’m just asking that before we look to impose a top-down solution, unavoidably involving the government at a very fine scale, let’s try some more organic, distributed solutions.

I say that blithely, but unfortunately, this unavoidably requires straightforward discussion of what we want out of education. Despite the centrality of this question, by and large it is a question that goes unaddressed. I suspect that Spellings’s ambiguity about what information we should be getting from colleges stems from a fundamental ambiguity about the purpose and aims of education. And no committee convened to draft a statement of purpose for the educational system will ever be able to agree on something specific enough to be meaningful or general enough to be useful.

And you know why this is? It is because education is a fundamentally personal process.

1. For the time being, at least — Obama’s efforts for transparency inspire hope. [↩]