Johnny Can't Read: Who Cares?

I read a headline in the local newspaper this week: “Are America’s College Students Learning Anything?”. These headlines always amuse me in their simplicity as “Yes-No” questions. If I answered yes, I’d assume there would be no need to read the article. If I answered no, I would give away my ignorance of the word learning.

But in various forms, people from President Obama to old men like me drinking coffee in diners, continue to ask the question.

Starts me wondering.

The newspaper article, written by Professor Jonathan Zimmerman of NYU, takes a stab at an answer:

At most institutions, including my own, we have no idea if they are. Sure, professors assign grades in their courses, and students are asked to evaluate the classes they take and the professors who teach them. But neither measure gives us any real answer to the $200,000 question: What knowledge or skills are students acquiring in exchange for the skyrocketing tuition they pay?

http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jan/31/opinion/la-oe-zimmerman-are-college-students-learning-20120131

He goes on to talk about assessing students’ improvements, viz. a viz. standardized exams, in such areas as critical thinking and writing as a way of answering the question.

The article begs two questions.

First, in the U.S.  today, I believe we have bought, hook, line, and sinker, the notion that “if it can’t be measured, it ain’t real and we don’t like it.” I could profess about how this has happened, but will spare you, for now (yeah that’s a threat). Humor me and pretend that it’s more or less true. Or don’t humor me, and let’s debate it. Anyway…..

One result of this attitude is that accreditation agencies (sort of licensing agencies with fewer teeth) who oversee higher education institutions and career colleges, see it as their obligation to ensure that students can at least read, think critically, write, “do” math, etc. There are a lot of the people who run these agencies and many politicians who run these people who run these agencies who, along with Professor Zimmerman, don’t believe that the current model is viable.

Here’s the current model: University professors, trained professionals, devise curricula that meet the standards of the academic community (which has been around since the 14^th Century in Europe at least, and thus has history to back it up), admit students (using a variety of methods designed to predict whether or not students can succeed at a given school), and assess students’ learning in the classroom using exams, papers, etc. 

Accreditors and politicians don’t believe this is sufficient to “prove” learning, perhaps because they don’t trust professors (discussion at another time), and that there must be a better method. Because of our culture’s need to measure, that better method must include “quantified” results. 

In other words, there must be numbers because we believe language comprising numbers is better than language comprising words.

So, those same professors mentioned above are now being asked to come up with batteries of standardized tests, which can be scored statistically across mass populations, to prove “to God and everybody” that Johnny can read, write,  think critically, etc.

Trying to “prove” with mathematical language and statistical precision that someone has learned is a lot of fun for certain professors, administrators, and accreditors. Trying to prove that students have not learned is a lot of fun for certain professors and politicians.

The second begged question is,  “Is education a quid pro quo proposition?

In answer to Professor Zimmerman’s $200,000 question: “What knowledge or skills are students acquiring in exchange for the skyrocketing tuition they pay?”, I have many friends who would argue that there really isn’t any knowledge or skill to be learned as an undergraduate worth a $200,000 price tag. I agree with them.

But I think that’s a good answer to the wrong question.

Better question: “What is the value of a college education?”

Another better question: “What is the value of a $200,000 college education versus one that costs $20,000 or $40,000?”

I wonder.

The answer to the “better question” posed above, I believe lies in the eyes of the beholder and the culture from which we come.  Some would argue that the value of education is realized in a better informed citizenry capable of creating and sustaining better cultures and countries.

In other words, “Ignorance ain’t bliss” for the health, welfare, and longevity of countries and cultures.

How does one quantify that? With difficulty, which is why you don’t hear this being said much anymore outside the halls of higher education.

Too bad, I say. It’s a good answer. Even if Johnny graduates from Podunk U and can’t think critically, as measured by standardized exams, I believe the very fact that he’s rubbed shoulders and argued with people who believe radically different things than he does, outside his comfort zone maybe, serves him, and by extension the country, well.

Can I prove it empirically? Nope. Can I measure it’s truth or falsity? Nope.

On the other hand, if education is defined as a product or service one is buying in the marketplace (as is I believe the case with Professor Zimmerman), one answer to the “another better question” might be, “it depends on the values assigned by the market.” Some of those believing that higher education is a product/service thus tout the long-term statistical monetary value of a college education versus a high school education.

You’ll make more money over your lifetime if you get a college degree.

Those same people might look to the statistical long term monetary advantages accrued by alumni from a $200,000 university brand versus a $20,000 brand. some of the $200,000 brand universities tout the number of doors opened immediately into the marketplace of commerce, law, medicine, and graduate schools generally to graduating seniors as value-added aspects of their brand.

You’ll succeed better and/or make more money over your lifetime, if you graduate from our $200,000 university.

Can you measure the results of these arguments? Absolutely.

In short, if we continue to place our values so completely upon that which can be measured quantitatively, we’d be better off with headlines that say, “Are America’s College Students Preparing to Make a Lot of Money in Their Lifetimes?” The article then would offer quantitative proof, yes or no, across the broad spectrum of colleges and universities.

Or, we could use apparent beliefs of  the large numbers of folks, college educated and not, who follow with religious fervor the successes of their favorite university sports teams, forget about measuring learning, forget about career and monetary prospects of alumni, and make our headlines read, “Which are the Top Ten Universities in America?” By combining win/loss records of schools, over an array of sports, the article could answer the question with complete clarity and simplicity.  

Wonder if the tuition price we’d be willing to pay would depend on these standings of the university?