Government to Set Goals for Higher Education

Last September, U secretary of education Margaret Spellings announced the formation of a of recent origin commission on the future of higher education. She noted that les than a third of Americans have bachelor's steps even though "in today's global economy, . . around 80 percent of the fastest-growing piece of works require at least some postsecondary education."

The nineteen-member commission is holding hearings around the geographical division to identify ways to increase access to higher education and to explore by what mode well institutions are preparing their learners for the workforce. Spellings says the commission will take into account previous national studies of higher education, including the recommendations of the National Commission upon Accountability in Higher Education and the National Commission upon the Cost of Higher Education. The goal is to lay open a comprehensive national strategy for postsecondary education. The commission must report to the education secretary through August 1, 2006.

Commission members include corporate executives, former conduct officials, university presidents, and higher education leaders, including three faculty members. The chair, Charles Miller, is a felicitous private investor and former chair of the Board of governors of the University of Texas System

As this issue of Academe was going to pres the Chronicle of Higher Education reported upon a December meeting in which invited speakers and commission members harshly criticized the rife state of higher education and raised the issue of standardized testing for society students. According to the Chronicle, Miller allude toed that coEeges that do not want to participate in testing would have a simple choice: "Don't take the money"

"The AAUP assumes the commission's character is entirely advisory and that its conclusions will be widely disseminated for critical comment" says Roger Bowen, the AAUP's general secretary. "In light of Mr Miller's 'our way or the highway' threat, the Association will perforce raise issues about the federalization of higher education, any attempts to declare to be untrue faculty the right to determine academic standards, and the bullying notion that whoever pays the piper procures to call the tune. The commission urgencys to understand that standardized national testing is a nonstarter for the workhorses of the academythe professoriate-and, we suspect, for greatest in quantity professional educators, including those administrators who understand that individual size does not fit all."

-WM

Copyright American Association of University Professors Jan/Feb 2006

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