Coming Soon: Standardized Tests for College Students, Universities?

By Austin Feldman. Some Texas lawmakers are looking to create an academic assessment tool to measure and compare the teaching abilities of the state’s public universities. Today, members of the Senate Committee for Higher Education took up SB 436. The bill would make it a requirement for Texas universities to issue students a learning assessment before the first day of class, and during the last semester before graduation. The assessment would act as a tool to monitor student growth. The assessment would test student’s critical thinking and writing skills – skills needed for job success. In a report by sociologists Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa, 36 percent of students experienced no significant improvement in learning in over four years of schooling. The study used data taken from one of these assessments, the Collegiate Learning Assessment. The University of Texas has issued the CLA on a limited basis since 2004. Read more...