Assessment: Whither?

Abstract

These days, when I talk about assessment and accountability, I feel like Mersault in The Stranger. I can describe what they are and even explain them. But it is hard to justify them within a rational framework of public policy. Educational policy, in particular, is a cratered city under siege. It has been that way at least since A Nation at Risk in ’82. Higher education bureaucracies, government agencies, and hysterical pundits rake through assessments and data to confirm fixed opinions. Many twist data to fit fables of (un)accountability. They fold these fables into political narratives of either American decline or hegemony, Californian decay or resurrection, MOOC miracles or madness, for-profit salvation or damnation, the success of what college does or the excess of what college costs.