Lengthy Fights Are Expected Over Measures on Accountability

Higher-education leaders are divided over proposal for student-tracking system

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By KARIN FISCHER

A federal advisory panel on higher education did not, as many college officials had feared, propose a college-level version of the No Child Left Behind Act, the 2002 law that instituted nationwide accountability standards for public schools.

But although the Commission on the Future of Higher Education stopped short of calling for mandatory testing of college students, other provisions in the final draft of its report — most particularly a proposal to create a system that would allow the federal government to track individual students' academic, enrollment, and financial-aid information — have caused consternation among some higher-education leaders.

The report also pushes for changes to make the accreditation process more open, urges professors to take the lead in defining educational objectives for their students, and supports the establishment of a consumer-friendly database that would allow parents, students, and policy makers to compare institutions.

"Our complex, decentralized postsecondary education system has no comprehensive strategy, particularly for undergraduate programs, to provide either adequate internal accountability systems or effective public information," the report declares. "Better data about real performance and lifelong working and learning ability is absolutely essential if we are to meet national needs and improve institutional performance."

The commission's recommendations will undergo minor revisions before being presented to the U.S. Secretary of Education in mid- to late-September.

The panel may have largely finished its deliberations, but fierce debate over its proposals continues. While detractors and defenders alike agree that higher education ought to be more open, the commission's critics fault it for taking a "one size fits all" approach and for emphasizing accountability at the expense of privacy concerns.

"I'm in favor of reform and in favor of change, but we've got to get it right," says David Ward, president of the American Council on Education, and the only member of the commission who did not sign the report. "There are a few areas that worry me that we may not get right, and we may do some harm inadvertently."

A More Accurate Measure

Opponents of the report's most contested proposal — to establish a national student "unit record" system — say it is precisely a case of potential harm outweighing possible good. The proposed database, in the Education Department, would collect individual student data and track students' progress, providing better information about retention and graduation rates and allowing the department to measure colleges' performance more accurately.

"You cannot improve what you cannot measure," says Paul E. Lingenfelter, executive director of State Higher Education Executive Officers, a national association that supports the plan.

State and federal officials who use the current system, the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System Survey, or Ipeds, to develop higher-education policy acknowledge its shortcomings. For one thing, the system, in which colleges report summary data about total enrollment, student aid, graduation rates, and other measures, does not collect information on transfer students or on adults enrolling in continuing-education programs, says Keith Brown, associate vice president for planning, accountability, research, and evaluation in the North Carolina Community College System.

North Carolina is one of 39 states, including Florida, Texas, and Washington, that already have at least one student unit-record system in place, according to the Department of Education. Several of the state databases, North Carolina's included, also connect to state employment records, allowing educators to track what types of jobs their graduates get and how much they earn.

While state leaders have been guardedly supportive of a federal unit-record system — in March 2005, a commission organized by Mr. Lingenfelter's group proposed such a database — Mr. Brown and others warn that any national model would have to build on the existing databases and on the expertise of state policy makers. In addition, he says, the information collected should be made available to state researchers.

"It can't be a data black hole," he says.

Protecting Personal Data

Supporters point to the state-level systems — as well as to national programs that collect information about student-loan recipients, among other data — as proof that a federal unit-record database is feasible.

"There is nothing exotic about a unit-record system," Grover J. (Russ) Whitehurst, director of the Education Department's Institute of Education Sciences, said during testimony before the commission in December.

Mr. Whitehurst proposed that students apply for an "education bar code" that would protect personally identifiable information. In its report, the commission said the student-record system should be "privacy protected," but it did not endorse a particular method of safeguarding student information.

Critics question whether students' information could ever be truly secure. Data breaches, they note, have occurred in other federal agencies, like the Department of Veterans Affairs, and throughout academe.

Obtaining more information about students is "not worth the risks on the side of personal freedom," says David E. Shi, president of Furman University and chairman of the Board of Directors of the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities. "Individual privacy is at stake."

The argument by Mr. Shi and other private-college leaders did not sway the commission, but it could be more persuasive among members of Congress. The House of Representatives in March approved legislation barring the Education Department from creating a unit-record database. One of the proposed system's most outspoken critics is Rep. John A. Boehner, an Ohio Republican who is majority leader in the House. Civil libertarians and conservative organizations also have criticized the proposal.

College lobbyists speculate that the department may try to circumvent Congressional opposition by setting up a unit-record system through the regulatory process. In August the department announced it would begin holding rule-making sessions with college leaders and other stakeholders in December to determine what kind of regulatory changes can be made to carry out some of the commission's recommendations.

Mr. Shi argues that creating such a database without Congressional approval would violate existing privacy laws. And some higher-education officials suggest that Mr. Boehner or other Congressional opponents could pre-empt any attempt at rule making by including language, perhaps in an appropriations bill, explicitly barring the department from constructing such a database.

Complicating matters, the makeup, and perhaps control, of both houses of Congress could shift with the November elections. What's more, 36 states will elect governors, with nine open seats up for grabs.

"By no means is it a foregone conclusion that this agenda is going to stick," says Travis J. Reindl, director of state-policy analysis and assistant to the president of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, which has been supportive of a unit-record database.

Warning Shot

Mr. Reindl and other officials acknowledge, however, that public officials in Washington and in the state capitals increasingly are pressing colleges and universities to demonstrate the value of what they do.

On the commission, the strongest advocate of accountability has been its leader, Charles Miller, a former chairman of the University of Texas System's Board of Regents and chief architect of that university's accountability system. His federal appointment raised concerns that the Bush administration was seeking to replicate its signature No Child Left Behind law at the college level, especially after he suggested that the commission might propose tying an institution's eligibility for federal student aid to standardized testing.

Mr. Miller sought to allay such fears, sending his fellow commissioners an e-mail message in March stating that the commission would not propose mandatory testing of college students. Instead, the report's final draft urges colleges to voluntarily measure and report "meaningful student outcomes" and recommends two tests, the Measure of Academic Proficiency and Performance and the Collegiate Learning Assessment, which has been used by the Texas accountability system.

While some higher-education officials criticized the report for failing to define exactly what those outcomes should be, many leaders, particularly those representing public colleges, expressed relief that a government-required test had been averted. Still, they said, they recognized that the report may be only be a temporary reprieve. Two organizations, the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges and the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, have called on their members to work to develop a voluntary accountability system.

Richard H. Hersh, co-director of the Collegiate Learning Assessment Project, who is a former president of Hobart and William Smith Colleges and of Trinity College (in Connecticut), says that while he does not favor a government-required test, he now worries that "without that demand, will higher education move quickly enough, forcefully enough, comprehensively enough to preclude the next attempt at imposing state and federal guidelines?

"This is a warning shot across the bow," said Mr. Hersh. "I'm hoping it will prove adequate to the task."