Employers Prefer Performance Assessment

[Bob Schaeffer <bobschaeffer@earthlink.net>]

This undermines one of the major claims made by high-stakes testing 
proponents

EMPLOYERS WANT NEW WAY TO JUDGE GRADUATES BEYOND TESTS, GRADES
USA Today -- January 23, 2008
by Mary Beth Marklein

Colleges have been scrambling over the past year to respond to 
recommendations from a national commission that they be clearer to the 
public about what students have learned by the time they graduate.

Sometime in the next several weeks, for example, a national online 
initiative will be launched that allows families to compare colleges on 
measures such as whether they improve a student's critical-thinking skills.

Tools for such measurements were recommended by the national commission, 
which was created by Education Secretary Margaret Spellings. The group 
released its recommendations in late 2006.

Now, a sampling of the nation's employers have weighed in. And they are 
not terribly impressed.

The survey of 301 business leaders nationwide suggests that colleges 
find ways to assess a student's ability to apply college learning to 
real-world settings.

Forget transcripts, multiple-choice tests or institutional scores. The 
surveyed business leaders want faculty assessment of internships, senior 
projects or community-based work.

"Too many policymakers and educational leaders are focused on the tests 
rather than on what is really important: whether students are learning 
what they need to know," says Roberts Jones, president of Education & 
Workforce Policy, a consulting firm based in Alexandria, Va.

The survey, conducted by Peter D. Hart Research Associates, was released 
Tuesday by the Association of American Colleges and Universities, a 
non-profit national organization that promotes a liberal arts education.

It builds on a survey last year in which business leaders said 63% of 
graduates are not prepared for the global economy.

Carol Geary Schneider, the association's president, said the survey 
findings suggest colleges and universities look for new ways to 
demonstrate student success.

"We need to invent new forms of accountability that look at such issues 
as global knowledge and self-direction and intercultural competence, not 
just at critical thinking and communication skills," she says.

Among survey details:

- 57% said half or fewer of today's college graduates have the full set 
of skills and knowledge necessary to advance in today's workplace.

And though most say graduates are reasonably well-prepared in a variety 
of areas, they are not exceptionally strong in any.

- 40% said a faculty supervisor's assessment of a student's internship 
in a real-world setting would be "very useful."

- 14% said a score showing how an applicant's college compares with 
others in advancing students' critical-thinking skills would be "very 
useful."

- 13% said college transcripts are "very useful."

- 6% said an applicant's score on a multiple-choice test of general 
content knowledge would be "very useful."


   
http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2008-01-22-graduate-assessment_N.htm