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The U.S. Education Department today released a report critical of the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, saying the regional accrediting organization did not set minimum standards for its member institutions on program length or credit hours.

The accreditor responded that "the fundamental concern of higher education's constituencies is whether students graduate with appropriate knowledge, skills, and competencies, not how many hours they spend in a classroom."

they should do so in ways that reinforce the behaviors they want to see -- and avoid the kinds of perverse incentives that are so evident in many policies today.

This is especially true, several speakers argued, on the thorniest of higher education accountability questions -- those related to improving student outcomes.

Oh, and one or two people actually talked about how nice it would be if policy makers still envisioned college as a place where people learn about citizenship or just become educated for education's sake.)

Law schools would be required to identify key skills and competencies and develop ways to test how well their graduates are learning them under controversial revisions to accreditation standards being proposed by the American Bar Association.

Several law deans said they have enough to worry about with budget cuts, a tough job market for their graduates, and the soaring cost of legal education without adding a potentially expensive assessment overhaul.

The proposed standards, which are still being developed, call on law schools to define learning outcomes that are consistent with their missions and to offer curricula that will achieve those outcomes. Different versions being considered offer varying degrees of specificity about what those skills should include.

"Change is in the wind,"

"All we have is this campus," says Raven Curling, a biology and pre-dental student who is also president of the student government. "It feels like we're a university without university standards." Policy wonks and education reformers talk often about the importance of accountability and about the responsibilities of trustees to set and enforce standards. All that jargon moves from abstraction to reality when you see the price students pay for inattention.

While the law is not as sweeping as many institutions and accreditors had feared it would be (accreditors, for example, won't be required to set specific standards for academic performance), the groups issuing the statement Tuesday said they want to make sure that academic institutions remain in control of the process

If assessment is going to be required by accrediting bodies and top administrators, then we need administrative support and oversight of assessment on campus, rather than once again offloading more work onto faculty members squeezed by teaching & research inflation.

Outcomes assessment does not have to be in the form of standardized tests, nor does including assessment in faculty review have to translate into percentages achieving a particular score on such a test. What it does mean is that when the annual review comes along, one should be prepared to answer the question, "How do you know that what you're doing results in student learning?" We've all had the experience of realizing at times that students took in something very different from what we intended (if we were paying attention at all). So it's reasonable to be asked about how you do look at that question and how you decide when your current practice is successful or when it needs to be modified. That's simply being a reflective practitioner in the classroom which is the bare minimum students should expect from us. And that's all assessment is - answering that question, reflecting on what you find, and taking next steps to keep doing what works well and find better solutions for the things that aren't working well.