College Rankings Reformed: The Case for a New Order in Higher Education

Autor/in	Carey, Kevin
Institution	Education Sector
Titel	College Rankings Reformed: The Case for a New Order in Higher Education
Quelle	(2006), (30 Seiten) PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Monographie
Schlagwörter	Stellungnahme; Higher Education; Rating Scales; Data; Evaluation; Undergraduate Students; Outcomes of Education; Educational Assessment; Educational Quality; Reputation; Alternative Assessment; Teacher Effectiveness; Educational Change; Learning; Graduation Rate; Success; Education Work Relationship; Accountability + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Hochschulbildung; Hochschulsystem; Hochschulwesen; Rating-Skala; Daten; Evaluierung; Lernleistung; Schulerfolg; Education; assessment; Bewertungssystem; Quality of education; Bildungsqualität; Effectiveness of teaching; Instructional effectiveness; Lehrerleistung; Unterrichtserfolg; Bildungsreform; Lernen; Erfolg; Verantwortung
Abstract	The annual "U.S. News and World Report" "America's Best Colleges" issue has become the nation's de facto higher education accountability system, evaluating colleges and universities on a common scale and creating strong incentives for institutions to do things that raise their ratings. But, says the author, the "U.S. News" ranking system is deeply flawed. Instead of focusing on the fundamental issues of how well colleges and universities educate their students and how well they prepare them to be successful after college, the magazine's rankings are almost entirely a function of three factors: fame, wealth, and exclusivity. As a result, the rankings lead colleges and universities to focus their energies on becoming wealthier, more famous, and more exclusive, sometimes at the expense of educating their students well. New research and advances in technology, writes Carey, in the last several years have led to a variety of new metrics and data sources that together offer a significant opportunity to measure how well colleges and universities are preparing their undergraduate students. The new measures provide information about a range of factors like teaching quality, student learning, graduation rates, and success after college, and offer the opportunity to replace existing college rankings with a significantly improved system. This report explains what the new measures can show, how those measures can be combined into new college rankings, and why the new rankings would benefit both students and colleges. (Contains 20 endnotes, 6 figures and 5 tables.) (ERIC).
Anmerkungen	Education Sector. 1201 Connecticut Avenue NW Suite 850, Washington, DC 20036. Tel: 202-552-2840; Fax: 202-775-5877; Web site: http://www.educationsector.org
Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2017/4/10