College Admissions: the Quest for Objective Assessment

Throughout the second half of the twentieth century, and in the first quarter of the twenty-first century, American universities have wrestled with the question of how to assess applicants. Of the many variables and many data points on an application, which most effectively reveal a student’s achievements and aptitudes? And how are they to be interpreted?

Admissions departments were faced with large increases in enrollment after WW2. This necessitated new ways of processing applications.

The numbers of applications and enrollments continued to increase throughout the remainder of the century.

New admissions processes were often less personal. A century earlier, great weight was laid on letters of recommendations. Teachers and other adults wrote letters describing not only a student’s academic successes and aptitudes, but also personal character.

In the new era of mass processing, grades on transcripts, and results from standardized tests, came into being and took on greater significance.

The hope and intent was for a more objective measurement. To some extent, that hope was fulfilled.

But, as in the case of every system, clever eyes soon began to find loopholes. Standardized tests could be taken over and over again to get better results. Special “prep courses” gave students test-taking strategies which had less to do with academic knowledge and more to do with the structure of the test questions. Tests were offered on a mix-and-match basis, whereby a student could take the best results, on each part of a test, from different administrations of the test and paste them together to make a single result.

Grades on high school transcripts could also be gerrymandered. Students enrolled under “Section 504” plans could be given modified or accommodated assignments (e.g., extra time on tests, or the opportunity to re-take quizzes on which low scores had been earned). In more than a few instances, however, this was not noted on transcripts, and so admissions officers were left to assume that the grades had been normally earned.

Likewise, essays submitted with applications are supposed to the original and unaided work of the student, yet there is a booming business among coaches who work with students to craft such writing samples.

There is, then, an endless dance, move followed by countermove, as admissions officers seek objective measurements of students, and as students and their parents work to manipulate whichever measuring system they encounter.

In Praise of Books

Literacy is the core of education. The ability to interact with text is at the heart of learning, whether the subject matter is mathematics, natural science, foreign language, or history.

The nature of text is that it is public and fixed. Any two different people can look at a book, and they will bring different perspectives to the text and form different interpretations of it: but the letters on the page are exactly the same for both readers.

But text, and thereby education itself, is being undermined by simplest maneuver: withhold books from students.

By keeping books away from students - or students away from books - , those who wish to damage education can turn text into a subjective, relativized, and fluid experience instead of a publicly accessible artifact. Tom DeWeese reports:

In New York City, administrators at the Life Sciences Secondary School have ordered all textbooks rounded up and removed. Books, they say, are antiquated. Instead, technology is to be the new god of learning.

Physical books are being replaced by data files, which can be changed continuously. A student might read a paragraph in an online history resource; when the student wishes to read that passage again a week or two later, it’s changed, and the text now reads differently.

One of the core skills which educators seek to instill is the ability of students to support theses by means of evidence. Evidence is the citation of text. But how does one cite a constantly changing fluid text?

The books were piled up in the hallway of the school. Next stop – the trash bin. Most were in good condition, including hundreds of math, algebra, geometry and various English literature text books. Also strewn around the floor were copies of Romeo and Juliet and A Street Car named Desire.

Not only has text ceased to be fixed, so that one may refer to it, but it also has become private: your copy of Hamlet or War and Peace might be different than mine.

Mechanically printed physical texts offer a standard to which common reference can be made. We can trade our differing interpretations and views by reference to, and with reference to, the fixed public text. This creates meaningful debate and dialogue.

But if my copy of For Whom the Bell Tolls has been edited to better “suit” me, based on the cookies in my browser, and your copy has been likewise altered, then any basis for intelligible dialogue has been removed.

Federal Educational Policy Causes Chaos

Federal educational policy, whether promulgated by Democrats or Republicans, is primarily an obstacle to education. For this reason, school matters are best left to state and local governments.

An example of how federal educational policy causes only confusion is seen a series of policy changes enacted during one single academic year. The 2016/2017 school year started under one set of policies. Most schools in the United States begin in August or September.

By the beginning of November 2016, Congress had enacted a new set of policies, and local schools began to shift their planning, mid-year, to comply.

In February 2017, Congress changed its policies again, as is seen from the following White House document:

H.J. Res. 58 would nullify the final rule related to the Teacher Preparation Program Accountability System, 81 Fed. Reg. 75494 (Oct. 31, 2016), promulgated by the Department of Education. This rule establishes annual State reporting to measure the performance and quality of teacher preparation programs and tie them to program eligibility for participation in the Teacher Education Assistance for College and Higher Education grant program. The rule imposes new burdensome and costly data reporting requirements on States and institutions of higher education.

So it was that a single academic year was marked by two policy changes and divided into three segments. Chaos and confusion ensued as local administrators attempted to comply; as they began to slowly redirect their sluggish bureaucracies according to one set of new mandates, another set of directives would arrive, requiring different adjustments.

Such policy mayhem is not unusual; it an established pattern.

This is merely one of many reasons why school policy is best left to states, counties, and cities.

Whither Homework?

There’s more than one way to achieve high levels of academic success. This principle is true in different aspects of education, including homework.

It is possible to structure a secondary educational institution, usually grades nine through twelve, with a rigorous program of homework. Students have specific assignments in most subjects on most evenings, and there is an accountability mechanism in place.

Such a significant homework program can lead to mastery and achievement. Whether or not it actually will produce the desired results depends in part on other variables - other aspects of the school’s program.

It is also possible to structure a high school program which leads to high levels of achievement with very little homework. This might entail, e.g., more time in class for independent practice.

Obviously, there is a question about whether homework, in and of itself, serves a purpose beyond content mastery: whether it builds work habits, study skills, and self-discipline.

Aside from that question, it is clear that a school can reach high levels of achievement with or without homework.

While either of these options might be effective, there is a third option which is less than desirable: a school which attempts to mix these two approaches.

If a school has a consistent homework policy, students are better able to adapt to it. Consistency is a virtue.

It is best for a school to be unified on the matter, with instructors following similar patterns in this regard. This is not merely a matter of school policy, but rather of school culture.

[Andrew Smith works as a German Teacher in the Ann Arbor Public Schools, serving over the decades at Huron High School, Tappan Middle School, Slauson Middle School, Scarlett Middle School, Clague Middle School, Pioneer High School, and others.]