Re: [Phys-l] Fresh Approach to the Accountability of Higher Education

[Jack Uretsky <jlu@hep.anl.gov>]

Hi all-
On Wed, 5 Apr 2006, Richard Hake wrote (in part):

> ABSTRACT: Scott Jaschik's report "Fresh Approach to Accountability"
> on the higher-education assessment plans of the National Association
> of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges (NASULGC) is discussed,
> along with the pro-NASULGC-plan response by Charles Miller, Chair of
> the U.S. Dept. of Education's (USDE's) "Commission on the Future of
> Higher Education," and the anti-NASULGC-plan response of Peg Miller,
> Director of the National Forum on College-Level Learning (NFCLL). The
> top-down summative-assessment approaches of the USDE, NASULGC, and
> NFCLL are contrasted with bottom-up formative-assessment approach of
> the physics-education reform effort.

	This was much more than I want to know, right now, about the 
subject, but I do have a reaction:
	I believe that the only meaningful test of the quality of an 
educational system is the performance of its graduates (the result of a
long-term, or "longitudinal", study).  What, exactly, one studies is a 
meaningful question that can be debated at length.
	The case for physics-teaching reform has never been made in a 
rational way.  Traditional teaching clearly has great strengths, it has 
given us generations of physicists that have led the world - not all of 
them the product of American education. There are among us today, a 
substantial number of Soviet-trained physicists who are at the forefront 
of some of our research efforts.  Many leading scientists, not just 
physicists, will tell you that they consider themselves largely 
self-taught, as to the fundamentals of their field.
	Some of the literature on the subject seems to decry the lack
of physics, or scientific,  knowledge in the general population.  That 
consideration leads to a different set of questions about the desired 
educational goals.
					Regards,
						Jack





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