by the Way . . .

"How terrible it is to lose your mind. Or not to have a mind at all. How true that is."

The panel appointed by Education Secretary Margaret Spellings has issued a highly critical draft report on the quality of higher education, noting a lack of accountability to show students are learning anything. It found college education to be of uneven and “dubious quality”. However, the panel chairman described the draft as a “work in process” released “to further engage the public in our national dialogue.” The deputy press secretary for the Department of Education said Ms. Spellings had not read the report, but looked forward to reviewing it when it was final.

The report said both teachers and students should be better prepared, and students should not be in college learning things they should have learned in high school. It advocated regular testing to measure student learning, particularly in math, reading and critical thinking, and the posting of the results on the internet in such a way that prospective students could see how much they would learn at that various institutions. It did not get into detail about students who are not taking math, or reading or thinking for that matter.

There was dissent. Robert Zemsky, a professor of education, said the report did not reflect his views, and “is really by the staff and the consultants and not by the commission.” However, the professor, referring to the process that produced the report, misspelled the word “bollixed”.