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March 30, 2007
MLA Grades Spellings Commission
Some academic groups had so little respect for the Secretary of Education’s Commission on the Future of Higher Education that they were happy to be off of its radar screen. Not so for the tens of thousands of English and language professors who make up the Modern Language Association.
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Today the MLA will release its evaluation of the Spellings Commission’s evaluation of American higher education. And by far the biggest criticism the MLA will offer is that the panel appointed by Education Secretary Margaret Spellings ignored the humanities. But one of the most controversial parts of the commission’s agenda — its call for more assessment of what students learn — is actually endorsed by the MLA, with caveats over how that assessment will be carried out.
The statement adopted by the MLA’s Executive Council and being released today by the association follows months of discussion among MLA members. “Some people wanted to reject everything about the report, but many of us who had been doing outcomes assessment for a long time” didn’t want to do so, and many professors “think it’s healthy to treat this as an opportunity, rather than be defensive,” said Gerald Graff, a professor of English at the University of Illinois at Chicago and an MLA vice president who led the discussions and drafting of the statement.
Graff, author of Beyond the Culture Wars and Clueless in Academe: How Schooling Obscures the Life of the Mind, said that in some ways, he was surprised to find the humanities so ignored. He said he expected to find conservative analysis of the “defense of great books, Allan Bloom style of rhetoric,” and found none. “It’s sort of refreshing,” Graff said, that the humanities weren’t bashed, but “disturbing that the humanities were completely shut out” in favor of a vision of higher education that focuses on science, technology and jobs.
The MLA is not the first group to note with concern the Spellings Commission’s lack of engagement with the humanities. Phi Beta Kappa, which generally does not take public policy positions, announced in January that it was opposing the Spellings Commission because of its “omission of the role of the liberal arts and sciences in sustaining the excellence of American higher education.” Likewise, a statement from the Association of American Colleges and Universities noted the Spellings Commission’s “complete failure even to mention the importance of history, culture, the humanities, the arts....”
In the case of the MLA, the association both noted the importance of the humanities and also questioned how the United States could achieve the goals of the Spellings Commission if education is defined too narrowly.
“The commission makes virtually no mention of the humanities, despite their established central role in higher education. The humanities are conspicuously missing from the report’s assertion that the United States ‘must ensure the capacity of its universities to achieve global leadership in key strategic areas such as science, engineering, medicine, and other knowledge-intensive professions’ and from the report’s statement that achieving this global leadership requires ‘increased federal investment’ in the scientific and technical fields that are ‘critical to our nation’s global competitiveness,” the MLA statement says.
It adds: “Yet, although the report ignores the humanities, the educational skills it emphasizes are precisely those that the humanities are credited with developing. A persistent theme of the report is the urgent need to produce college graduates who have mastered ‘critical thinking, writing, and problem solving skills needed in today’s workplaces,’ that is, the very skills the humanities teach.... Indeed, since it is hard to imagine scientists, engineers, and doctors doing their jobs competently without a command of critical-thinking, writing, and problem-solving skills, the humanities are no less crucial than the sciences to ‘global leadership in key strategic areas.’
“Other strategic areas surely include government and international diplomacy, where recent history might be different had politicians, journalists, and citizens exercised more of the critical thinking taught in humanities courses. By the Spellings report’s own logic, then, and even by its rather narrowly utilitarian standards, the humanities deserve strong support and ‘increased federal investment.’ “
On the Spellings Commission’s overall critiques of higher education, the MLA agrees with much — but finds a lack of context. The commission was correct, the MLA report says, to note that too many college graduates lack appropriate skills, that high school and college curricula are poorly aligned in many cases, and that these problems pose particular difficulties for low-income students. But the MLA says that the commission “ignores the strenuous efforts colleges and universities are now making to improve the quality of education and to assess what students are learning.”
If the Spellings Commission prompts a testing system like that spawned by the “notoriously flawed No Child Left Behind” law, the association says it will “voice our strongest objections, since the tests that have been instituted in the schools are frequently of questionable intellectual merit and since the report fails to indicate who will devise college-level assessments and tests.” Likewise, the MLA criticizes suggestions that cost-cutting is easy to do in higher education without hurting education quality.
But at the same time, the MLA explicitly endorses the idea of more assessment — provided that “higher education must insist that assessments in its domain continue to be designed and applied with the full participation of local college faculties and administrators.” Says the MLA: “It is hard to disagree with the argument that colleges should be held publicly accountable for the quality of education they provide and that careful assessment of what our students learn is a reasonable means of demonstrating such accountability. If these principles are applied in an intelligent fashion and with full cooperation by American colleges and universities, the report of the Spellings commission can usefully spur them in their continuing effort to improve the education they offer.”
Graff said that he believed strongly not only in accountability, but in the importance of being able to make comparisons and set standards. The concerns of the MLA and his concerns aren’t about accountability, but about the validity of the measures to be used. “It’s bunk to evade reasonable evaluation,” he said, but it also doesn’t make sense to use “anti-intellectual tests.”
Charles Miller, the chair of the Spellings Commission, offered via e-mail a mixed reaction to the MLA’s reaction to his panel’s report. While the MLA statement expressed support for assessment, Miller is skeptical.
“There is a general questioning of who is to do this ‘outcomes assessment,’ fretting that somehow the faculty won’t be included; a claim that these assessments are already under way in the academy, which is an admission that they are needed, yet with an open ended timetable; a direct accusation that the recommendation for accountability is a version of NCLB, along with a gratuitous swipe at it being ‘notoriously flawed’; and it finishes with the territorial claim for assessments to have the ‘full participation of college faculties and administrators.’ Frankly, these kinds of defensive, distracting whines take away from the other high minded remarks of the MLA.”
Miller said there wasn’t time to wait to consider solutions “when there is a general sense in the public and in the academy that the historical humanities curriculum has been watered down, that grade inflation is a fact of life, that the time on the task of teaching and learning has been seriously reduced, and that objective evidence shows a long term decline in literacy.”
On one issue — the centrality of the humanities — Miller said that he did not disagree with the MLA, although he didn’t see as much significance to the lack of explicit mention of the humanities in the report.
“I don’t disagree about the central role of humanities, past present or future,” he said. “Perhaps the commission could have emphasized that role specifically. However, in developing its report the commission tended to avoid references to ’segments’ or ’specialties’ in higher education. No matter how many subtopics we might try to devise and discuss, we would always leave something or somebody out.... We were influenced to focus on the STEM disciplines specifically by an enormous and simultaneous effort on the part of the academic and business communities, and the press, to create that focus. The MLA response and point of view should provide us a more balanced perspective, with which I agree.”
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Comments
What Does It Mean To Be Well Educated?
For an interesting discussion on assessment I recommend Alfie Kohn’s essay “What Does It Mean To Be Well Educated?” As for U.S. “competitiveness” I recommend Kohn’s book No Contest: The Case against Competition—Why We Lose in Our Race to Win.”
It seems to me that emphasis on the Humanities may be integral in helping the world shift from a “national security” mentality toward more of a “mutual security” one. This might have to do with the perspectives that literary studies bring to history and other disciplines (and vice versa). It goes well beyond the Humanities’ providing a space to teach the “soft skills” of communication, diplomacy, etc., and I’m disappointed the MLA doesn’t seem to point that out in the above report.
Rather, it develops the possibility of major paradigm shifts about world problems and enabling nations to find what Kohn calls “superordinate goals” on which to cooperate rather than seeking to “out compete” each other for market share and technological and political domimance. Perhaps that only helps perpetuate winners at the expense of losers (who then, likewise, are tempted to “return the favor” by making trouble for the winners). This last is, in my view, precisely the danger of being too narrow in our definitions of what it means to be well educated.
V. W., at 8:15 am EDT on March 30, 2007
Excellence does not worry about local obstacles
It is time that our (academic) society rises above the local issues and attempts a rethinking process to start implementing Tangible Change.Those who strike sixers do not worry about conditions of the fore-pitch, for they know it well that it will only invigorate their myopia.
Whether the credit of developing specific skills, critical thinking, problem solving skills et al, should be ascribed to one or more of Humanities or Medicine or engineering is justified or not is a futile question. Not inviting one to brood (over spilled milk), the collective impetus should rather be at directing the correct implementation, and conformance to NCLB
Priyavrat Tharejawww.thareja.com
Priyavrat Thareja, Pb Engg Col, Chandigarh INDIA, at 9:20 am EDT on March 30, 2007
In the rush to assess, it is appropriate to question the design of assessment instruments, who will conduct the assessments, and the costs and benefits of assessments that enable comparison across institutions.
Within the field of writing, there is a good deal of expertise on writing assessment and many exemplary writing programs that are consistent with principles recommended by the National Council of Teachers of English, the Conference on College Composition and Communication, and the National Commission on Writing. It is symptomatic of the flaws of the Federal Commission on Higher Education report that that expertise is ignored.
Anne Herrington, Professor of English at University of Massachusetts Amherst, at 9:25 am EDT on March 30, 2007
Critical thinking?
“College graduates who have mastered ‘critical thinking, writing, and problem solving skills needed in today’s workplaces,’ that is, the very skills the humanities teach.”
I hope these humanities professors understand that science and engineer do provide training on ‘critical thinking’ and ‘problem solving skills’. I wonder if, in their mind, they think science is just a bunch of formula that they don’t know where or how it is derived.
Unfortunately, those formula are the results of ‘critical thinking’ and ‘problem solving’. Just think about how Einstein was able to conclude relativity so accurately with very little hints on measurements. And they probably have no idea how the quantum theory came to life.
— I am sorry that I have seen too many quotes like these and I wonder if this narrowed view of science is what demote the prosperity of science in the US — if people do not view scientists as versatile workers with broad futures, how will you be able to persuade our youth to pursuit science?— A note: Recently, couple of CIOs have been promoted to executive roles in tech. companies.
Duncan, at 9:35 am EDT on March 30, 2007
Critical thinking, writing, and problem solving
Quoted excerpt from LMA report:
It adds: “Yet, although the report ignores the humanities, the educational skills it emphasizes are precisely those that the humanities are credited with developing. A persistent theme of the report is the urgent need to produce college graduates who have mastered ‘critical thinking, writing, and problem solving skills needed in today’s workplaces,’ that is, the very skills the humanities teach.... Indeed, since it is hard to imagine scientists, engineers, and doctors doing their jobs competently without a command of critical-thinking, writing, and problem-solving skills, the humanities are no less crucial than the sciences to ‘global leadership in key strategic areas.’
I, too, think the humanities are important, but this is an absurd argument for them. Critical thinking, writing, and problem solving skills are certainly taught in the sciences as well. In fact, I would maintain that mathematics, whose hallmark is strict logical reasoning, whose results must be clearly written up, and which proceeds by obtaining clear solutions to well-defined problems, develops these skills par excellence.
math prof, at 10:11 am EDT on March 30, 2007
MLA on the Spellings report
I’m sorry to see my MLA colleagues tapping into the dominant conservative rationale for education—to prepare students for jobs in “today’s workplaces,” as well as enhance U.S. competitiveness in global markets. Come on, friends, take a look at the actual jobs proliferating here, and see how much critical thinking they call for.
Richard Ohmann
Richard Ohmann, retired at Wesleyan University, at 12:15 pm EDT on March 30, 2007
Follow the money
Let’s not forget that the Federal Government’s primary point of influence in postsecondary education (as in K-12) is the funding it provides, both directly and indirectly (e.g., via student loan guarantees). Like any consumer partaking of a college education, the Government spends a lot of $$ expecting that future returns will be many-fold greater — though of course on a different and larger scale....
Higher ed in the United States has done much to make humanities education excellent. However, it has much further to go in making a humanities education relevant to job qualifications, especially as regards high-paying jobs such as those in many STEM fields.
It’s not enough to crow about the value of the humanities — unlike with STEM where employers are desperate for talent, higher ed needs to better support its humanities graduates with effective career counseling and relationships with employers to pave the way to good jobs.
eb, at 12:15 pm EDT on March 30, 2007
literacy instead of humanities?
Perhaps looking at literacy may be a better way to go at this. Literacy occurs on many fronts. The National assessment of Adult Literacy looks at at literacy in three areas: prose, document and computational.
I focus upon prose here, since The National Endowment for the Arts shows a clear statistical relationship between literary readers (of ANY novels, short stories, poetry or drama) and social engagment. That is, 43% of readers participate in volunteer or charity work vs. 17% of non-readers. This is to say nothing of the rates for attending performances, going to museums and even attending sports events (45% of readers vs. 27% of non-readers of literature)!
The point, here, is that since reading literature is an act of engagement and not decoding, it is no surprise that readers tend to engage the world around them.
Both The National Endowment for the Arts and NAALS (as does ACT) show a major decline in literacy and proficiency...proficiency defined as the ability to read complex texts synthesize information and make complex inferences. The decline is most substantial in the 18-24 year-old age group, readership alone dropping 17% from 1992 to 2002.
Again, I link literacy to the reading of literature of any stripe...and prose proficiency to the kind of critical thinking and engagement with the world needed to make sense of what is going on.
Clearly, I think, the humanities provide these skills AND helps create the interest that has clearly been dropping in the 18-24 year old age group.
The key, of course, is to stress the act of critical, engaged reading in all disciplines and to engage especially first year students by reenforcing the role each discipline has in engaged learning. This is not us vs. them, no matter what the disciplines may think. But instructors in the sciences, engineering and mathematics (noted in the previous comments) need to be willing to teach students how to learn how to learn in their courses and not pass that off to someone else because they have “too much material to cover.”
Theron, at 12:30 pm EDT on March 30, 2007
Just having My Usual Nervous Breakdown
I’m sorry to say, I cannot read anything these days that includes the phrase “critical thinking” without getting a splitting headache.
For starters, I must tell you that I have spent my professional lifetime – that’s going on 50 years now — teaching mathematics (including logic), probability and statistics, social methodology. management science, operations management, and the quality sciences to mathematicians, statisticians, social scientists of every stripe, business students, education students, pre-med students, engineers ... I’m surely leaving someone out.
That said, “critical thinking” is a meaningless phrase – nay, a mindless phrase — commonly used by individuals who (1) would be hard-pressed to exhibit their command of it and (2) could not possibly provide us with a meaningful definition if we gave them the entire afternoon to do so.
I was teaching at a business school a few years ago in which one of the “flavors of the month” (that’s what business schools are all about) was critical thinking. I was asked to design, develop, and teach a course devoted to “critical thinking” for undergraduates. I admitted I had no idea what critical thinking was all about, but since everyone in the room not only knew everything there was to know about CT – that’s what they called it — but could also, at my request, reach into their billfolds and purses and pull out their membership cards in the American Society of Critical Thinkers, they simply refused to accept my acknowledgment of ignorance. I promised to look into it.
Immediately, I went to my office, got on-line, and ordered every book on the face of the earth with “critical thinking” in the title (or sub-title). At the end of a month, I concluded that the books were written by individuals who knew very, very little about symbolic logic, the foundations of mathematics, finite math, algorithms, basic probability and statistics ... not even social methodology or rhetoric ... and, of course, there was in those books a complete absence of anything that might encourage the reader to sit in front of a computer.
Those books were nothing but the most pathetic presentations of very elementary logic, mathematics, and statistics – pretty much at the level that any 9th grade student with a competent teacher could master in a month or so – and with remarkably weak attempts to marry the “theory” to some sort of substance.
I could say more, but, frankly, my head is beginning to hurt. “Critical thinking” indeed!
RWH, at 4:30 pm EDT on March 30, 2007
P.S.
By the way, isn’t it interesting – and more than a little revealing – that there are no courses in “critical thinking” taught in Departments of Mathematics, Statistics, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Engineering, etc.
Were it not for the fact that so many students who get so-called EDUCATIONS – and isn’t that laughable — at colleges and universities in the United States walk away quite ignorant of anything that smacks of even elementary mathematics, symbolic logic, or statistics, this obnoxious phrase (critical thinking) would never have seen the light of day.
Count on it ... there will be special concentrations in “critical thinking” all over the academic landscape within the next decade.
It’s consistent with “dumbing down America” ... and it’s intellectually shameful!
RWH, at 7:05 pm EDT on March 30, 2007
MLA and Spellings
“Even the humblest Party member is expected to be competent, industrious, and even intelligent within narrow limits.” —George Orwell, _1984_
Do I detect a fear in Spellings and the MLA? Education’s only goal is to zero in on precisely what employers want and nothing more? I agree that the masses of students may be missing too much the rigorous training they need to solve what cognitive psychologists call “well-defined” problems. But without also the willingness and ability to grapple with, negotiate, “ill-defined” problems (which make up most of life), such as the social sciences and humanities presumably teach, students will be too narrowly educated, as my epigraph from Orwell suggests.
A well-trained solver of “well-defined” problems can just as easily end up serving a fascist regime or sociopathic corporation as a fully participatory economy. Of course, as I think Richard Ohmann points out above, there’s no gurantee that an education in the humanities necessarily fosters full, participatory democracy, either. Not if the MLA’s limited response to the Spellings report is an indication.
V.W.: I’m intrigued by your allusion to Kohn. I shall seek out those writings, read them with as open a mind as I can muster. I’ll let Kohn challenge my thinking, then recover and challenge his. It’s my understanding that contesting thought is a good way to advance it. This versus what Freiere calls “the banking model” of education (which is about the only kind measured by conservative, standardized tests).
Of course, there’s always the danger that students may learn not only how to adjust to the workplace, but ways to adjust the workplace to themselves.
Randall Spinks, Associate Professor GenEd, at 10:55 am EDT on March 31, 2007
“I’m sorry to say, I cannot read anything these days that includes the phrase “critical thinking” without getting a splitting headache.”
I am so with you on this. It’s almost as bad as the constant uniform braying about diversity. I guess people think that as long as they say"CRITICAL THINKING!” in each and every sentence, no one will notice the obvious fact that they are overwhelmingly graduating functional illiterates?
JBM, at 5:15 pm EDT on March 31, 2007
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Policy process
Well, at least Miller is honest that lobbying, not logic, determines policy; business and academic science of course want more attention and funding for research that will help—business and academic science. “The sky is falling” approach is tried and true for this policy segment; others are not as well organized, persistent, and hysterical about pressing their demands. But the “press"? Which/who specifically? And why would the Commission treat “the press” as an expert in higher education? Surely they don’t listen to them because STEM is what “the press” will give coverage to? Frankly, choosing any particular segment is an error—Miller seems to acknowledge this. The MLA’s retort is valuable primarily because it highlights bias and undue influence in the consideration of broad, generalized issues and concerns in higher education.
Jane Robbins, PhD, at 7:50 am EDT on March 30, 2007