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Opinion
Competence, Technology, and Their Discontents
Higher education is buzzing about competency-based education. We've been here before, writes Clifford Adelman, and the question this time is: Will we make it mean something?
Less Academically Adrift?
Challenging findings of landmark 2011 study, new data suggest that college students make significantly bigger gains in critical thinking. But differences in methodology may contribute to the differing conclusions.
Motivation Matters
ETS releases a new test to measure students' non-academic skills. Colleges want to use test for advising and finding remedial students with "grit."
Testy Battle Over Tests
The GED Testing Service is set to launch revised version that adds college readiness. But backlash over cost and access has led to competition from two serious new entrants.
Idea Whose Time Has Come?
Bill introduced Thursday would create a federal database to track students through college and into the work force, but it's unclear whether "unit record" idea will find more favor than it did seven years ago.
Low Bar, High Failure
Community colleges expect little of their first-year students, study finds, but students fail to meet even low standards.
Public University Accountability 2.0
Reboot of Voluntary System of Accountability aims to give institutions more flexibility in reporting student learning -- but new options (including non-standardized one) may not have expanded enough to win many converts.
Opinion
Making the Best of Assessment
Professors are right to doubt the motives of many of those pushing for precise measures of student learning, but that doesn't mean the ideas behind assessment aren't valid or that they are inconsistent with the liberal arts, writes Adam Kotsko.