I don't mean to be incredibly dense, but I'll risk looking that way here.
When you're at the elementary school level, I understand that there are easily quantified skills that we believe all citizens should possess. Standardized tests seem reasonable for standardized knowledge.
Once you're at the college level, what is the goal? What is the thing being maximized, the thing that can be measured and tested and presumably improved? Creativity? Problem solving? Social adroitness? Rote knowledge? Do I dare say that it may be different for different people?
The notion that colleges could be measured along just a few axes correlating with a few particular purposes confuses me in a way that the elementary school debate does not. What am I missing?
The only thing you're really missing is capitalism itself, which demands that everything be put on a quantifiable measure in order to justify its existence to the ultimate quantifiable measure, money.
When you're at the elementary school level, I understand that there are easily quantified skills that we believe all citizens should possess. Standardized tests seem reasonable for standardized knowledge.
Once you're at the college level, what is the goal? What is the thing being maximized, the thing that can be measured and tested and presumably improved? Creativity? Problem solving? Social adroitness? Rote knowledge? Do I dare say that it may be different for different people?
The notion that colleges could be measured along just a few axes correlating with a few particular purposes confuses me in a way that the elementary school debate does not. What am I missing?