Accountability and Accreditation:
Readying for Change
Gerrit W. Gong, Ph.D.
Assistant to the President
Brigham Young University
September 24, 2009
Trends
1. Unique U.S. Educational Context
How is a school like a hospital?
2. Obama Administration Educational Trends
How will we be demonstrably better 5 years from
now?
3. Thinking Out Loud Together
Is Napoleon’s march a compelling quantified
narrative?
Unique U.S. Educational Context
Education: Key in Land of Opportunity
Christ Church College, Oxford
18–24-year-olds enrolled in Post-Secondary
Education
U.S.
UK
China
34%
22%
15%*
*18–22 year olds
Unique Context
U.S. Public Education Underpins
Democracy
“The nation that wants to be ignorant and
free, wants what never has been, and
never will be.”
--Thomas Jefferson
United States has longest running
governmentally-funded mandated public
education system in modern western world
• 1647, Old Deluder Satan Act passed in
Massachusetts Bay Colony (only 17 years
after arriving in New World)
State/Local
Federal
K-12
92%
8%
Post-Secondary
70%
30%
Accreditation
U.S. Secretary of Education
National Advisory Committee on Institutional
Quality and Integrity
6 Regional Accrediting and 130 Recognized
Department of Education “Gateway” Agencies
Accredited Post-Secondary Institutions
2,963 Regionally accredited
3,458 Nationally accredited
18,713 Specialized accredited
Better
A Surgeon’s Guide to Performance
Atul Gawande
The Bell Curve
“Finding a meaningful way to measure
performance … is a form of ingenuity in
itself. What you actually do with that
measure involves another type of ingenuity,
however, and improvement ultimately
requires both kinds.”
p. 201
The Bell Curve
“Cystic fibrosis is a genetic disease…. The
chloride defect thickens secretions
throughout the body, turning them dry and
gluey… The effects on the lungs, however,
are what make the disease lethal.
Thickened mucus slowly fills the small
airways and hardens, shrinking lung
capacity.”
p. 203
The Bell Curve
“One small field in medicine has been far
ahead of most others in measuring the
results its practitioners achieve: cystic
fibrosis care. For forty years, the Cystic
Fibrosis Foundation has gathered detailed
data from the country’s cystic fibrosis
treatment centers. It did so not because it is
more enlightened than everyone else but
because, in the 1960s, a pediatrician from
Cleveland named LeRoy Matthews was
driving people in the field crazy.” p. 209
The Bell Curve
Dr. LeRoy Matthews claimed 2% CF mortality
when national CF mortality was 20% per year,
and average patient died by age three.
Compared to reports from 31 CF centers in
the United States, Dr. Matthews showed
median estimated age at death was 21, seven
times the age of patients treated elsewhere.
No deaths among patients younger than six in
five years.
The Bell Curve
CF average life expectancy
1966
10 years
1972
18 years
2003
33 years (but 47 at best center)
The Bell Curve
“To fix medicine … we need to do two
things: measure ourselves and be more
open about what we are doing. We should
be routinely comparing the performance of
doctors and hospitals… Hospitals should
give patients total access to the information.
‘No secrets’ is the new rule … openness
would drive improvement…”
p. 214
5 Better Suggestions
1. Ask an unscripted question
2. Don’t complain
3. Count something
4. Write
5. Change
How is a school
like a hospital?
Obama Administration
Educational Trends
Educational Trends
Campaign in poetry,
Govern in prose.
Audacity of Hope,
Tenacity of Federal Opportunity.
Four trends …
Four Trends
• “3 E/3 P” – Education from Early Childhood to
Employment – Passionate, Patriotic, Political
• Federalization of Accessibility, Affordability,
Accountability
• Intensified reporting requirements
• 矛盾 Mao (spear)Dun (shield)
3 E/3P – Education from Early Childhood to
Employment – Passionate, Patriotic, Political
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Dreams from My Father
Audacity of Hope
Campaign
Chicago, Nov. 4, 2008
Inauguration, Jan. 20, 2009
Address to Congress, Feb. 24, 2009
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act
of 2009, Feb. 17, 2009
“And dropping out of high school is no
longer an option. It’s not just quitting on
yourself, it’s quitting on your country.”
Speech to Congress
February 24, 2009
“In a global economy where the most
valuable skill you can sell is your knowledge,
a good education is no longer just a pathway
to opportunity—it is a prerequisite.”
Speech to Congress
February 24, 2009
Conference
Feb. 12, 2009
(H) 246D–183
(176R + 7D)
(S) 61 – 37
Signed into law
Feb. 17, 2009
House Pell Grant
College Work Study
Perkins Loans
Higher Education Tax Credit
Education Aid for States
Facilities
NIST
Computer Centers
Energy Department
NSF
17,100,000,000
200,000,000
13,700,000,000
39,500,000,000
8,800,000,000
180,000,000
200,000,000
3,000,000,000
NASA
NIH
Energy Department
Homeland Security
NIST
Job Training
AmeriCorps
Teacher quality partnership grants
Preparing health care workers
Student Aid Administration
Support for state data systems
Rural Distance Learning
1,000,000,000
10,000,000,000
2,000,000,000
3,950,000,000
200,000,000
100,000,000
500,000,000
250,000,000
-
Total
$100,680,000,000
II. Federalization
Iron Laws of Federal Funding
Access and Success
(Funding)
(Reporting)
Sec. 14004. Uses of Funds by
Institutions of Higher Education
No funds awarded under this title may be
used for–
– (3) modernization, renovation, or repair of
facilities-(A) used for sectarian instruction or religious worship;
or
(B) in which a substantial portion of the functions of
the facilities are subsumed in a religious mission.
U.S. Secretary of Education
Arne Duncan
• 6’5” Harvard co-captain
Academic All-American
• Education-related nonprofit
organizations
• CEO of Chicago Public Schools,
June 2001–Dec. 2008
“Education is the civil rights issues of our
time. . . . every child is entitled to a highquality education.”
Secretary Arne Duncan, May 20, 2009
“We are committed to acting on the
evidence.”
Secretary Arne Duncan, May 20, 2009
Four Stabilization Commitments
1. Improve effectiveness of teachers and make sure best
teachers are in schools that need them most.
2. Promise to improve quality of academic standards so they
lead students down a path that prepares them for college
and the workforce and global competitiveness.
3. These standards need to be aligned with strong
assessments.
4. States must work to ensure assessments accurately
measure achievement of English language learners and
students with disabilities.
Secretary Arne Duncan, May 20, 2009
Four Pillars of Reform
1. Adopting rigorous standards that prepare
students for success in college and the workforce;
2. Recruiting and retaining effective teachers,
especially in classrooms where they’re needed
most;
3. Turning around low-performing schools; and
4. Building data systems to track student
achievement and teacher effectiveness.
Secretary Arne Duncan, June 8, 2009
“Hopefully some day we can track kids
from pre-school to high-school and from
high school to college and college to
career,” Duncan said. “Hopefully we can
track good kids to good teachers and
good teachers to good colleges of
education.”
Secretary Arne Duncan, June 8, 2009
“The common denominator for all of these
policy decision was that they were
informed by data. I am a deep believer in
the power of data to drive our decisions.
Data gives us the roadmap to reform. It
tells us where we are, where we need to
go, and who is most at risk.”
Secretary Arne Duncan, June 8, 2009
“We’ve focused on college- and careerready internationally benchmarked
standards. . . . We’re thinking a lot about
teacher quality—great talent matters
tremendously, as does how we attract and
attain the best and brightest teachers and
principals in our business and how we get
them to work in some of our toughest
schools.”
Secretary Arne Duncan, June 8, 2009
“We’re thinking about turning around schools.”
Secretary Arne Duncan, June 8, 2009
“And finally, we need robust data systems
to track student achievement and teacher
effectiveness.”
Secretary Arne Duncan, June 8, 2009
“We think that every state should set
internationally benchmarked standards
and assessments that prepare students
for success in the workforce and college.
“World-class standards are the foundation
on which you will build your reforms.”
Secretary Arne Duncan, June 22, 2009
“I believe that teacher unions are at a crossroads. These policies
were created over the past century to protect the rights of teachers,
but they have produced an industrial factory model of education that
treats all teachers like interchangeable widgets.
“A recent report from the New Teacher Project found that almost all
teachers are rated the same. Who in their right mind really believes
that? We need to work together to change this.
“Data can also help identify and support teachers who are struggling.
And it can help evaluate them. The problem is that some states
prohibit linking student achievement and teacher effectiveness.”
Secretary Arne Duncan, July 2, 2009
III. Accreditation and Federal
Grants
Intensified reporting requirements. . .
Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities
New Accreditation Standards
Standard One
Mission, Core Themes, Goals, and Outcomes
Standard One requires the development and
communication of a clearly defined institutional
mission and core themes within that mission. It also
requires identification of goals or intended outcomes,
each with assessable indicators of achievement,
which will be used to assess effectiveness.
IV. 矛盾 Mao (spear)Dun (shield)
• Be wise and steady.
• Shine, Improve, and Comply costs less than
remediation.
• Define and demonstrate mission, student
learning, institutional effectiveness.
• Be prepared for demonstrated strengths to be
challenged as weaknesses.
How will we be
demonstrably better
in 5 years?
Is Napoleon’s march
a compelling
quantified narrative?
BYU
2009 Freshman Class
10,345
6,983
5,600
3800
3183
660
50
35
3.78
27.89
Applicants
Admitted
Enrolled
Admitted Students
Women (54%)
Men (46%)
1st Generation
States
Countries
GPA
ACT
BYU
2008 Freshman Profile
86%
52%
Pre-Arrival Survey (Jul 2008)
Certain of BYU Choice
Concerned w/ Financing Edu
28%
24%
Studied 10+ hrs/wk in HS
Worried about fitting in
91%
End-of-Year Survey (Mar 2009)
Would choose BYU again
63%
Attend Devotionals at least every other week
58%
Worked harder than they thought they could to
meet teachers’ expectations
33%
Never talked to faculty outside of class
BYU
Retention
Freshman Cohort to
Sophomore Year
59%
1 Year
87%
3 Years
93%
4 Years
94%
5 Years
83%
IPEDS
1-year Retention Rate
IPEDS is purely a one year retention rate. BYU excludes students with mission
deferments from the calculations. Students who leave to serve a mission should
inform the University.
BYU
Student Learning Outcomes
267 Degrees
161 Bachelor’s
Wiki Site
418,993 Page Views
77 Master’s
97,327 Unique Visitors
29 Doctoral
Nov 2006 – Apr 2009
Student Awareness of
Learning Outcomes %
Source: Senior Survey
BYU
Graduation
3891
515
152
2016
1875
53%
91%
19%
Age 18
Age 76
April 2009
Bachelor’s Degrees
Master’s Degrees
Doctoral Degrees
Bachelor’s Recipients
Males (52%)
Females (48%)
Married
Male RMs
Female RMs
Youngest
Oldest
Is Napoleon’s march
a compelling
quantified narrative?