[lbo-talk] Race to the Top Mark-2

[Nathan]

On Fri, Jan 27, 2012 at 03:39:55PM +0000, James Leveque wrote:
> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/27/education/obama-to-link-aid-for-colleges-to-affordability.html?_r=1&hp
> 
> "The president also wants to create a $1 billion grant competition,
> along the lines of the Race for the Top program for elementary and
> secondary education, to reward states that take action to keep college
> costs down, and a separate $55 million competition for individual
> colleges to increase their value and efficiency."

How does one measure "value and efficiency" of college education? I for
one would think that every university board of dirs. would fight tooth
and nail to suppress alumni employment data, which makes me think that
could be a good thing. My hunch, though, is that "value and efficiency"
means some new version of standardized testing. Giving college seniors
SATs four years later.

That's to ignore the obvious "it's not a stick it's a carrot"
competetive ethos at play.

-- 
Nathan