Accountability in American Higher Education

In Accountability in American Higher Education prominent academics, entrepreneurs, and journalists assess the obstacles to, and potential opportunities for, accountability in higher education in America. Providing analysis that can be used to engage institutions of higher education in the difficult but necessary conversation of accountability.

Three years after U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spelling''s national commission on higher education,and nearly a decade after No Child Left Behind revolutionized k-12 accountability, there is little agreement onwhat accountability in higher educationshould look like.While more students are enrolling in (and failing to complete) postsecondary education than ever before, scholars and policymakers have paid far less attention to questions ofhow well colleges areteaching students and helping them earn degrees while simultaneously contributing new research and scholarship. In Accountability in American Higher Education prominent academics, entrepreneurs, and journalists assess the obstacles to, and potential opportunities for, accountability in higher education in America.Key issuesinclude new measures of college student learning, power education data systems, implications for facultytenure, accreditation,for-profit higher education, community colleges, andthe political dynamics of reform.This volume provides insightful analysis that legislators, administrators, and consumers can use to engage institutions of higher education in the difficult but necessary conversation of accountability.