M. P. STATON

The Chronicle of Higher Education podcast featured a talk with Oberlin College President Marvin Krisolv about the relationship between the College and the community of Oberlin.  Oberlin claims to be taking an active stake in the local economy, helping to invest in infrastructure and service programs as part of an Urban Renewal effort.  Having observed many schools, I think that their success inextricably linked to the livability and opportunities in their immediate surroundings.  Oberlin is not taking it far enough.

In particular, Harvard and Stanford have dramatically altered and managed the towns around them.  Owning and managing the surrounding community to promote a safe, clean, and livable environment is only the first step.  The next seems to be to promote the location of research institutes nearby, as well as set up space for and engage the industries of the future.  Stanford has done this and more: it has been the most extreme example of helping to jump start Venture Capital firms, and the firms have a home bias that inevitably has made Silicon Valley one of the wealthiest areas of the planet.

University involvement in urban renewal seems to be the trend, but service programs are temporary and are more of a band-aid than a solution.  If a university really wants to see their community improve, they need to become the spark of economic development through the active management of residential, commercial, and high tech industrial real estate, the creation of research institutes, and the support of Venture Capital.

I just read an article that revealed how the US News and World Report’s best high schools in the country (at getting kids ready for college) are identified. As usual, I was beside myself at the naivety of the data gymnastics involved.

The researchers measured whether a school performed better than average on the state exam, including disadvantaged groups compared to other disadvantaged groups at other schools. Then they take the weighted average of the AP participation rate and performance, as well as the ratio of students passing the AP exams over the number of graduating seniors, do a little index magic and outcomes the praised number.

This, of course, has very little to do with college readiness. The ratio of passed AP exams to the total graduating class directly measures only the number of students signing up for AP classes with the confidence and money to take the exam.

While there is reason to champion the AP program as well as the AP exam, it is only a standardized exam that measures content knowledge with (as every multiple choice exam) mild treatment to analytical ability, reading comprehension, and form writing.

The AP exam cannot measure a students’ habits in the absence of supervision, nor can it measure a students ability to solve comprehensive problems that cannot be contained within a few paragraphs of text. It cannot measure knowledge of research procedure, or of self-monitored study-skills. While a commitment within the structure of high school and parent led homes can be inferred, true motivation nor an intrinsic love for learning cannot.

The AP exam is heralded simply because its hard data, but college readiness lies in much more qualitative assessments. With some serious effort on the part of policy makers and administrators, perhaps we can start touching on that too one day.