Academic Accountability in Higher Education Act Exposed

The Academic Accountability in Higher Education Act was considered by ALEC's Education Task Force at the 2011 States and Nation Policy Summit on December 1, 2011. This bill was part of the ALEC task force agenda between 2010 and 2012, but due to incomplete information, it is not known if the bill passed in a vote by legislators and lobbyists at ALEC task force meetings, if ALEC sought to distance itself from the bill as the public increased scrutiny of its pay-to-play activities, or if key operative language from the bill has been introduced by an ALEC legislator in a state legislature in the ensuing period or became binding law.

ALEC Draft Bill Text

Summary

The Academic Accountability in Higher Education Act requires all four-year institution of higher education that receive state funding, including, but not limited to funding for operating expenses, student financial aid, or capital projects to assess annually student learning gains in core collegiate skills and to make the results of this and related academic assessments prominently available on its website.

Model Legislation

Section 1. {Annual Assessment of Core Collegiate Skills}

(A) Each institution of public higher education or private institution that receives state funding for student financial aid and/or capital building projects, shall annually assess the level of student learning gains in core collegiate skills.

(B) Institutions will assess core collegiate skills with their choice of one or more of the three standardized, nationally-normed instruments now widely in use. These are Collegiate Learning Assessment, administered by the Council on Aid to Education; the Collegiate Assessment of Academic Proficiency, administered by ACT, Inc.; the Proficiency Profile, administered by Educational Testing Services, Inc.

(C) Institutions have the option to choose a longitudinal assessment system to follow a group of students from freshman through senior status or test randomly selected cohorts of students of statistically meaningful size, in accordance with guidance from the testing companies.

(D) Institutions have the option to choose the subject modules appropriate for academic goals, except that all institutions must administer as part of general education assessment, value-added assessment of writing skills.

(E) Institutions will be responsible for appropriate administration of the assessment, including, but not limited to, ensuring that an appropriate number of students take the assessment and provide valid results.

Section 2. {Public Disclosure of Assessment Results}

(A) Each institution of public higher education or private institution that receives state funding for student financial aid and/or capital building projects, shall report the following results for student learning gains in core collegiate skills annually on its website:

(1) Average freshman score on an assessment instrument testing core collegiate skills.

(2) Average rising junior or senior score on the same assessment instrument for core collegiate skills used to test the freshman cohort.

(3) Comparison of the student learning gains in core collegiate skills with the predicted learning gains of students with similar academic profile.

(B) Each institution of public higher education or private institution that receives state funding for student financial aid and/or capital building projects, shall report annually on its website the number of students who took professional licensure examinations and, when more than ten students received scores for an examination, the percentage of students who passed these examinations, along with the average score received.

Section 3. {Severability clause}

Section 4. {Repealer clause}

Section 5. {Effective date}