Finally the mentality of the Florida Board of Governors, those nasty people who brought us the CLAST (see Litt), have moved away from the ‘one size fits all’ folly. The new plan to see if students learn anything in universities is to test them based on what they learn in their major. According to the St. Petersburg Times, “students would be judged through tests, essays, portfolios and interviews tailored to each of the state’s hundreds of majors.” This plan could be implemented as early as the fall semester.

As an alternative to an FCAT for college juniors this is a great idea. The FCAT forces teachers to teach to a test, leaving students to learn how to fill out a scantron really well while stamping out any ability to think for themselves.

But looking at the new deal I realized the stupidity inherent within it. Florida is asking students not only to take classes and write papers and/or pass tests in those classes but also to take a test where they have to write papers and take tests in their major. What’s the point? FSU’s provost, Larry Abele, told the Times, “one would think a diploma would suffice.”

He’s right. It’s absolutely redundant and FIU’s provost Mark Rosenberg is an idiot for telling the Times that they “will attempt to use this [test] to complement them [grades],” especially after saying that “it’s grades that count.”

If it’s grades that count, then don’t waste time, dollars and my column space on this stupid idea.

But sadly, this won’t go away. Florida is demanding accountability from its 11 state universities. There’s $250 million of state money for those schools that do implement accountability measures like minority enrollment, graduation rates, and national rankings. Next up could be this ridiculous redundancy plan.

This new testing measure would take time away from a professor’s busy schedule meaning less research being done, less papers written, less books published and less prestige being given to Florida universities. Basically, everyone loses. Students miss out because their professors don’t have time to do enough research and consequently can’t offer nuances to what they’re teaching. Professors miss out because they’ll have even less time to do some writing which is essential in a publish-or-perish career. And the universities miss out because this is how they get donors, by showing off the various books and publications that are produced by their faculty.

If the goal is to make sure students learn what they should learn in a specific major then why not standardize the curriculum?

Thirty-five other states are looking for accountability measures and not one of them agrees with the other. So why not get all 50 states to agree on what’s important for each major, standardize the core courses and offer the rest as electives? Each core course would be taught with the same books, the same materials and relatively the same way across the country. This way there’s no wasted money or time on extra tests and essays- just go by how the student does in the core courses. Let the rest be electives.

Just because 36 states don’t see eye-to-eye on how to evaluate students doesn’t mean they don’t agree on what is essential material in each major. These accountability measures are already based on some standard; why not use a national one?