Educators ask how far to take accountability

RICHFIELD — "Accountability" has become a watchword in higher education nationwide.

Over the past several months, the Utah higher education system and each of the state's colleges has developed a series of yardsticks designed to measure Utah's performance in preparing students for college, making higher education accessible, turning out degrees and using funds efficiently.

But at a meeting of the Higher Education Appropriations Subcommittee Friday at Snow College, legislators, regents and college presidents grappled with where to go from here with the accountability measures.

Should the higher education system continue to develop the measures with legislative input? Or should the Legislature move into the driver's seat? Most of all, should the Legislature offer extra funding to institutions that score well on whatever measures are adopted?

Nolan Karras, chairman of the Board of Regents, said he started out believing that measures should be systemwide — that they should evaluate all colleges as a composite. But as he studied the subject, he gravitated to the view that each institution should develop its own measures.

"We need to make darn sure that the measures give us what we want," he said. If the people being evaluated don't have a role in developing the standards, if they haven't "bought in" to the measures, accountability can become little more than a game, he said.

He cited the example of U.S. News and World Report ratings of professional schools. One of the measures is the percentage of applicants who are rejected. The measure is designed to identify schools that are highly selective and consequently have a talented student body.

But one school started rejecting the highest-ranking applicants on the theory that most of them would go to a different school anyway. By doing so, the school raised its score on the selectivity measure.

Karras said his preference would be for the Legislature to articulate some principles or goals it wanted colleges to follow, such as doing better at preparing students to succeed in jobs, controlling costs or fulfilling the missions the Board of Regents has assigned to them. Each institution would develop its own measures for achieving the general goals.

But Rep. Bradley Johnson, R-Aurora, chairman of the Higher Education Appropriations Subcommittee, said that institutions are accountable not just to the Board of Regents, but also to taxpayers and legislators who represent the taxpayers. "We'd like to be involved" in the accountability process, he said.

Karras responded, "I think we (the higher education system) have the seeds of this. Let us take the lead."