Tale of Two Cities or Evaluation and Assessment

Hello from Cleveland,

As I read and listened to the verdicts (both guilty) for two highly volatile cases, and as I finish the last three days of the last “typical class” of a full-time, tenure track teaching, academic career, I find my brain in two places. And yet, there is a connecting thread that holds it all together. Additionally, while I understand the appropriateness of parallelism, I am going to break that rule, and begin with the latter of the two points (and Bill, this is so you might continue to read).

Much of my life has been spent figuring things out, trying to understand the why about things. My poor mother – she certainly did not know what to do with this inquisitive, take-nothing-for-granted person she ended up with (as I was adopted). I appreciate the difference of opinion more than some might believe, more than perhaps I should. Over the past decade, the obsession with assessment in the academy is apparent in every corner of our university existence. Student Learning Outcomes, General Education Goals, Programmatic Outcomes, Accreditation, Agencies, and the list could go on. Are we doing what we say we are? That is a fair and significant question. Even when I was an elementary student, I remember taking tests titled Iowa Tests of Educational Development (ITEDs we called them). Certainly the rationale for No Child Left Behind (NCLB) was well-intended. However, in spite of our best intentions, it seems we use assessment as a way to monetize education. The actual amount of money we spend nationally on education is a pittance to many other things, and three decades in academe has illustrated that consequence (less than 3% of the Federal Budget is spent on elementary and secondary education, and we currently spend less than $2,300.00 per student on post-secondary education – these are 2023 figures from the US Department of Education). I looked at EU countries and the average for the EU is 4.7%.

Then there is the issue of evaluation . . . what is the difference, you ask? Assessment is about actual learning, evaluation is about grading. Those things every student focuses on. Why did I get this grade? What can I do to raise my grade? It is stunning how much value we place on those letters. I have thought about this for years, and I was as grade driven as anyone. I never graduated with a 4.0 cumulative GPA. I had significantly strong grades (after failing out the first time), but grades never kept me from moving forward. I learned some time ago how to address grades, and for the most part it has worked well. When I was in graduate school at MTU, we (as a department) decided for a year or two, if I remember correctly, to only give midterm and final grades. People freaked out. But the experience taught us a lot, particularly in the area of writing. Without grades, students paid much more attention to the comments on their papers, and their writing improved significantly (I think on average an entire letter grade). Step back for a moment and consider when grades matter after you graduate . . . for your first job or if you are going to graduate school. Otherwise, no one cares. Your future employers want to know if you are capable, dependable, and to put it in elementary language: do you play well with others? What has happened with the common practice of grade inflation is a belief that showing up (with not much else) earns someone an A. That is neither realistic nor honest. And more interestingly, the persons most often questioning the grade are the very ones who shouldn’t. We are evaluated throughout life, but we also need to learn to evaluate ourselves. Over the years, I learned to not compare myself with my colleagues. We all had different strengths, different skills, different methods. What I needed to do was compare myself with my earlier self. Was I improving, teaching more effectively? What I realized after leaving Stout was the incredible power some had over our lives, and how little power I had. It was a painful, but important lesson.

As I continue this blog, I am back in Bloomsburg after a bit of some a whirlwind trip with both expected and unexpected events. Before the week is completed, I will be out again, experiencing yet more new things. The first part of my blog noted the trial of two individuals, one a former President, and one a President’s son. In both situations, the reality of our polarized electorate is apparent and present. In both cases, a jury of peers adjudicated their understanding of justice, of deciding guilt or innocence. I would not have cared to serve on either jury, and I admire those who did in both cases. And regardless toward which side of the political aisle you lean, the need to have a trial by jury is essential to any hope we have for maintaining a civil society. That sounds a bit oxymoronic in our current national atmosphere, but the reality that both individuals (with incredible power to sway opinion) sat in a court of law to be judged is important. While partisans from either side will lament the outcome, I am pleased that a process played itself out as it should. There are all sort of things to argue (should either person have gone to trial? could either person get a fair trial? what are the consequences of both the verdict or the trial itself?), the simple fact that both individuals were found guilty lays out a couple of basic points. First, someone has to be indicted . . . this means there are grounds to charge someone. Step back and forget who is on trial. Indictment means something has materially (actually) happened that created a legal problem. In both cases, motions, questions, delays, and attempts to block the trial from happening occurred. However, in both cases, eventually, the trial occurred. I believe what happened, both in the court room and the response of the individuals there, could not be more disparate. Certainly some will argue it is all inappropriate, be it for former President Trump or for the current President’s son. Actions have consequence, and for the first time in a while, I believe we can say there was accountability. Again, I am well aware of all the extraneous arguments about both, but they are irrelevant. This is where I believe we have a bit of Dickens’s novel. “it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair . . . ” This seems to reflect so much of what or who we currently are in 2024. While I certainly have my own political leanings, and I do not really hide them, I would like to look at our system in general for a moment. Certainly, with the recent passing of O.J. Simpson, there was a renewed examination of that trial, a lack of conviction, and the other things that occurred in the aftermath. I remember sitting on the couch of my apartment on Shelden Avenue in Houghton, MI watching the Bronco chase. I remember being in the MUB on the MTU campus when the not guilty verdict came in. Much like now, that verdict split the country. The questioning of justice, depending on perspective, has never really disappeared, as was evident in the level of rehashing of what occurred in that 1995 trial. I think there is an interesting possible consideration of – is there a difference between not guilty versus innocent? That might be worth another blog at some point.

As a history major, and someone who was particularly interested in the difference between the French and American Revolutions, Dickens’s words about the world in the late 1700s are instructive. It was about the extremes of the society, of the world. The reality of the world and the final words of Carton as he ponders the guillotine are also revealing. As he considers what has happened, he thinks “It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.” One of the things I consider for my students, and those coming into our world is whether or not we give them reason to hope. Hope is such a powerful motivator. It is an essential component of life. But, what is necessary for someone to be hopeful? What is that foundational element that provides a person a belief, the sense that something better is possible? I believe it is how we provide an understanding of the world, of what we do to promote the agency of the individual. Agency is something that seems to be at the front of my consideration lately. Too often we subjugate our power to the other. Power is something we all have, but something we seldom know how to manage. Power is complicated, but it is real. Certainly, much of what has occurred in our national court rooms was (and is) about power. And yet, I am comforted that the power of our system seems to have worked. I hope at some point when we look back on all of this, we will see that we still have hope in our system, in our country, and in our world. Sometimes, we believe we have lost it all. Sometimes, we wonder if there is still something fundamental that we can hold on to. The song by Faith Hill at the end of the movie, Pearl Harbor comes to mind.

Thanks as always for reading.

Dr. Martin