The U.S. Department of Education has retreated from its controversial plan to create a giant college-ratings system, top officials revealed on Wednesday. Instead, by late summer the department is now promising to produce a customizable, consumer-oriented website that won’t include any evaluations of colleges but will contain what one official described as "more data than ever before." In effect, it will be a ratings system without any ratings.
The as-yet-unnamed new system will allow students and others to compare colleges "on whatever measures are important to them," said Jamienne S. Studley, deputy under secretary of education.
The proposed federal ratings have been contentious since the moment they were announced. In Congress, Republicans in particular have introduced measures to keep the department from spending money to develop them. And many college leaders and higher-education associations have questioned the department’s capacity to devise an accurate or fair system.
A number of academic researchers have raised similar concerns. As recently as last week, Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, the Republican chairman of the Senate’s education committee, predicted that the ratings would "collapse under their own weight."
Ms. Studley and Ted Mitchell, the under secretary of education, briefedThe Chronicle on the department’s plans on Wednesday afternoon. They offered the briefing on the condition that reporters refrain from contacting other people for reaction until an embargo on the announcement lifted, at midnight on Wednesday, because department officials were still briefing key constituencies.
Read more at The Chronicle of Higher Education: http://chronicle.com/article/Education-Department-Now-Plans/231137