Nationwide Testing of Critical Thinking for Higher Education

The Spellings Commission recommends widespread critical-thinking testing to help determine the value added by higher education institutions -- with the data banked and made available (transparent ) in order to enable parents, students, and policy makers to compare institutions and hold them accountable. Because of the likely and desirable promotion of critical thinking that would result from the Commission's program, Ennis recommends cooperation by critical-thinking faculty and administrators, but only if there is much less comparability and considerably deeper transparency of the tests and their justification than the Commission recommends, and only if vigilance in handling the many problems and dangers elaborated herein is successful.