U.S. Under Secretary of Education Ted Mitchell said designing the rating system is “an important step in improving transparency, accountability, and equity in higher education.”
While U.S. Under Secretary of Education Ted Mitchell said designing the rating system is “an important step in improving transparency, accountability, and equity in higher education,” several higher education leaders who reviewed the framework late Thursday said that it is too sparse on details to make any substantive judgments about how useful or effective the end product will be.
And one higher education leader said a “glaring omission” from the framework was any mention of race and ethnicity.
“While they have been talking about attention to equity as a goal of the framework, that’s no longer mentioned in the goals,” said Michelle Asha Cooper, president of the Institute for Higher Education Policy.
“And when we look at the data, we do see data and measures that look at income, first-generation status, Pell grant recipient, but race and ethnicity are no longer included,” Cooper said.
Cooper said that there is no reason not to track race and ethnicity — long included in many education data systems to examine outcomes for different racial and ethnic groups — particularly in light of recent national events, such as the police killings of unarmed Black citizens that have sparked massive protests with the phrase “Black Lives Matter” as their mantra.
“We have always looked at race and ethnicity,” Cooper said. “The fact that we are omitting that variable, that’s a real red flag for me.”
