Opinion JENNIFER CALFAS EDITOR IN CHIEF AARICA MARSH and DEREK WOLFE EDITORIAL PAGE EDITORS LEV FACHER MANAGING EDITOR 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 tothedaily@michigandaily.com Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890. Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of the Daily’s editorial board. All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors. The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com 4 — Tuesday, November 10, 2015 Claire Bryan, Regan Detwiler, Ben Keller, Payton Luokkala, Aarica Marsh, Anna Polumbo-Levy, Melissa Scholke, Michael Schramm, Stephanie Trierweiler, Mary Kate Winn, Derek Wolfe EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS Protecting political expression A s we rapidly approach the Uni- versity’s bicentennial, Central Student Government is tak- ing the chance to look back at the historical- ly significant changes that University stu- dents have inspired in higher education for our country over the years. One of those major changes was the collection and release of course evaluation data. The history of course evalua- tions at the University is undeniable. Course evaluations were established for students, by students, in 1969. Anyone who indicates otherwise is spreading a false narrative. What’s more, Prof. Tim McKay provided members of the Senate Advisory Committee on University Affairs, and subsequently CSG, with a 1969 student viewpoint in The Michi- gan Daily that clearly explains the true history of course evaluations. Students, with the University’s sup- port, established the Association for Course Evaluation, which offered stu- dents access to course evaluation data and counseling to help their peers obtain a reliable student perspective on courses in their selection process. After seeing the success of the ACE office, every single department in LSA — then referred to as the Literary Col- lege — requested copies of the results, which were then used for promotion and tenure decisions. Individual pro- fessors also began approaching the ACE office hoping to obtain the stu- dent feedback for their own benefit, and their graduate student instruc- tors’ benefit. The history here is unquestionable; students brought this service and offered it for the bet- terment of all, and now students are unable to access that very service. On Oct. 26, the Senate Advisory Committee on University Affairs voted to continue denying students access to course evaluation data, in a shortsighted and disappointing deci- sion that does not reflect the origi- nal purpose of course evaluations. Instead, they have attempted to indefinitely postpone student access to this data by calling for a new instrument with no clear timeline. While we appreciate the Faculty Sen- ate’s willingness to collaborate mov- ing forward, this vote represents a roadblock to ensuring informed aca- demic decision-making by students. The University currently stands at odds with its peer institutions because it doesn’t provide course evaluation data to its students. Harvard Univer- sity; Yale University; Princeton Uni- versity; the University of California, Berkeley; Pennsylvania State Univer- sity; University of Virginia; New York University; Stanford University; the University of Chicago; Massachusetts Institute of Technology; California Institute of Technology; Columbia University; Duke University; the Uni- versity of California, Los Angeles; and countless other institutions are all successfully providing their students with course evaluation data, while our own administration is not. Once leaders in course evaluation, the Uni- versity has since fallen far behind our country’s other top schools. The CSG Executive Board has never wanted this to be a battle between professors and students, and we have worked hard to make that abundantly clear. Our goal is to share the true nar- rative surrounding course evaluation data and its historical significance, which clarifies why we have course evaluation data in the first place. We are focused on ensuring that students ultimately have access to course evaluation data. The current evaluation instrument certainly has room for improvement, and the CSG Executive Board will readily partici- pate in the proposed University-wide committee to review the current evaluation instrument. However, we will not accept an outcome that does not give students access to the data that was, without question, originally collected to support students’ course selection decisions. That being said, it’s also unrealistic for us to enter a course evaluation review process and expect that a radically different instrument will somehow satisfy all involved. For that reason, we will stand res- olute in ensuring full student access to course evaluation data by the time of course selection for Fall 2016 courses, whether it is provided by the University or a student organization. We fully recognize the role that students must play in this. Ever since the school transitioned from paper to electronic course evaluations, student feedback has dropped nota- bly. Even still, according to a report given to SACUA ahead of their vote, the decline in response rates has had no statistically significant impact on the evaluations. That being said, it’s important to note that course evalu- ation data will only be helpful for future students and faculty if cur- rent students take it seriously, but it is equally important to recognize that students need to be incentivized to take course evaluations seriously. What incentivizes students to legiti- mately care about and be invested in course evaluations today? Currently, nothing tangible. What would incen- tivize students to do so? Giving class time for students to fill them out or requiring students to fill out their course evaluations before they receive access to the data are two options. These are solutions that CSG is ready to support, but using statistically insig- nificant decreases in student partici- pation in course evaluations to argue against their release is disingenuous. Moving forward, CSG President Cooper Charlton will be meeting with representatives of SACUA and Univer- sity administrators to discuss our next steps regarding course evaluation data this week. At the meeting on Wednes- day evening, we will maintain our commitment to the release of course evaluation data to the students of the University, signifying a return to the original purpose of course evalua- tions. Additionally, we will call for the University to release the data to stu- dents through academic advisors for the current course selection period, and for full access to the data by the selection period for the fall of 2016. CSG President Cooper Charl- ton, Anushka Sarkar, CSG chief programming officer and Sean Pitt, CSG chief of staff on behalf of the CSG Executive Board. D espite being a historically liberal institution, the Uni- versity fails to include the pro- hibition of political or intellectual dis- crimination in its anti-discrimina- tion policy. Across campus, the lack of institutional protection for unpopular opin- ions — includ- ing conservative views — can have a chilling effect on class discussion and student expression. In all academic fields, discussion is critical to understanding the nuance of claims presented about the world. In some disciplines, like public policy — which strives to educate students not only on current policies but also on how to change them — understand- ing multiple angles of divisive political issues and working with people who hold opposing viewpoints is essential. Discussions in my Ford School of Public Policy classes regularly prompt dialogue on contentious political issues like minimum wage laws, detention of terror suspects and the far right’s influence in Congress. Here, disagreements are political, and discussions often reveal ideol- ogy if students participate honestly. Group discussions can become more heated than average if one or two students disagree with the rest of their peers, and students may avoid expressing views that might conflict with the opinions they believe their professors hold. Despite the opportunity for dis- agreement, faculty members require students to participate in discussion, and give participation considerable weight toward final grades. Most Pub- lic Policy professors who I have come into contact with have been ame- nable to a diverse range of opinions. But, when students can’t be sure how accepting a professor will be, they may elect not to express their views at all. Susan Collins, dean of the Ford, told me in an interview that most policy schools across the country tend to have greater liberal representation, and past surveys of Ford students show that relatively few self-identify as Republicans. Despite this, Collins believes that Ford students should be exposed to a wide range of viewpoints. “I feel very strongly, and this is a view shared widely around the build- ing,” Collins said, “that as a policy school, it’s really essential that people hear and understand and grapple with a range of perspectives, but in particu- lar political perspectives.” Even still, Collins said that stu- dents have expressed to her their discomfort in expressing their views in class when they didn’t think any of their classmates shared them. As a Republican in the Ford School, I can certainly relate to these students. One of my policy classes spends a considerable amount of time in small group discussions, where, in my expe- riences, the majority of group mem- bers have tended to share similar views on topics, and I’ve tended to dis- agree. Sharing my opinion to a group of people who believe the opposite can be intimidating, and has been met, on occasion, with sarcastic, less-than- flattering remarks. I tend to be outgoing and outspo- ken, and probably more willing than average to share my thoughts with those who might disagree. If I was afraid of sharing my opinions with liberals, I probably wouldn’t have identified myself as a Republican in the Daily so many times over the past two years. But when my peers don’t take my opinions seriously or make negative comments, it makes me think twice before choosing to par- ticipate in class discussion again in the future. If I have occasionally felt too uncomfortable to share my opin- ion in class, I can only imagine how my Republican peers might feel. In most classes, faculty members seem to do their best to encourage dis- senting opinions and highlight mul- tiple sides of arguments. This isn’t just inclusive; it’s good pedagogy. To the extent that the Ford School aspires to produce effective public servants, it should strive to ensure its students can effectively communicate in institu- tional environments with far greater intellectual diversity than the Public Policy school itself. It can’t do that if only one side of every issue is afforded serious consideration. Despite expressed openness to ideas from all areas of the political spectrum, it’s clear that the school has a long way to go if it truly wants to become as tolerant of different ide- ologies as it strives to be. A solid first step toward this goal doesn’t have to be Ford-specific: Adding political and intellectual discrimination to the Uni- versity-wide nondiscrimination policy could go a long way to assure students their views will be respected. Should the University continue to neglect this issue, the Public Policy School should draft an anti-discrim- ination policy of its own that specifi- cally prohibits discrimination based on political expression or ideology, and strengthens existing measures to promote an inclusive environment conducive to active, vocal participa- tion from all students, regardless of background or identity. But making the Ford School as diverse in political thought as the government bodies many Ford stu- dents want to work in after gradua- tion will require much more than a one-off policy change. The Ford School should increase representation from political con- servatives and Republicans. Better outreach to right-leaning student organizations will help students who don’t already have a network of Pub- lic Policy students to tell them about the program or help them through the application process. Even more importantly, the Pub- lic Policy School needs to become a place that can credibly claim to pro- spective students an acceptance of a wide range of viewpoints. This might include framing class discussions to highlight both sides of an argument, or assigning a paper in one of the required classes that asks students to argue a policy position they don’t sup- port, prompting them to give serious consideration to an opposing point of view. It may also encourage faculty to avoid party-line generalizations that tempt students to think about Republicans and Democrats as being homogenous groups without ideologi- cal variation, pitted against each other without room for compromise. This isn’t to say that conserva- tive students can’t find a place at the Ford School, or benefit from the excellent classes it offers. On the contrary, I think that students hold- ing underrepresented ideologies have a unique role to play in making the Ford School even better than it already is. By creating an environ- ment in which students challenge each other to develop best possible policy solutions, the Ford School can more effectively produce leaders who know how to work through the grid- lock that plagues government today. I doubt that this can happen in classes where the viewpoints expressed are frequently the same, either because there are too few stu- dents who disagree, or because the ones who disagree don’t feel comfort- able expressing their views. Progress on this issue will benefit not only cam- pus conservatives but also the Public Policy School itself, by helping it pro- vide a more comprehensive education for all of its students. — Victoria Noble can be reached at vjnoble@umich.edu. VICTORIA NOBLE “Netflix and chill” could start getting a lot harder FROM THE DAILY A solution to fix standardized testing practices has recently bubbled up. On Oct. 24, the Obama administration admitted it had pushed too far in holding state schools accountable based on their students’ standardized test scores. In light of this acknowledgment, the administration called on Congress to include specific measures that address the overemphasis on standardized testing in the Elementary and Secondary Education Act — a bill previously termed No Child Left Behind. Two different versions of the ESEA were reauthorized in July by both the House and the Senate, and the fate of the bill lies in the two chambers’ ability to compromise. As part of Obama’s Testing Action Plan, which accompanied this announcement, by January 2016, the Department of Education will release a guidance plan for all states and districts detailing how to assess what standardized test practices will be fair, valid and efficient. These developments are especially compelling in the context of the disagreements surrounding the Michigan Student Test of Educational Progress, the new state-required standardized test that replaced the 44-year-old MEAP. The recently released and abysmally low M-STEP results indicate there are significant issues with the exam. To set Michigan students up for successful academic futures, the Michigan Legislature should use the results of this year’s M-STEP, combined with the guidelines set in the Testing Action Plan, to revise this new state-required test, and other state legislatures should follow suit. Unlike the MEAP, the M-STEP is administered in the spring, which is advantageous to students because it tests them on material they just learned, rather than testing them on material they learned three months ago the previous spring. Another promising attribute is that the M-STEP aimed to incorporate Common Core standards by allowing schools to conduct the test online and including short-answer questions, in contrast to the MEAP, which only used multiple choice. These factors should have combined to create a “better” standardized test, but as Michigan students’ unbelievably low test scores reveal, this new test is very far from perfect. In a phone interview with The Michigan Daily, Pamela Davis-Kean, professor of psychology and education at the University, said she takes the results with a grain of salt. Davis-Kean explained that by the time the federal government had made clear in 2014 the Common Core standards that state tests had to meet, there was little time for the state to actually create the new test. Also concerning is that M-STEP removed time restrictions on students taking the test. Most students took eight to 11 hours to complete the test, and some took even longer. This large range inherently causes unreliability in the data. “In general, no matter what the results are, they’re not going to be indicative of anything, because it wasn’t pretested — it didn’t go through the usual validations that most tests go through,” Davis-Kean said. Guidelines explained in the Testing Action Plan could help solve some of the problems faced in creating and administering the M-STEP. The plan states $403 million would go toward creating state assessments that align with college and career-readiness standards. A separate $25 million will go to projects that help states develop new assessment models that would allow them to “address pressing needs they have identified for developing and implementing their assessments.” Now with the resources of both more time and more money, the Michigan Department of Education is better prepared to improve the state-required test than it was at the beginning of the 2014-15 school year. Calling for the state to place a cap on the amount of time districts and schools can spend testing, which the Testing Action Plan does, would discourage redundancy in the different tests schools are currently administering, and would therefore serve as a good first step toward greater efficiency. By limiting the time spent on standardized tests, the Obama administration will allow teachers to offer more content-based instruction that hones in on skills such as reading comprehension, critical thinking and rhetorical analysis. Rather than requiring students to spend an excessive number of hours taking a myriad of standardized tests, a returned emphasis on class content will give students a greater breadth of knowledge and skills than teaching to a standardized test allows. The plan makes several other much-needed calls to action aimed at state governments, local districts and individual schools. One important aspect of the Testing Action Plan is that it encourages states to release test results in a timely manner and to make clear to parents, students, teachers and administrators what these results can be used for. More timely access to statewide and individual results can help students and teachers make changes to curricula and individualized teaching strategies for specific student needs. In addition, the Testing Action Plan emphasizes flexibility in teacher preparation for these tests. The plan states, “as in other areas, we believe that student learning as measured by assessment results should be a part, not the sole determinant, of determining the quality of a particular program.” Instead of implying that educators should be “teaching to a test,” the plan seems to suggest that teacher performance should not be assessed solely based upon their students’ testing performance. After over a decade of overemphasizing the importance of student test scores in teacher evaluations, this is a refreshing and critical point for the government to concede. Evaluating the results of the M-STEP demonstrate the Testing Action Plan is a long- overdue call for states to not only place a cap on the amount of classroom time schools require of students, but also create a state-administered test that is more efficient and effective in measuring student achievement. The ideal test would encompass Common Core standards and would go through extensive preparatory procedures before being given to students as to avoid the mistakes of the M-STEP. Streamlined testing will produce useful data and allow for teachers to do what’s more important — focus on teaching content in the classroom. Course evals were created for students New testing plan a good (M-)STEP Obama initiative will help fix Michigan exam Jackie Thomas/Daily