WASHINGTON -- The Education Department is convening a panel of experts to make public presentations later this month on how the Obama administration should develop a federal college ratings system, a department spokesman said Tuesday.
The National Center for Education Statistics, the department’s research arm, will host a symposium on January 22 featuring “experts on empirical methods for measuring performance, metric development, and state and federal postsecondary data and data collection and dissemination infrastructures,” according to a forthcoming department announcement.
Officials have asked the attendees to make presentations based on the department’s December request for information on how it should piece together a ratings system. In that notice, official sought answers to 30 questions, including information on what kinds of data are available, how they should be weighted in a ratings system, and how best to present ratings information to consumers.
The daylong event will be held at the Education Department’s K Street offices here and will be open to the public. A department spokesman Tuesday confirmed the following list of experts who will be presenting:
- Braden Hosch, State University of New York at Stony Brook
- Brandon Busteed, Gallup
- Christine Keller, Association of Public and Land-grant Universities
- Dana Mukamel, University of California at Irvine
- David Figlio, Northwestern University
- Don Hossler, Indiana University
- Hans L’Orange, State Higher Education Executive Officers association
- John Pryor, University of California at Los Angeles
- Kevin Carey, New America Foundation
- Patrick Kelly, National Center for Higher Education Management Systems
- Patrick Perry, California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office
- Robert Kelchen, Seton Hall University
- Robert Morse, U.S. News & World Report
- Roger Benjamin, Council for Aid to Education
- Russell Poulin, Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education’s Cooperative for Educational Technologies
- Sarah Turner, University of Virginia
- Sean Corcoran, New York University
- Tod Massa, State Council of Higher Education for Virginia
- Tom Bailey, Columbia University