2008 Woodie Awards
De Anza snubbed in college rankings
The opinion of the La Voz Weekly editorial board
Issue date: 11/13/07 Section: Opinion/Editorial
Last month, the political commentary magazine Washington Monthly published its third annual national college rankings, which also included a listing of the country's best community colleges.
Considered by many in the higher education community as providing a unique perspective, the Monthly's list ranks schools based upon "socially-oriented" criteria instead of the more straightforward measures employed by other popular magazines such as U.S. News.
So how did De Anza College fare according to these criteria? Incredibly, we didn't even make the list, which cut off after number 30.
Now, while there's certainly much to be said for being gracious in defeat, a closer inspection of the rankings' methodology reveals flaws so great that they demand an objection.
To begin with, among national universities, community service aptitude is measured not only by the amount of federal money that the school spends on service projects, but also by the number of its graduates serving in the Peace Corps and - get this - the size of its ROTC program.
But what about schools wealthy enough to fund community service projects with their own money? Don't they deserve some credit, also? And how about schools, like UC Berkeley, with miniscule ROTC contingents?
Lucky for Cal, boatloads of its graduates participate in the Peace Corps program; but is that really the only positive way to impact society?
At least the methodology used for the community college rankings, a combination of statistics from the U.S. Department of Education and the Community College Survey of Student Engagement, appears more constructively valid, but we can never really know for sure because that methodology is not disclosed.
All that's provided is a four-paragraph description of the general philosophy behind the choice of sources - no formulas or tables, not even a margin of error.
But the proof, as they say, is in the pudding - let's compare De Anza with the number two school on the community colleges list, Cascadia College of Washington.
Considered by many in the higher education community as providing a unique perspective, the Monthly's list ranks schools based upon "socially-oriented" criteria instead of the more straightforward measures employed by other popular magazines such as U.S. News.
So how did De Anza College fare according to these criteria? Incredibly, we didn't even make the list, which cut off after number 30.
Now, while there's certainly much to be said for being gracious in defeat, a closer inspection of the rankings' methodology reveals flaws so great that they demand an objection.
To begin with, among national universities, community service aptitude is measured not only by the amount of federal money that the school spends on service projects, but also by the number of its graduates serving in the Peace Corps and - get this - the size of its ROTC program.
But what about schools wealthy enough to fund community service projects with their own money? Don't they deserve some credit, also? And how about schools, like UC Berkeley, with miniscule ROTC contingents?
Lucky for Cal, boatloads of its graduates participate in the Peace Corps program; but is that really the only positive way to impact society?
At least the methodology used for the community college rankings, a combination of statistics from the U.S. Department of Education and the Community College Survey of Student Engagement, appears more constructively valid, but we can never really know for sure because that methodology is not disclosed.
All that's provided is a four-paragraph description of the general philosophy behind the choice of sources - no formulas or tables, not even a margin of error.
But the proof, as they say, is in the pudding - let's compare De Anza with the number two school on the community colleges list, Cascadia College of Washington.
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