Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/5/84; site psuvax1.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!gamma!epsilon!zeta!sabre!petrus!bellcore!decvax!genrad!panda!talcott!harvard!seismo!rochester!cmu-cs-pt!cadre!psuvax1!berman
From: berman@psuvax1.UUCP (Piotr Berman)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Credentials, State vs. private
Message-ID: <1763@psuvax1.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 3-Sep-85 17:59:05 EDT
Article-I.D.: psuvax1.1763
Posted: Tue Sep  3 17:59:05 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 6-Sep-85 04:03:12 EDT
References: <152@gargoyle.UUCP> <28200053@inmet.UUCP>
Organization: Pennsylvania State Univ.
Lines: 101

> 
> In other words, if the state provides such a service, the market need
> not.  This is news?  There's nothing here to suggest that the "national
> educational standards" are better than standardized tests, and if you
> want diversity in your educational system, I would think that the
> standardized test route (public or private) would be the way to go.
> 
> 
> >The solution here is stricter national standards, not looser ones.
> >And personnel departments don't look at ETS results, anyway.
> 
> They don't have to -- the people with poor ETS scores had less of 
> a chance to attain the credentials that the personnel departments
> DO look at, and the ETS info would be old anyhow.  On the other hand,
> perhaps you have heard of the "Institute for the Certification of
> Computer Professionals"?
> 
> >>>Of course, the value of a credentialing system depends on the level
> >>>of publicity, the level of enforcement, and the level of agreement
> >>>on the value of particular credentials.  Hence, since the best
> >>>guarantor of publicity, enforcement, and agreement between credentials
> >>>is a public regulatory authority, 
> >>
> >>Support please.
> >>
> >
> >I assume you agree with the first sentence.  As far as the second goes,
> >I think of a credentialing scheme like a security setup.  The most
> >secure setups are where an outside, central agency takes charge of
> >security and makes sure that all sub-central security arrangements
> >are consistent, so that the system as a whole is secure against hostile
> >entry.  And where everyone knows the rules.  The same rules which
> >maintain secure environments are the rules which maintain consistent
> >credentialing systems.
> >
> 
> No support here for the notion that the state must administer such
> a system -- the "outside, central agency" need not be public at
> all (ETS isn't).   Indeed, public agencies have the problem of being
> under government pressure to pump the scores up.  Private agencies
> are presumably a little more resistant.
  
This is no a communist country, but a country with checks and balaces.
There is a lot of very reliable statistical data which are collected
by goverment institutions.  

> >The only central agency in a state which has coercive powers over
> >people within the state is the state.  
> 
> AHA! Here's the core of what I believe to be your error.  There is
> no need for such an agency to be coercive.  None.
> 
> >So it has a role if a social
> >goal is that educational credentials should be secure and consistent.
> 
> Why?  If I tell you that my name is "Nat Howard" and can get you to
> agree with me that much, and then we make a joint call to a private
> credentialing service that you trust, you will be convinced that I
> have a given credential if they say I do.
> 
> Of course, you may elect not to trust the private agency, feeling that
> a public one would be more trustworthy.  If so, you've fallen into the
> bad mistake of believing that public officials are less corrupt
> than private ones.
> 
> >>>on the value of particular credentials.  Hence, since the best
> >>>guarantor of publicity, enforcement, and agreement between credentials
> >>>is a public regulatory authority, 
> >>>and because people outside the
> >>>educational system disturb the system of credentials, 
> >>
> >>Support for the implication that the impact that outsiders have
> >>is "distortion" and not "adjustment to reality", please.
> >>
.............
> By "outsiders", I meant the people outside the testing system who
> exert pressure to modify testing criteria.  Not the beneficiaries
> of such modification.  Indeed, making a government agency be the
> arbiter of such things means that testing criteria MUST be influenced
> by politics.  A private agency faces ruin if it's credentials are
> shown to be fraudulent.  Not so a government agency.  A private agency
> also faces ruin if its credentials are shown to be unattached to 
> reality.  This is also not so true of a federal agency.  In short,
> the forces that act on a private agency tend to make the credentials
> reflect reality more closely.  The pressures on a public agency reflect
> the degree of power and interest held by pressure groups, some of whom
> would benefit from certain changes.
> 
What we see here is a naive belief in the selfregulatory powers.  In fact
SAT tests are widely criticized for being detached from reality.  As
somebody put it "since most of the colleges accept practically everybody,
they need some fiction to support the claim of mantaining standarts.
Thus the need for SAT scores".  Yesterday there was an article in NYT
about widespread incompetience among doctors.  Since no centralized
system of credencial exists, it is extremally difficult to prevent
incompetient (at time fraudulent) doctors to be in the profession.
This illustrates the point that in the absence of universal, imposed
standards, private associations and state agencies are not able to
assure the desired level of competience.

Piotr Berman