【社论】(EDITORIAL)

反对教育排名

Revolt against educational rankings

——原载《科学》杂志2023年第379卷第6631期——

<SCIENCE> 2023, Volume 379, Issue 6631

【中文翻译】在国家和全球范围内对大学和学院进行排名是众所周知的可疑做法。尽管一些有缺陷的方法会导致对这些机构的扭曲和不准确的描述。然而，排名仍然是公众对“最佳”的一种流行和信任的衡量标准。《美国新闻与世界报道》长期以来一直束缚着美国高等教育。 它使用处理标准化考试成绩、校友捐赠和民意调查等各种测量的算法，发布本科院校以及研究生院、商学院、法学院和医学院的年度排名列表。长期以来，父母、政治家和受托人对这些名单的重视程度超出了他们应得的程度。然而，这种“评估”可能会结束，因为著名的法学院和医学院已经开始放弃这种“评估”。

在这种暴政下，我在学术管理部门工作了15年。 后来我后悔了一个选择，我自愿填写了《美国新闻》关于其他机构“声誉”的毫无意义的调查（例如“给每所大学一个1-5的排名”或“说出五所最具创新性的大学”之类的问题）。 我还忍受了一次又一次的受托人会议，谈论我们的大学“领先于”某些其他大学（主要是他们的朋友去过的大学）的重要性。我看着华盛顿大学圣路易斯法学院出卖自己的灵魂，试图通过提供经济援助来吸引入学考试成绩高的学生，无论他们是否需要。进入美国新闻的“T-14”——全美排名前14位的法学院是一次失败的尝试。

所有这些都存在两个明显的方法论问题。一是数字排名存在错误的精确性。本科学校排名#10和#11真的有区别吗？著名的约翰霍普金斯大学有一个名为“10 by 20”的计划，目标是到2020年达到第 10 名。霍普金斯大学是一所很棒的本科院校——无论是第10名还是第11名都没有意义，但它确实进入了前10名，这无疑让其受托人和学生感到高兴。

另一个方法论问题是，排名奖励那些通过招收具有更好的大学预科教育和备考指导优势的学生来提高衡量标准的学校，这些学生的财富将使他们成为未来可能的捐助者。没有这些资源的同样有价值的申请人会失败。测量中使用的其他方面，如个别班级的规模、教师工资、教师与学生的比例以及可用的财政援助的数量，也有利于拥有大量财政禀赋和收入的大学。

好消息是，最近几个月，清算已经开始。去年9月，在一位有进取心的教授发现该校在捏造自己的数字后，哥伦比亚大学选择不参加本科生排名。 当哥伦比亚大学的数据得到更正后，它从第2位下降到第18位，让其他大学在榜单上排名靠后。

两个月后，法学院开始反击。耶鲁和哈佛法学院宣布拒绝向《美国新闻与世界报道》提供数据，几所优秀的法学院纷纷效仿。一些优秀的法学院，如芝加哥大学、范德比尔特大学和圣路易斯华盛顿大学坚持参加排名，无疑是迫于校友、学生和受托人的压力。当这些学校不可避免地因为排名较高的学校退学而排名上升时，他们会发布关于他们新地位的愉快的新闻稿。

宾夕法尼亚大学、哈佛大学、斯坦福大学、哥伦比亚大学和位于圣路易斯的华盛顿大学最近也反对医学院排名，这种对排名的反抗现在已经在科学界开始。这是一个好兆头。尚未退学的医学院的教师应该向院长施压，要求他们效仿。华盛顿大学医学院院长在宣布其决定时说：“……是时候停止参与一个不为我们的学生或他们未来的患者服务的系统了。”

关于美国的高等教育是如何迷失方向的，有多种说法。 一个合理的假设是，它始于1983年美国新闻发布第一份名单。 从那以后就一直走下坡路。 是时候扭转局面了。

【英文原文】The ranking of universities and colleges at the national and global level is a well-known dubious practice. Flawed methodologies generate distorted and inaccurate profiles of these institutions. Yet, rankings have remained a popular and trusted measure of “the best” by the public. U.S. News & World Report has long had a stranglehold on US higher education. Using algorithms that process various measurements such as standardized test scores, alumni giving, and opinion surveys, it publishes annual ranked lists of undergraduate colleges as well as graduate, business, law, and medical schools. For too long, parents, politicians, and trustees have treated these lists with more importance than they deserve. That may be ending, as prestigious law and medical schools have started to walk away from this “evaluation.”

I spent 15 years in academic administration working under this tyranny. In a choice I later regretted, I voluntarily filled out meaningless surveys from U.S. News about the “reputation” of other institutions (questions like “Give every university a 1-5 ranking” or “Name the five most innovative universities”). I also endured meeting after meeting of trustees talking about how important it was for our university to “get ahead” of certain other universities (mostly the ones their friends went to). And I watched as Washington University in St. Louis School of Law sold its soul by trying to attract students with high entrance exam test scores through offers of financial aid, whether they needed it or not. It was an unsuccessful effort to get into U.S. News’s “T-14”—the top 14 law schools in the nation.

There are two obvious methodological problems with all of this. One is that the numerical rankings suffer from false precision. Is there really a difference between #10 and #11 in the undergraduate school rankings? Johns Hopkins University famously had a plan called “10 by 20” with the goal of getting to #10 by 2020. Hopkins is a great undergraduate institution—whether it’s #10 or #11 is meaningless, but it did indeed make it into the top 10 ahead of schedule, which no doubt delighted its trustees and students.

The other methodological problem is that rankings reward those schools that boost measurements by admitting students who have had the advantages of better pre-college education and test preparation coaching, and whose wealth will make them likely future donors. Equally worthy applicants without such resources lose out. Other aspects used in the measurements such as size of individual classes, faculty salaries, faculty-to-student ratio, and the amount of available financial aid also favor universities with vast financial endowments and income.

The good news is that in recent months, a reckoning has begun. Last September, Columbia University chose not to participate in the undergraduate rankings after an enterprising professor discovered that the school was fudging its own numbers. When Columbia’s data were corrected, it dropped from #2 to #18, allowing other colleges to inch up the list.

Two months later, law schools began pushing back. Yale and Harvard Law Schools announced that they would refuse to provide data to U.S. News, and several outstanding law schools followed suit. There are some excellent law schools, such as University of Chicago, Vanderbilt, and Washington University in St. Louis, that have stuck to participating in the rankings, no doubt because of pressure from their alumni, students, and trustees. When these schools inevitably move up in rank because higher-ranked schools have dropped out, they will send out gleeful press releases about their new status.

This revolt against rankings has now begun in the world of science as the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, and Washington University in St. Louis also recently moved against the medical school rankings. This is a great sign. Faculty at medical schools that haven’t dropped out yet should pressure their deans to follow suit. In announcing its decision, the dean of Washington University’s medical school said, “…it is time to stop participating in a system that does not serve our students or their future patients.”

There are many theories about how higher education in the United States lost its way. A reasonable hypothesis is that it started in 1983 when U.S. News published its first list. It’s been downhill ever since. Time to turn it around.

原文见：H. Holden thorp (2023). Revolt against educational rankings. SCIENCE,  379 (6631): 419 (January 27, 2023).

https://doi.10.1126/science.adg8723