Law Schools Resist Proposal to Assess Them Based on What Students Learn

[tonysam]

Law schools would be required to identify key skills and competencies and develop ways to test how well their graduates are learning them under controversial revisions to accreditation standards being proposed by the American Bar Association.

The proposed revisions, which are being drafted by a committee of the association's Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, were a topic of heated debate here throughout the annual meeting of the Association of American Law Schools, which ended Sunday.

Instead of judging law schools primarily on "input" measures, such as faculty size and library holdings, the proposed revisions would look more at "outcome" measures, such as what students are actually learning.

Several law deans said they have enough to worry about with budget cuts, a tough job market for their graduates, and the soaring cost of legal education without adding a potentially expensive assessment overhaul.

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Note Louisiana is already pulling similar experimental crap on colleges of education.

But that affects merely teachers; I seriously doubt the law school reform proposals are going to fly.

[GodlessBiker]

1. Besides, it's so much easier to count books in a library than to assess if Sally can draft a motion.

[no_hypocrisy]

2. OTOH, one can make an argument that Liberty Law School can buy a library and hire law professors

yet its graduates have no serious grounding in constitutional law, especially the Bill of Rights. Their mission is replace established precedence in case law with new case law they will create. This defeats a seminal purpose of law school and the training of attorneys.

[adnelson60087]

3. These guys want to do this to all professional groups

I wonder how long it will be before the teachers and law students are joined by the Medical students. But we still don't want accountability from our financial sector???