The proposition that standards could be defined in all the academic disciplines (in the humanities and social sciences as well as in mathematics and science) is fraught with such potential conflict (notably between defenders of traditional knowledge and multiculturalists) that few have cared to raise the issue. Thus, advocates of higher-education testing in the interest of accountability tend to focus mainly on assessing only students’ writing, mathematical, and critical skills acumen or “soft skills,” such as how well students work in groups (and even these proposals raise the ire of educrats).

Yet this is a debate whose time has perhaps come, especially in view of the ongoing higher education review by the Secretary of Education’s commission and a report from the Educational Testing Service that proposes assessing students’ general skills and proficiencies within their disciplines. (See “Amid Debate Over Spellings Commission Report, Testing Group Proposes National Accountability System,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, July 20.)

Is it impossible to set standards in all the disciplines? A passage from another Chronicle article (“A Look at Clinical Doctorates” by William L. Siler and Diane Smith Randolph, July 21) suggests that with the will there could be a way:

At the turn of the last century, the medical profession had the vision and integrity to ask the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching to study medical education, with the goal of strengthening it. The result was the landmark report of the Flexner Commission, which recommended standardization of medical-school programs. It’s time to have a similar external study of clinical doctorates, to establish uniform criteria for them and for the professions that offer them.