ACSP Governing Board to Consider Planning School Performance Measurement Proposal

On 22 April, the ACSP Governing Board will consider a proposal for a national system of urban planning school performance measurement (PSPM). This proposal, if adopted, would lead to a wide-ranging program aimed at portraying school performance across the full range of objectives sought by urban planning schools. Three separate studies are envisioned on a six-year cycle looking at: student data, faculty work, and reputation. The population of schools studied would be those offering PAB-accredited degrees at the bachelor and/or master level. Emphasis would be placed on data from national sources to maximize comparability and to minimize burden of data assembly on schools.

We think a national system of comparative data on school performance would:
(1) provide faculty with realistic gauges of the relative quality of our work;
(2) allow schools to make believable strategic arguments to the administrations of their universities; and
(3) improve the visibility of our profession and lead to stronger student recruitment.
These reasons are more fully described here.

There are controversial aspects to this proposal. Among them is the method of faculty census (We propose to use ACSP's "50% or greater in planning" convention.); and the concern that institutions with different missions not be compared directly with one another (We propose to report bachelor-only and master-degree programs separately; as well as to distinguish institutions by Carnegie categories.) Our Frequently Asked Questions posting attempts to show how we have reasoned through these, and other, points of potential concern.

The proposal is fully described at our main PSPM website. A complete copy of the proposal may also be downloaded from the same site.

This discussion forum is intended to encourage discussion of the PSPM proposal by planning educators and others. You may wish to post comments about the Proposal here. Members of the Working Group on Planning School Performance Measurement will try to reply to any postings that pose questions to us.

Bruce Stiftel, for the Working Group