Discuss “What's next, hall passes?”

A decent mechanic would never presume to know everything about your car’s engine by checking the oil. A decent doctor would never draw a conclusion about your general health by taking your blood pressure.

But somehow, the Commision on the Future of Higher Education is deciding whether mandating standardized tests at the university level will prove that students are learning and ensure that they will be able to do America proud after college.

Presuming to quantify students’ learning with a standardized test is an insult to the spirit of academia. Especially at a university as intellectually diverse and outstanding as Carnegie Mellon, what could standardized testing possibly reveal? That computer science majors are clueless when it comes...