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Wednesday, April 03, 2024

Proposed Revision to Section 314(b) of ABA Accreditation Rules

I thought I'd post this comment that I submitted to a proposed change to the ABA's law school accreditation rules. I may elaborate in a future post. 

I am writing to urge the Council to reconsider the proposed Section 314(b) requiring every 1L course to include at least one formative assessment. As a regular teacher of 1L courses (Torts and Constitutional Law) over the past two decades, I have strong objections to the use of any assessment prior to the final exam. Students spend enough of their lives focusing on tests and assignments at the expense of gaining knowledge. Nothing in my experience supports the conclusion that a midterm or other formative assessment will be anything other than a distraction from learning. Others are free to disagree and use more frequent assessments, of course, but under the proposed 314(b) that disagreement could not extend to using the traditional law school assessment method of a single final exam in a 1L class. Adoption of 314(b) would be a serious mistake.

Posted by Gerard Magliocca on April 3, 2024 at 09:10 AM | Permalink

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