Since reliance on assessment processes is unfounded, and since the discontent described in the last sentence is nothing more than a symptom of a kind of obsessive-compulsive disorder induced by the proliferation of factoids in American culture, one would expect a Higher Education Report to offer advice and constructive suggestions for resisting the increased pressure that Fife mentions and for educating the public about the limitations of computers and data processing. Assessment is a fact of life. Fife takes the view that forces behind assessment are just too strong. Since you can't beat them, you must join them. To faculty members who want to preserve academic freedom, not to mention self-respect, this may seem somewhat defeatist.
Fife sees it as simply realistic.
Recall that there is no connection between what an assessment process is supposed to find out and the actual results of performing it. The accuracy of the assumptions, the careful linking of these assumptions with the process, and the interpretation of the findings depend on who is involved in the assessment process. Consequently, faculty must get involved with the assessment of teaching and learning, or someone else will make the decisions about the basic assumptions that form the process of assessment. I haven't seen the Schillings' report, but according to Fife it contains valuable advice about how to put in the fix. At first I was taken aback by Fife's candor and, I admit, a little shocked by his cynicism and his ready abandonment of intellectual integrity.