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We need to push for implementation of portfolio assessment.

Two important points here: who is in charge of instituting assessment practices at the university level and what do they know about writing and evaluation? Given that most writing programs are still run out of English Departments and that most university wide assessment practices are not initiated by composition specialists as a progressive undertaking (but rather by administrators in response to a political or systemic outcry of one type or another), there is little hope for a conscientious, thorough and informed development and evaluation of writing at any particular college. Attention to writing assessment seems to run across a spectrum from suddenly (desperately) in vogue (reactionary) to stagnancy/apathy and then perhaps dormancy (is that a word?).

We don't need more hypothetical theorizing about assessment. We need more portfolio based assessment programs, and then we need more assessment of these programs: statistical analysis, outcomes analysis, ethnographic and phenomenological studies, and yes, we also need portfolio based assessment of portfolio based assessment programs.