While an increasing number of colleges have adopted critical thinking and writing tests to assess students’ progress, more than one year after members of President Bush’s administration first pushed for collegiate standardized testing, state education officials say it is unlikely the tests will become common practice in the near future.

In a report released last September, the Commission on the Future of Higher Education emphasized the need to compare students’ development to better assess the state of higher education. U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings led the panel, writing in the report that, “we can’t answer the most critical and basic questions about student performance and learning at colleges, and that’s unacceptable.”

Yet, spokeswoman for the Massachusetts Board of Higher Education Eileen O’Connor said there are more pragmatic means of measuring progress, such as students’ job placement and salary after graduating, and the tests will not be widely implemented at public or private institutions any time soon.

“It’s just talk, and until there’s a federal law that somehow mandates the testing, we can’t enforce anything,” O’Connor said.

O’Connor added that proposed testing has not been a pressing matter of discussion for the Board, which only collects data on retention and graduations rates. She said there is no data that tracks the number of schools currently using standardized testing.

In the Commission’s report, Spellings said schools would only institute the progress tests on a voluntary basis.

The New England Association of Schools and Colleges, one of six accreditation agencies that rank the degree programs of U.S. colleges, does not currently recognize a standardized test in its accreditation process, either.

“I think the people are concerned that, given the diversity of colleges and universities . . . that [the test] will pressure institutions to be like each other,” said NEASC Commission on Institutions of Higher Education Director Barbara Brittingham.

However, Brittingham did not rule out the use of a standardized test in the future.

“Tests in higher education are pretty new, and institutions need time to try them out,” she said.

Though Harvard University professor Eric Mazur advocates progress tests in his physics classes, he said he is “very, very much against any type of standardized testing” on the university level.

“People are going to use the test as a means, as a goal,” he said. “I don’t think that’s the right thing to do. Any mandated test would have a very detrimental effect on teaching.”

Mazur said he uses a standardized test in his class, but the university as a whole does not.

“In my own course, in addition to the usual student assessment for their grade, I have a quiz or test which I run systematically every year just to track performance,” Mazur said. “I give the test on the first day of class and on the last day of class so I can measure their gain.”

Mazur added that colleges could benefit from more testing as long as instructors — not administrators — measure the performance of each class, and he hopes individual professors will look to new means of measuring the effectiveness of their teaching.