So, in order to make policy decisions, states, districts, and schools are offered one of two unsatisfactory choices: Use standardized assessments that are trusted by the public but pretty useless for making decisions about individual student progress, or use classroom assessments for which the teacher has little formal evidence about validity or reliability yet are informative for making instructional decisions.
I find statements, like this one from a recent Kappan article, to be helpful and informative in focusing my beliefs about educational assessment. The quote above suggests that educators must make an either/or choice and that neither choice is satisfactory. I don’t believe this. I believe large-scale and classroom assessments are complimentary and educators will gain the most value by leveraging both.
I think that the author of this article shares my view; at least in part. He’s working on a program at the University of California at Berkeley to develop an assessment program based on teaching curriculum content. The benefit of the program is to provide information that will better inform instruction. I don’t know much about the program, but the information provided in the article seems promising. My question is, “do you need to paint such a bleak picture of educational assessment in order to ‘sell’ your program?”
Here’s my hope. I would like to see us declare a truce in the battle between large-scale and classroom assessment. I believe in the importance of both assessment types. After we declare a truce, perhaps we can explore how to leverage both to maximize each student’s achievement.
Reference
Wilson, M. (2009, October). Assessment from the ground up. Phi Delta Kappan, 91(1), 68-71.