Franken's Boneheaded Push for More Testing
From Detroit Lakes-Online:
“One of the things I think is a major change that we’re going to make is measuring growth,” Franken said. “What we need are tests that are used to help teachers teach.”
Rather than one high-stakes test given in the spring, he said, he’d like to see a series of lower-stakes tests given throughout a school year. They would be similar to the Northwest Evaluation Association testing many school districts already do.
The change in testing would allow ongoing evaluation of how students are performing and tell teachers what sort of help their students need, according to Franken.
“I think that’s what parents thought No Child Left Behind was going to be,” he said. “It didn’t turn out that way at all, it turned out a very boneheaded way.”
It's good to use diagnostic instruments to inform teaching. Teachers already do that, some of it formally and some of it informally. But Franken needs to be very careful here or we'll end up using one test to accomplish two very different (and incompatible) goals: use an instrument to help teachers understand what their students know,