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People-(Em)Powered Evaluation System
Posted: 03/27/2012 10:33 am
Standardized testing -- especially the high-stakes variety -- has earned a serious and growing backlash, and for good reason. The weight of the research evidence shows that it has not improved education, and that it undermines the kind of academic behaviors that support critical and divergent thinking. High-stakes testing has distorted the teaching and learning process, resulting in time taken away from actual instruction, cheating scandals, and more. Testing is also expensive, representing yet another way in which scarce education funds have been diverted away from student learning toward powerful private interests. And while they'reinelegant at best in performing their intended function -- measuring student knowledge -- they're now being inappropriately used to close schools, evaluate (and shame) individual teachers, and more.
Clearly, this system is fraught with issues. Yet policymakers and some members of the public stil