National voices in the debate about testing and accountability — ain’t just Texas
Every day, I get delivered via email links to stories about various education topics. And every everyevery day, several are about the testing and accountability debate. I find it useful to he reminded that the Texas version of the debate is neither the only version nor, in many ways, all that different from many others. Here is a gleaning from today.
An English professor from Carnegie Mellon University does a column explaining why she has had her son, a third-grader, opt out from the Pennsylvania version of the standardized test. A nugget:
Then one day this March it dawned on me. I am getting angry at my son about a test. A test that I do not like. A “high-stakes” test that will put so much pressure on Jacob that it probably will not reflect his true abilities. I also realized something else: Jacob does not love to read.
To which I observe: There are lots of things I do not love to do and yet in which I am required to