CURMUDGUCATION: How Assessment Ruins Standards

CURMUDGUCATION: How Assessment Ruins Standards:

How Assessment Ruins Standards

Long time readers know that I do not subscribe to the whole "The standards are swell; it's just those evil tests that screw everything up" school of thought. I think there are plenty of reasons to oppose national standards no matter what standards they are, and plenty of reasons to believe that no set of national standards will ever accomplish any of the goals set for them.

But let's set all of that aside for a moment and talk about how the very attempt to assess standards-based outcomes ruins those standards.

For my example, I'm going to pick the oft-noted CCSS standards about evidence.

I pick it because it's a part of the Common Core that doesn't particularly bother me. Like most English teachers, I've been encouraging (in many cases, quite vigorously) my students to provide support for whatever idea they are trying to assert. ("No, Chris-- saying Huck Finn is a dynamic character because he does dynamic stuff in a dynamic way does not really make your case"). When I assign a paper, two of the main questions I consider when assigning a grade are 1) did you actually have a point and 2) did you support it with actual evidence.

So in this area, the Core and I can co-exist peacefully.

But this kind of evidence use is a tool, a technique, and so it can't be assessed in a vacuum, just as you cannot judge somebody's hammering skills by just watching them hold a hammer or judge their CURMUDGUCATION: How Assessment Ruins Standards: