CURMUDGUCATION: Why shouldn't high stakes testing be abandoned next year?

CURMUDGUCATION: Why shouldn't high stakes testing be abandoned next year?

Why shouldn't high stakes testing be abandoned next year?

Testing in the fall? Let's talk about that idea.

Thomas Toch is one of those reformsters who has managed to bounce from job to reformy job. Currently, he's head honcho at FutureEd, an ed reform advocacy group that bills itself as a thinky tank, and there isn't an educational disruption that they haven't tried to make a case for. This spring they have been vocal in trying to protect the future of the Big Standardized Test, which brings us to Toch's appearance yesterday in The Hill.

"Don't abandon standardized testing in schools next year — rethink it," pleads Toch, offering a plate of weak sauce to make his case.

His opening salvo is that students are currently falling behind, and that's not particularly arguable-- crisis schooling has been anywhere from "challenging" to "a freakin' mess." We could (and probably should at some point) have a whole conversation about the use of phrases like "catch up" that imply there is some heaven-set path and some objectively correct speed for students to move along it, and they dasn't fall behind or else... well, something bad will happen, apparently. It's a problematic model for education, but for the moment, yeah, we all get that the usual progress of education is not really happening.

Which brings us to Toch's first thesis--

To catch students up, schools will need to get a handle on exactly how far students have fallen CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Why shouldn't high stakes testing be abandoned next year?