Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Jersey Jazzman: More Thoughts On "Ed Reform 101 - Testing"

Jersey Jazzman: More Thoughts On "Ed Reform 101 - Testing":

More Thoughts On "Ed Reform 101 - Testing"

This is the first post of some extra thoughts on the Ed Reform 101 series I'm doing over at Blue Jersey.

First of all, let me reiterate that fairtest.org is a great resource. Monty Neill is leading a staff that's doing excellent work that we all need to be familiar with as this debate goes forward.

I started the series with "Testing" because it really is the center of the entire corporate "reform" movement. Everything they are proposing - eliminating tenure, merit pay, charter schools, teacher evaluation with VAM - it all starts with testing.

I'll admit, it had been a while since I'd thought deeply about some of these issues. That's part of the problem: too many of us teachers have just passively accepted the current testing regime without thinking carefully about what it's doing to our