Friday, April 27, 2012

Pearson and how 2012 standardized tests were designed - The Answer Sheet - The Washington Post

Pearson and how 2012 standardized tests were designed - The Answer Sheet - The Washington Post:


Pearson and how 2012 standardized tests were designed

This was written by Fred Smith, a retired New York City Board of Education senior analyst who worked for the public school system in test research and development.

By Fred Smith
The recent Pineapple and the Hare fiasco does more than identify a daft reading passage on New York State’s 8th grade English Language Arts test. Education Commissioner John King scrapped the selection and its six multiple-choice items, admitting they were “ambiguous,” when the questions became public last week. The episode opens the door to discussing how the 2012 exams were put together.
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A moving film about the life of a school

Too many films about school insist on showing the teaching and learning enterprise at its worst. Students are portrayed as at best troubled and often just rotten, teachers are stupid or mean; parents are arrogant or absent. “Monsieur Lazhar” doesn’t, and that is only part of what distinguishes this moving, intelligent Canadian film, which opens in the Washington D.C. region on Friday.
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PINEAPPLE REBELLION 2012 (click picture)