Saturday, May 25, 2013

solidaridad: UCLA IDEA: Standardized Tests Don't Measure Education Quality

solidaridad: UCLA IDEA: Standardized Tests Don't Measure Education Quality:

UCLA IDEA: Standardized Tests Don't Measure Education Quality

UCLA IDEA is often quite good on issues, even though they represent an only slightly left-of-center viewpoint. UCLA as a whole sometimes does excellent work, like their study on how so-called school choice and charter school industry has brought back Jim Crow with a vengeance. They (namely IDEA) also sometimes works with right-wing groups funded by the Broad Foundation, like ICS. Now that I've returned to UCLA, I know it's my responsibility to praise them when they get it right, and call them out when they get it wrong.
This essay, for the most part, is excellent. That is until it calls corporate core a "promising education reform." The corporate garbage that is CCSS must be resisted at every turn. That said, this piece bears reprinting precisely because it shows that even progressive liberals agree with the principled left that standardized tests are considered harmfull.

Standardized Tests Don't Measure Education Quality

By UCLA IDEA

Over 14 years ago, testing expert W. James Popham summarized what was, even then, “old news” about American policymakers’ love of standardized testing:

Educators are experiencing almost relentless pressure