Tag Archive for ‘national testing’ at The Core Knowledge Blog

Tag Archive for 'national testing'

Marching Orders for the Next Ed Secretary

Published by Robert Pondiscio on September 3, 2008 in Assessment and Testing and Educational Policy. 0 Comments

If we want to spur innovation in education, the Department of Education should act more like the National Institutes of Health. So say Newark Mayor Cory Booker, venture capitalist John Doerr, and Ted Mitchell, chief executive of NewSchools Venture Fund in a Los Angeles Times opinion piece.

“We need a new, results-driven mind-set at the Department of Education that will drive pure educational innovation and ’scale up’ proven experiments and novel ideas that work, the trio write. ”The federal government stands in a unique position to meet these needs.”

The evidence for making a national commitment to innovation in education is compelling. Today, many of the most promising solutions are emerging from entrepreneurial organizations that embrace freedom and accountability. Indeed, such social entrepreneurs represent a growing force. They have started nimble, typically nonprofit organizations that work in partnership with creative mayors and school superintendents.

They cite the examples of KIPP, Uncommon Schools, Green Dot and others as worthy of federal support. Booker, Doerr and Mitchell want the next president to create a “Grow What Works” fund and a second fund to provide research and development money for promising early stage initiatives. They also favor eliminating caps on the number of public charter schools allowed and “excessive restrictions on how teachers are trained and credentialed.” They also call for national standards and tests — without actually using the words, prefering instead “a common set of standards” and “a national data infrastructure.”

Making a Mockery of Accountability

Published by Robert Pondiscio on August 12, 2008 in Assessment and Testing and Curriculum. 9 Comments

The drumbeat for national curriculum, standards and assessments gets a little bit louder today with a strongly worded New York Times editorial.

Congress has several concerns as it moves toward reauthorizing the No Child Left Behind Act of 2002. Whatever else they do, lawmakers need to strengthen the requirement that states document student performance in yearly tests in exchange for federal aid. The states have made a mockery of that provision, using weak tests, setting passing scores low or rewriting tests from year to year, making it impossible to compare progress — or its absence — over time.

“The country will have difficulty moving ahead educationally until that changes,” opines the Times, noting that complete lack of a relationship between states that report strong performances on their own tests and performance on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). The Times concludes:

Congress needs to take the testing issue head-on. It should instruct the NAEP board, an independent body created by the government, to create a rigorous test that would be given free to states that agreed to use NAEP scoring standards. Then the federal government could actually embarrass the laggard states by naming the ones that cling to weak tests. Without rigorous and consistent testing, there is no way to know whether our children are getting the education they deserve and need.

Sounds an awful lot like what Diane Ravitch was talking about last week.

Sunshine Is Still The Best Disinfectant

Published by Robert Pondiscio on August 6, 2008 in Assessment and Testing, Curriculum and Educational Policy. 11 Comments

There are several important threads — the need for national standards and assessments; rethinking the difference between a highly qualified teacher and a highly effective one — at the ongoing NCLB discussion at NewTalk. But one comment raised by CK Board member Diane Ravitch jumps out:

My own preference would be for Congress to authorize national testing (à la NAEP), based on coherent curriculum standards, but without stakes or sanctions. The federal role should be to provide accurate information about student performance. It should be left to states and districts to devise sanctions and reforms. These jurisdictions are closer to the schools and likelier to come up with workable reforms. If states and localities don’t want to improve their schools, then we are in deeper trouble as a nation than any law passed by Congress can fix.

We assume accountability needs teeth to be truly enforceable, but Diane is right — an apples to apples comparison of how schools fare against each other seems likely to pour more sunshine onto what’s really happening than 50 states racing each other to the bottom by lowering proficiency standards. Sometimes the best solutions are the simplest.