June 2023 – Embrace the Absurd

A Through Line to Through-year

After a series of fits and starts over the past 15 years, through-year assessment finally is having its day in the sun. The warmth of the sun inevitably and appropriately, however, becomes the glare of the spotlight, and halfway through the year of through-year it’s not yet clear how well through-year assessment will withstand theContinue reading “A Through Line to Through-year”

One of My Posts is Not Like the Others

In August 2019, Taylor Swift released the song Cruel Summer as the second track on her long-awaited seventh studio album, Lover. Despite initial commercial success, critical acclaim, and the sickest bridge you’ve ever heard, the song was never released as a single. Blame it on the pandemic. A few weeks earlier in the summer ofContinue reading “One of My Posts is Not Like the Others”

Make Room for Daddy

While rummaging through a box of old photos and other treasures the other day I came across the School Days memory book which my mother had lovingly and meticulously curated from kindergarten through twelfth grade. There in the first-grade pouch, tucked in among the report card, class photo, and orange dental certificates (iykyn) was myContinue reading “Make Room for Daddy”

A Little Less IRT, A Little More IRS

It is clear to even the staunchest advocates of state testing and test-based accountability that item response theory (IRT) is not the best foundation on which to build models of school performance, let alone school effectiveness. It is time, therefore, to shift our accountability focus from IRT and building better tests to lessons we canContinue reading “A Little Less IRT, A Little More IRS”

The Best of Both Worlds

The concept sounds so appealing: The Best of Both Worlds. You can enjoy the advantages of two different situations or opportunities at the same time. You can have your cake and eat it too. It’s the American Dream – a Party in the USA! But is it really possible to have the best of bothContinue reading “The Best of Both Worlds”

IADA: Starting from Scratch

I suggested in my last post that the word “innovation” does not means the same thing to those of us in the assessment community that it does to the rest of the world. That in itself should not come as a surprise to anyone familiar with our work. Lots of words mean something different toContinue reading “IADA: Starting from Scratch”