Back in April 2015, I reached back to high school French class and my introduction to Albert Camus to name this blog Embrace The Absurd. Never in my wildest existential dreams could I have imagined the level and sheer amount of absurdity that all of us would be asked to embrace over these past ten years. The past decade has been a struggle for sanity, a veritable shitstorm of epic proportions to be sure, but here I sit on the final day of 2025. Still standing, still rebelling, still writing, and above all else, still embracing life and all the absurdity that it has to offer.
First The Facts
The year 2025 has been another banner year for the blog. Thanks to a handful of visitors last weekend from Singapore, Laos, and the United Kingdom, the blog surpassed 2024’s high-water mark for total views in a year. I’ve never actually had a goal or plan for growing the blog, but to adopt and adapt the perspective of another philosopher adored by the French, the immortal Jerry Lewis, one view more than last year is a nice outcome.
The blog was viewed in 2025 by visitors from 96 countries across six continents. Forty-six new posts (including this one) containing approximately 64,000 words were published in 2025.
Consistent with 2024, however, the new posts accounted for slightly less than half of the blog views. About one-third of the views were of blog posts from previous years. The remainder included views to the two other pages on the blog site:
- Papers, containing links to selected papers, book chapters, presentations, and other publication.
- Fundamental and Flaws, a newly added page containing information about my 2025 book, Fundamentals and Flaws of Standards-Based Testing.
Reflecting the national conversation on assessment and its role in support of instruction and student learning, the two papers downloaded most frequently this year were
- My 2021 paper, Teaching Literacy – A holistic reframing of teacher assessment literacy, and
- My 2020 paper, State Assessment and High School – A square peg for a round hole.
As stated in the About section of the blog, Embrace the Absurd is a vehicle for me to express my thoughts on issues related to a myriad of topics, including educational measurement, assessment, accountability, and other important stuff like family, music, sports, Taylor Swift, and life, in general. This year, my focus was on Assessment which accounted for 25 of the 46 new posts, with Life coming in second at a dozen posts. The topic of Education Reform tallied 8 posts, and within Assessment, the trend continued with NAEP accounting for 6 posts. There was only one post related Taylor Swift – most definitely an anomaly rather than signaling a shift in priorities.
Popular Posts, Trending Topics, Enduring Issues
I was not surprised that 5 of the top 10 most popular posts of 2025 (including 3 of the top 4) were related directly or indirectly to NAEP, specifically to US students’ continuing struggle to perform well on the NAEP tests. Even at the height of NAEP performance in the early 2010s, the percentage of students meeting NAEP proficiency and college-ready benchmarks was too low to be acceptable.
In two posts, Are We Dumber or Just Different? and Looking In The Wrong Place, I discuss whether some of the drop in student proficiency on “traditional” skills may be attributable to changing times, changing priorities, and the very narrow lens through which we view and define achievement on our “traditional” tests. There are so many things that were critical life skills in the early 1990s when state NAEP and its trend line were introduced that are simply no longer relevant. I am certain that mismatch is responsible for some of the declines we have been seeing in NAEP performance.
Be that as it may, the posts Everything Looks Worse In Black and White and It’s Socioeconomic Status, Stupid address the issue that has plagued education reform since the original ESEA was enacted in the1960s: the relationship between SES, educational opportunity, and educational achievement. Title 1 was never intended to be the primary weapon in the War on Poverty, inequality, and inequity. At best it was to serve as a form of triage while that battle was being waged.
It should come as no surprise, therefore, that sharp increases in income inequality are mirrored in increases in achievement gaps. If we, as a nation, cannot figure out how to address the 90/10 income distribution issue, why should we be surprised at widening gaps in achievement between students at the 90th and 10th percentiles. Long-term solutions require solving the underlying problem and not simply applying bandages and salves to treat its effects.
That is not to suggest that there is nothing schools can do. There is certainly evidence that schools can make a difference, at that education reform initiatives can work. My 2023 post, It’s Time We Talk About Seat Time, addresses a topic central to one persistent and growing reform initiative, shifting our focus from seat time to competencies. That post, which this year displaced posts about NAEP and Taylor Swift to become my most viewed post of all time, asks us to consider the reasons why and how the concept of the Carnegie Unit and the amount of quality instruction students should receive in key content areas became the pejorative, two four-letter word phrase seat time. Why did seat time become “seat time”?
Again, identify and solve the underlying problem. For even if we totally embrace competencies, we are going to have to be able to give policymakers some solid estimates of the resources, including time, required for most children to achieve those competencies. Ah yes, the children. It would be absurd write this post without mentioning the children.
Allow me, therefore, to close out 2025, with words from my 2023 post, Education Is A Matter Of The Heart, describing the philosophy that guided me, and my father before me, through life and careers in education:
It is a philosophy that very much views education as a process that encompasses the whole child.
It begins with ensuring that the most basic needs of the child are being met.
It involves creating a safe environment in which a child can thrive and grow and learn.
The environment is also a vigilant one in which expectations are known, temptations and opportunities to stray are minimized, and forewarning to prevent an imminent problem is viewed as far superior to punishment to correct a behavior after it has occurred.
It is a philosophy that requires educators, all school staff, [and really all of us involved in education] to have discerned that their vocation revolves around supporting children.
Finally, it is a philosophy that recognizes and emphasizes the importance of having a set of core values and beliefs, the sense of belonging, and the knowledge that you are part of something bigger than yourself.
If we resolve to remember those words as we begin every day, every meeting, every presentation, and every blog post, I am confident that in twelve months we will look back at 2026 as a happy and productive year.
Happy New Year!
Header image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
Embrace the Absurd 
You must be logged in to post a comment.