One way I that check the “pulse of the nation” on education is though the topics that family members raise with me around the table at holiday gatherings. Last year it was Massachusetts ending the MCAS graduation requirement, before MCAS it was chronic absenteeism and NAEP scores, and before that colleges dropping the SAT and ACT. This year, the topic was books and kids not reading very many of them. So, let’s turn the page on the 2026 blog year by considering books.
Author Archives: Charlie DePascale
Embracing Absurdity In 2025
Thanks to all who joined me in embracing the absurdity of 2025 through my blog, Embrace The Absurd. In this final post of 2025, I recap the most popular posts and issues we discussed in 2025 and offer some words of wisdom (not mine) to guide us into the new year ahead.
Wishing you and yours happiness, health, proficiency, competency, relevance, validity, reliability, fairness, engagement, and purpose in 2026.
A Point of Inflection and Reflection
We are about to close the curtain on 2025 and begin a new year. We like to think of this time brief period of time at the end of the year as an opportunity to slow down, to reflect on the year past and the year ahead. As we do so, let’s take a moment to reflect on all that many of us will be celebrating these next two weeks, what it means to move from one year to the next, and what lessons we can apply to ourselves and our field. Then let’s sit down and carefully plan out our Spring Resolutions for 2026.
From Homer to Ho: Let’s Talk TACs
Two recent posts by Andrew Ho spurred my thinking about Technical Advisory Committees (TACs); specifically, the role that the committees and their members play in our field. Perhaps even more important than their role as advisors, problem solvers, sounding boards, psychometric therapists, and human guardrails, TAC members are storytellers, passing on through oral tradition the key tenets of our field.
Giving Thanks (Testing Version)
Over the weekend, I set out to make a list of the test-related things that I was thankful for this Thanksgiving. That daunting task proved more difficult than I anticipated. The constant attacks on testing have become more subtle and a little more muted, but they persist. Everything about testing seems up in the air, changes in technology happening faster than our ability to process them. Then I remembered that the past 25 years focused on compliance. The chaos itself is something to be thankful for. But let’s dig a little deeper than that.
Putting Our Understanding of Assessment to the Test
Are the words test and assessment interchangeable, comparable, synonyms? Seems like a rather innocuous question. My take on it last week, however, hit that blogging sweet spot between striking a chord and striking a nerve. When that happens there’s only one thing for a self-respecting blogger to do, double down, add a bit of meat to the bone, and tackle the topic again.
Strengthening Our Links
I have little doubt that the future of standards-based assessment is going to be much more complex, multi-dimensional, and well, messy than the testing situations with which we are familiar and comfortable. That likely means we are going to have to lean more heavily on those other forms of linking educational assessments that don’t fit under that category of equating. As we are revising the Standards, now might be a good time to consider what linking might look like as we shift our attention from testing to student assessment.
It’s Time To Remember and To Repeat
This morning, I had the privilege of speaking (via Zoom) at the 8th International Association for Innovations In Educational Assessment conference in Nigeria. The theme of this conference as Assessment in the Era of Artificial Intelligence. While many hear AI and picture a brave new world of an assessment future heretofore unimagined, I find myself dreaming of the envisioned assessment past that was never fully realized and wondering with the support of AI, why not. Why not now? Why not us? Why not state-supported, school-based assessment as the norm?
Dancing With Stars
Starbucks seems really focused on selling me coffee, iced tea, cake pops, etc.; that is, the Starbucks experience. Can we commit to being that same level of focused, creative, and yes, relentless in figuring out ways to sell the school experience to students.
Seeing The Forest and The Trees
In this week’s edition of How Charlie’s Mind Works we see how attending a conference on balanced assessment systems, discussing a blog post reflecting on said conference, listening to an episode of Freakonomics on air traffic control, attending a TAC meeting, preparing presentations for two upcoming conferences, falling asleep while watching a campy vintage horror film, and listening to the acoustic version of The Life Of A Showgirl on repeat coalesced into a blog post on balanced assessment and the future of state-supported student assessment.
Embrace the Absurd 