Charlie DePascale

Is NAEP the Gold Standard?

By any metric, 2017 was, and continues to be, a very bad year for NAEP. Troubles began in April 2018 with the utter fiasco that was the long-delayed release of the 2017 Reading and Mathematics results. Seldom in the course of human history have so many good statistics been sacrificed in the name of preservingContinue reading “Is NAEP the Gold Standard?”

IASA – Refreshing our Memory

Charlie DePascale This year marks the 25th anniversary of the 1994 reauthorization of ESEA, known as the Improving America’s Schools Act (IASA). Throughout the year, I will explore how various aspects of that law shaped my career, educational assessment and accountability, and K-12 education, in general. All of this will be done, of course, withContinue reading “IASA – Refreshing our Memory”

Three Little Words

Charlie DePascale Life is full of three-word phrases. Some tend to have profound and lasting consequences that extend far beyond what may have been intended when they were uttered. Phrases such as I Love You, That Looks Safe, and for those among us wavering on new year’s resolutions, Just One Bite might fall into thisContinue reading “Three Little Words”

Look What You Made Me Do

A 2018 Blog Year in Review Charlie DePascale We have reached the end of 2018 and another year of posts on Embrace the Absurd. When I look back at the ten essays posted this year, I think that the phrase that best sums up this year of posts is look what you made me doContinue reading “Look What You Made Me Do”

A Letter to Santa

Dear Santa, I am the next generation of large-scale assessment and I am 4 1/2 years old. I have been very good this year. At least I have tried very hard to be good. I have been reliable and fair. I think that I have been valid, but Uncle Steve says that’s not for meContinue reading “A Letter to Santa”

How Arne Works

Charlie DePascale During my August trip to Minnesota I was able to check two books off of my summer reading list: Relativity – The Special and the General Theory by Albert Einstein and How Schools Work by Arne Duncan. As the old joke goes, one was a book that asked me to rethink basic conceptsContinue reading “How Arne Works”

My Miss Brooks

Our Miss Brooks was a highly successful comedy series on radio and early television that followed the life and career of a fictional high school English teacher, Connie Brooks. My Miss Brooks, Ann Brooks, was a highly successful teacher of the fifth and sixth grade Advanced Work Class at the Mather School in Dorchester, MassachusettsContinue reading “My Miss Brooks”

Ten Years of Taylor

‘The end of an era, but the start of an age…’ In honor of the end of The Eras Tour and Taylor’s 35th birthday, reposting my 2018 post, Ten Years of Taylor.

Rebranding Educational Measurement

Charlie DePascale When I think about educational measurement the first thing that comes to mind is a high-fructose corn syrup commercial from about 10 years ago. On one side there is the man who holds, but cannot articulate, the widespread, but ill-defined, perception (misperception?) that high-fructose corn syrup is inherently bad. On the otherContinue reading “Rebranding Educational Measurement”

Give Me A Lever

Charlie DePascale I realized very early in my career that the law of the lever, as explained by Archimedes in some variation of the quote above, was critical to my success. In short, there was little that I could do on my own as an assessment specialist, or psychometrician, to improve education; but working inContinue reading “Give Me A Lever”