Assessment – Embrace the Absurd

On a Whim and a Prayer

You win a multi-year contract for a new, innovative state assessment program. You spend the next six months staffing up, getting the project infrastructure in place, and working with the state to begin the initial design and development process. A new governor takes office and the assessment program and your contract are canceled immediately. MuchContinue reading “On a Whim and a Prayer”

Another Term Bites The Dust

Florida Man Steals $33,000 Worth of Rare Coins, Cashes Them in for $29.30 Florida Man Fire Bombs Garage That Impounded His Car, Hits His Own Vehicle Florida Man Bastardizes The Term Progress Monitoring We have come to expect, even look forward to, the zany “news” stories that begin with the two-word phrase, “Florida Man.” AtContinue reading “Another Term Bites The Dust”

Ready for RILS!

On Wednesday, I will be presenting at the opening session of the Center for Assessment’s 2021 Reidy Interactive Lecture Series, RILS. My presentation, A Brief History of Innovation: Bursting the Bubble, and the focus of this year’s conference on Design Innovation feel particularly appropriate for the annual conference named in honor of Ed Reidy. ForContinue reading “Ready for RILS!”

Do You Love Your Assessment?

As we mark the start of a new school year, the Jewish new year, and a new year of educational assessment, I ask: Do you love your assessment program? If there’s one thing that I’ve learned from watching too many Hallmark movies this summer, it’s that you need to have that special connection, a spark,Continue reading “Do You Love Your Assessment?”

Work the Problem

With the Olympics coming to an end, I began browsing through the rest of the Peacock app and came across the recently added 1995 film, Apollo 13. Since first renting the film at Blockbuster as soon as it went to VHS, I must have watched it two dozen times. For some reason, I feel aContinue reading “Work the Problem”

Enough Room Now For 49 Stars

You’re a grand old flag You’re a high-flying flag And forever in peace may you wave As the Olympics shift from the pool and the gym to the track, we are probably in a peak period for thinking about the flag. I’ll admit that aside from the Olympics, holidays like Memorial Day and Independence Day,Continue reading “Enough Room Now For 49 Stars”

Tell Me Something I Already Know

Gather round kids. We need to talk. Come on, there’s room for everybody. You three lurking in the back, join us. There are plenty of seats up front. (Sheesh, professors, y’know what I mean). Ahem, the gentleman with the pink tie and jeans in the front row, you can stop looking around the room andContinue reading “Tell Me Something I Already Know”

If Only It Were As Simple As Rocket Science

Mark Schneider and Kumar Garg’s recent call for a SpaceX for assessment and the responses to it by Chester Finn and Anne Wicks, prominent among others, highlight the complexities of large-scale testing and the challenges associated with trying to improve K-12 assessment. Sadly, even if our fractured field were somehow able to address the manyContinue reading “If Only It Were As Simple As Rocket Science”

Bored on the Fourth of July

Large-scale state testing is boring. tedious, dull, monotonous, repetitious, repetitive, unimaginative, characterless, colorless, soulless, passionless, spiritless, uninteresting, unexciting, uninspiring, unstimulating, unoriginal, derivative, jejune, nondescript, anemic, sterile, bland, vanilla, wishy-washy, banal, lame, plodding, ponderous, pedestrian, stodgy, dreary, mechanical, stiff, leaden, wooden, mind-numbing, soul-destroying, wearisome, tired, tiring, tiresome, irksome, trying, frustrating, mundane, commonplace, workaday, unremarkable, routine, run-of-the-millContinue reading “Bored on the Fourth of July”

Do It Anyway

I have discussed re-imagining assessment and offered cautions to the assessment/educational measurement community as we enter the next once-in-a-generation period of re-imagining and reinventing assessment, particularly large-scale testing. In this post, I synthesize those thoughts into a straightforward recommendation to the field: When we truly re-imagine assessment, in virtually all cases, we are doing soContinue reading “Do It Anyway”