assessment, accountability, and other important stuff
Whether you regard large-scale assessment as a cruel trick or a tasty treat, one thing is clear. Large-scale tests and Halloween go together like chocolate and peanut butter or Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce.
Test or Treat! Trick or Test!
Happy Halloween!
We began by trying to measure ill-defined constructs and latent traits like intelligence and aptitude. Then we tried to build tests aligned to sets of content and achievement standards. Maybe it’s time that we made assessment the focus of educational assessment.
When am I ever going to use this? It’s a question that I still ask myself several times per week as my quest to reclaim the house from three decades of cumulative clutter enters its fourth year. Following a modified version of the KonMari Method, I have cycled through clothes, books, and papers three times,Continue reading “When am I ever going to use this?”
As evidenced by the Apple Watch on my wrist and the Food Diary sitting on my desk, I am a firm believer in if first you don’t succeed, try, try, again. When you fall down, you pick yourself up again. I’ve even managed to convince myself that I understand why if you fall seven times,Continue reading “Time’s Up. Pencils Down.”
There was a time I was certain that I was going to be an astronomer when I grew up. That period fell between my fireman/baseball player phase and the musician/educator phase that lasted into my late-20s. It was the end of the Sixties and most everyone’s attention was focused on the heavens because there wasContinue reading “Moon and Stars Above”
As I took in the post-decision analysis in the wake of the affirmative action ruling something jumped out at me. Among those lamenting the Supreme Court’s decision, two very different arguments were being made in support of the importance of colleges and universities being able to use race as a factor in their admissions process.Continue reading “Affirming and Actionable Assessment”
“Don’t get old.” Those were the final words of wisdom my father shared with me as we were wrapping up a visit at the rehab center about three days before he passed away in late June 2009. I was 50 at the time and Dad was a month shy of turning 77. I’ve cut thatContinue reading “Don’t Get Old”
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”
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”
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”
Embrace the Absurd 
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