Tag Archives: learning

Fish Gotta Climb & A Journey Through Time

With the demise of the graduation requirement attached to both the NY Regents Exam, long considered the granddaddy of high school graduation tests, and the MCAS tests in Massachusetts, once labelled by Time Magazine as the gold standard for state assessments, we can now look beyond high-stakes tests and consider the deeper meaning of that old animal school cartoon and the countless anti-testing “fish can’t climb trees” memes it has spawned. To paraphrase my friend, The Grinch, what if the cartoon means a little bit more than tests and testing. What if the story depicted in the cartoon was never about tests and testing at all…

What’s Next?

What’s Next? It’s a question that has been at the core of criticism of state tests more than a decade and one that is central to current definitions of high-quality, instructionally useful assessment. But if such a fundamental question has been so difficult to answer for so long, perhaps we need to look beyond tests and assessment for both the answer and the source of the problem.

F-L-A-T: A Reading Story

FLAT has been the operative word to describe reading in the United States.  FLAT achievement over the past several decades. Most initiatives aimed at improving reading and reading instruction have fallen FLAT. Even the message proclaimed by advocates of the science of reading may be becoming FLAT as policies try to move practice beyond the committed early adopters, innovators, and champions. In this week’s post I attempt a close read of the reading problem. Maybe it’s just hot air or perhaps I can pump new life into the discussion

Danger! Steep Grades Ahead

A clear sign of the start of a new school year is the uptick in posts about grades and grading. Across platforms, thoughts are being shared on grade inflation, fair and equitable grading, and opinions offered on perennial debates over grading formative work during instruction, retakes, and assigning 0’s. After letting all of these thoughts and words wash over me, I arrived at this conclusion: 

Grading is complicated but it is only the tip of the iceberg. If we hope to support assessment in the service of learning, we are going to have to close huge gaps between our relatively straightforward world of psychometrics and large-scale testing and our understanding of the complex world of schools, teachers, and students.

Competencies – I Can See It Now

I have watched approaches like standards-based grading, microcredentialing, and competencies ebb and flow over the past couple of decades, but the slow but steady movement has always been in one direction; that is, from abstract to concrete. Today, as we stand on the cusp of a new era of assessment it seems to me that the journey is nearly complete. Latent traits, once the staple and foundation of educational measurement have been set aside in favor of clearly defined observable skills. On the surface, it may seem like I am making a distinction in search of a difference. However, that distinction may be the crux of the difference between assessment of learning and assessment for or in service of learning. And the implications for measurement, testing, and how we report results are quite real. 

Ten Numbers That Shook My World

We all have them. The images that we can never unsee. The quote, song lyric, or perhaps poem that we never forget. That friend, colleague, or chance interaction that had a profound impact on us. Having spent my life immersed in data, I guess that it makes sense that I also have a list of ten numbers or statistics that shook my professional world. I discuss those numbers in today’s “very special” blog post. That is, it’s way too long, but like Netflix, I give you the option to binge this as a naughty summer reading treat or to break up the 10 self-contained “episodes” on your own.

American Education: A Tangled Can of Monkeys

Try as I might, my mind just won’t let go of the story about the school year for Pawtucket, Rhode Island elementary school students being extended because it was discovered that the school day has been 5 minutes too short. From beginning to end, from regulation to problem to solution to acceptance, the issue in Pawtucket, is a microcosm of the complexities that are going to make it so difficult to reform public education in the United States. 

Culture > Curriculum > Courses

As I leaf through excited posts and articles about how AI is going to help assess durable skills and bring to life the freshly painted portraits of high school graduates, I start to get an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach and a tightness in my chest. My fear is that once again we’re going to do this backwards, that is by beginning with assessment. It’s critical, particularly with these the types of skills that are being discussed today that we remember to consider curriculum before assessment and more importantly, culture before curriculum. 

On Scales, Achievement Standards, and Trends

A bonus blog post in honor of #NCME2026 conference week. Last month I tugged on Superman’s cape when I suggested that preserving the NAEP trend might not be in our best interest. Today, I refresh a presentation from the early days of the CCSS, PARCC, and Smarter Balanced to clarify that reporting a NAEP trend is not the problem. Rather, the problem may be in the way that we in educational measurement and assessment tie trends to fixed achievement standards and scales.