I actually believe it's easy for us to critique the over-reliance on
scores, but I'm not sure we have good answers to questions that many
parents and community members are asking, some of which are behind the
current testing frenzy: What do my children know, and how do I know it?
How do I know if my child is a student of color, on free lunch, an English
Language Learner, is getting the same quality of education as white,
middle-class students in the same district? How can resources be targeted
in a district or state, so that the schools most in need of help get it?
In California, where the tax structure means that growth in per pupil
spending is necessarily kept below the inflation in the cost of education,
the SAT-9 turns out to be a lower-cost alternative to providing meaningful
assessments to students and scaffolds to schools that need assistance from
the outside. There's no question that assessment alone cannot drive
reform--especially high-stakes assessment without meaningful instructional
support--but I believe we have a responsibility to contribute to the debate
constructively by explaining to parents and community folks at every
opportunity to get that there are other places to get answers to their
question--other sources of evidence that their own children are learning
something significant, and then to provide some examples of that in our
communities.
I'll bet a lot of us on this list are doing this kind of work when we get
the chance--and I for one would love to know what others are up to, so that
we might all benefit from the different strategies we as researchers and
advocates for youth are addressing assessment issues.
Bill
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Bill Penuel, Ph.D.
Research Social Scientist
SRI International
333 Ravenswood Avenue, Mailstop BS116
Menlo Park, CA 94025
tel. 650-859-5001
fax 650-869-5001
email: bpenuel who-is-at unix.sri.com
Check out our website at
www.sri.com/policy/ctl
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