Test Score Insanity

In an article entitled "Test Scores Don't Define Good Teaching" Diane Ravitch makes an excellent point - and one all need to be cognizant of in the era of test score mania -

“I question the absolute faith in test scores as a measurement of student achievement," she said. “As if test scores are a scientific measurement. They’re not designed that way and the student tests are not designed to measure the ability of teachers.”

Administration observance, effective professional development, conference time, team teaching, and smart, passionate teachers are the ingredients to effective measurement of teachers.

Likewise, tests serve a purpose - to measure learning - but let's keep that in perspective.  Tests rarely motivate my students.  At least tests don't motivate them like they used to.

But good assignments with application to the real world that also allow for student engagement, well those tend to motivate kids.

But those assignments are difficult to create (not to mention evaluate) and are rarely neat or applicable from teacher to teacher.  Just like good teaching isn't easy to create.  You can't bottle it and then administer it wherever you want, like Paul Vallas is trying to do in New Orleans where on any given day in any given school every 9th grade students is studying the same thing in the same way with the same evaluation method.