Not content with just reforming education through the Race to the Top fund, President Obama has come out swinging again on education. This time, he's talking about rewriting the No Child Left Behind law. At the risk of repeating what's already been on about 1,000 edublogs, way to go.
At this point, it's pretty clear that No Child Left Behind, though well intentioned, has some serious flaws. It's over-reliance on standardized tests is a huge example of that. So what does Obama do? He sets out to deemphasize standardized tests in determining which schools are succeeding and which are failing. If this really happens, it could lead to a huge shift away from the skill, drill, and kill methodology that's become pretty much a necessity in the NCLB era. Let's move away from the high stakes tests and toward a more complete measure of student and school performance.
Arne Duncan said, "We want accountability reforms that factor in student growth, progress in closing achievement gaps, proficiency towards college and career-ready standards, high school graduation and college enrollment rates."
Yes we do.
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What measures do President Obama or Mr. Duncan suggest using as an alternative to standardized testing?
Cayley, thanks for reading.
Based on the quote from Secretary Duncan that I included in the post, I think those alternative metrics would include "student growth, progress in closing achievement gaps, proficiency towards college and career-ready standards, high school graduation and college enrollment rates." Some of those measures are sure to be based on high stakes tests. But others are not. I think it makes a lot of sense to use multiple data points when we're evaluating our success in the schools.
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