Well, that time of year is fast approaching: the dreaded "testing season." In the coming weeks, Education Week and many other education-focused journalism outlets will be filled with stories about the horrors and opportunities of testing. I'll continue to share about the performance assessment process that we use at my school, but I wanted to take a chance to enter into this public conversation in a more explicit way. I hope to do this in a way that can move beyond the partisan bomb-throwing that often characterizes this conversation.

Posted by John T. McCrann at 9:13 PM | Permalink

There is no denying the testing mess, and recent efforts to reduce our dependence on testing have renewed conversations about what it means to assess in ways that serve learners as much as they serve educators and the systems they work in.

Posted by John T. McCrann at 6:48 PM | Permalink

We should not ignore the drop in NAEP scores, nor should we use it to suggest that our educational sky is falling. We should be more like the New York Mets's management team.

Posted by John T. McCrann at 1:14 PM | Permalink

Over-testing is another disgusting habit. We should quit, but going "cold turkey" by simply trying to give it up won't work. Instead, we should adopt healthy assessment habits that will make over-testing unnecessary.

Posted by John T. McCrann at 9:38 PM | Permalink

Teachers, especially math teachers, need to ask an analogous question of their students. We understand what students need to know, we ought to partner with them in figuring out a reason why they should know it. This might be because they need to present it to a fellow student. Or it might be because the solution can help make the world a better place.

Posted by John T. McCrann at 5:54 PM | Permalink

Fortunately for me, I have been able to move beyond the bubble. My school is a proud member of the New York Performance Standards Consortium, a group of schools that has accomplished your goal of collecting meaningful, formative data through performance assessment.

Posted by John T. McCrann at 6:11 PM | Permalink