Re: Kozol to Kennedy

["Monty Neill" <monty@fairtest.org>]

Yes, the best of assessment practices can be perverted by stupid and 
destructive approaches to accountability. In MA, a state portfolio process 
to be used for students with disabilities who could not take the state test 
was so cumbersome and time-consuming that even teachers who liked and used 
portfolios on their own hated it. Good assessment practices will not thrive 
in harmful accountability structures. NCLB reinforces weak to bad assessment 
in a damaging structure. We must push Congress to change both aspects - 
hence all the links among test-ayp-sanction.

Monty
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Peter S. Campbell" <campbellp@mail.montclair.edu>
To: <arn-l@interversity.org>
Sent: Friday, January 04, 2008 4:00 PM
Subject: Re: [arn-l] Kozol to Kennedy


Even in using more valuable kinds of assessment, e.g., classroom-based 
formative assessment, there's a tension between assessment for learning and 
assessment of learning for documentation and accountability purposes. In 
other words, it's hard to care about students when you're so busy writing 
down observable performance data about them that ties into State Standards 
CA42.A1, SS16.B12, and M27.J4. Learning vs. proving you have learned are two 
different objectives. In the former, both the student and the teacher may 
actually care about the outcome. And they may care less whether it can be 
quantified and recorded.

But in this new quantifiable game, "proving I have taught well" or "proving 
I have learned" are euphemistic covers for "please don't fire me" and 
"please don't fail me" respectively. Under NCLB, even really good assessment 
practices, when operating under the weight of "accountability," can become 
about covering one's derriere. Inevitably, and quite logically, students may 
focus only on those things they can demonstrate they know and that they are 
good at. Teachers may focus only on those things they can demonstrate they 
can teach with predictable, positive outcomes. Neither can afford to show 
process or ambiguity, and certainly neither wants to show a lack of 
knowledge or competence or even – heaven forbid – that they are wrong about 
something. Moreover, if the measures they use to capture and record 
knowledge and performance are biased towards reliability instead of 
validity, such measures as "process" and "growth" do not even register as 
possible options.

Peter Campbell

----- Original Message -----
From: PRISCILLA GUTIERREZ <pgutpgut@msn.com>
Date: Friday, January 4, 2008 11:31 am
Subject: Re: [arn-l] Kozol to Kennedy

> Last month I wrote to Kozol, suggesting he introduce the term, Body
> of Evidence, into the discussion.  I received an email from one of
> his assistants stating Kozol considered it "tremendously good and
> apt" and will attempt to bring the concept into the discussion when
> he meets with the Senator next week.  We shall see...
>
>
>
>
> Priscilla Gutierrez
> Outreach Specialist
> New Mexico School for the Deaf
>
> ...change is inevitable, growth is optional...

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