Re: Kozol to Kennedy

[aburke5054@aol.com]

If MA did not get the portfolio right it can change it to make it work 
better.  Don't pretend that the MA system is fatally flawed because of 
that.

If you want to pretend that schools are only going to change for the 
better if states give people who work in them totally their own way, 
more power to you.  Teachers' unions love the idea, but you are selling 
parents and kids down the river.

Art

-----Original Message-----
From: Monty Neill <monty@fairtest.org>
To: arn-l@interversity.org
Sent: Fri, 4 Jan 2008 1:47 pm
Subject: Re: [arn-l] Kozol to Kennedy


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...

>

>


-------------------------------------------------------

ARN-L archives:

http://interversity.org/lists/arn-l/archives.html






________________________________________________________________________
More new features than ever.  Check out the new AOL Mail ! - 
http://webmail.aol.com