Re: Post editorial

[Eric Crump <ecrump@interversity.org>]

On Fri, 11 Jun 2004 ABurke5054@aol.com wrote:
> This could certainly come about, but it would increase the costs of 
> assessment enormously if tests had to be constructed from scratch every year.  Are you 
> willing to pay the extra costs? 

It's sort of like gasoline. Nobody wants to stop guzzling the stuff (well, 
buying vehicles that guzzle it) as long as gas is cheap. When prices rise 
high enough, we start to conserve. If they rise more, we start casting 
about for other energy sources.

Maybe the same thing would work for high stakes tests. The fact that they 
are educationally counterproductive doesn't seem to sway enough people, 
but perhaps if they got reallyreally expensive, people would be willing to 
give up the habit. 

So, no, I wouldn't be willing to pay extra costs for tests, but I'd be 
willing to pay for the implementation of alternative (and sane!) methods 
of assessment.

--Eric Crump