Re: [ARN-state] Re: Guru talk, Vaticans, and "Authentic Assessment"

[Peter Campbell <campbellp@mail.montclair.edu>]

What I'm finding here in the Portland, OR public schools is an odd,  
bastardized notion of constructivism and formative assessment. The  
pre-K and K teachers here -- not sure about other grade levels -- are  
evaluating all the time alright. But they're using quantitative  
measures of decoding skills and reporting numeric data to the  
district office via a spreadsheet they have to use. Of course, as  
even Margaret Spellings admitted, what gets measured gets taught. So  
they teach decoding. Then measure decoding. Then teach more decoding.  
Then measure more decoding. My 4-year-old daughter, enrolled in pre- 
K, brings home worksheets just about every day.

Peter C.


On Nov 6, 2007, at 11:04 AM, Susan Harman wrote:

> In a constructivist model, we dont teach-test-teach. We are working
> beside kids, and evaluating all the time (how else know what they dont
> know, and therefore what to teach them?). I hate the word "test" and
> dont use it for anything I do. And "documentation" is just that:
> collecting samples of childrens work to back up—document—a teachers
> estimate of where the child is.
> We agree not to bash teachers, but I think we have different paradigms
> of teaching, some of which is the difference between ele and hs, but
> mostly not.