There's no way on God's green earth that I'll get to blog much today; things are too busy around here. Lots of interesting articles out there, though; I'll link to as many as I can, but with more concise commentary than I usually manage.
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The decision to implement a campus-wide standardized exam at SUNY is drawing even more fire. In June, the SUNY Board of Trustees in June voted for these assessments, but campus faculty senates on 14 campuses have passed resolutions opposing them.
The proposed assessment is intended to "measure student achievement in math, communication, critical thinking, information management, and understanding of methods scientists and social scientists use to explore phenomena." Critics say this exam is a waste of limited funds.
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Will issues with the flawed MEAP process in Michigan lead to a big revision in the test? Some superintendents say the MEAP isn't a good fit for NCLB because its standards are too tough. Could a national standardized test be the answer?
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Florida thinks it has found a solution to the delayed-scores problem that plagued the MEAP - computers will be used to score FCAT essays. Not surprisingly, one critic calls this a "nightmare" of "speculative technology"; such critics are apparently unaware that this technology has been one of the most thoroughly-researched topics in testing over the past few years. ETS has one of the more well-known essay raters, e-rater®, but other testing companies have been busily developing their own. Of course, things can still go wrong with computerized essay scoring, but enough has gone right so far that it's premature to label this a disaster in the making.
However, computerized (or online) testing is not easy, nor is it cheap, and it may be the inevitable security or scheduling or cost issues that makes an online FCAT unworkable. I doubt the computerized essay scoring segment of the assessment would be the real stumbling block.
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Some parents in Berkeley (CA) are unhappy with recent test scores at Rosa Parks Elementary School. All the other schools in Berkeley are meeting standards, but this is the fourth year that Rosa Parks has failed to do so. The district must now create a plan to overhaul the school, which is moving further away from the state target scores while other schools move closer.
In response, the parents claim that the school is not failing their children, but the standardized testing program is. Much of what the parents have to say, though, contradicts any theory that the test is the problem:
“The community is very motivated here,” said Cathy Duenas, the mother of a fifth grader, who said she was more concerned about the tests themselves than the student’s performances. She echoed several parents who expressed concerns about a district-wide trend toward larger class size, citing her son’s math class, which has one teacher for 37 students.
And this is a criticism of the test...how? If the school isn't providing adequate education, then the school, which also did not begin its required English tutoring program until February of this year, is to blame.