New paper on testing from Ed Sector’s Toch. Shows that the demands of NCLB and state accountability schemes are creating some quality problems in student testing. A lot of information about the current state of play in the industry that you probably haven’t seen yet and some sensible reform ideas. Ignore USA Today’s inflammatory headline the sky isn’t falling on NCLB but some things can be done better on the testing front. The political breakdown here is obvious: To oversimplify only slightly: A lot of folks on the left don’t like any testing and a lot of folks on the right like testing regardless of what it looks like. There is not much of a constituency in the political center yet for quality testing because of those dynamics. These are problems that need to be addressed or they could imperil standards based reform so Margaret Spellings needs to put on her big girl panties and deal with it.
While you’re at the Ed Sector site, also check out the new Education Sector Interview with England’s Michael Barber. He’s a key architect of the Blair reforms and all around good guy and Ed Sector’s Mead caught up with him recently in London.