Perhaps. Significantly improving student assessment is the real “moon shot” for the stimulus funds.
A new Education Week article highlights the potential impact of these funds:
What now seems to be an intractable choice between richer tasks and reliable data, though, could be mediated by advancements in technology that could improve access, cost, and reliability of performance-based [...]
All Posts Tagged: 'Testing'
Will Race to the Top Spur a New Generation of Assessment?
President Obama Joins the Bubble-Bursting Bandwagon
“And I’m calling on our nation’s governors and state education chiefs to develop standards and assessments that don’t simply measure whether students can fill in a bubble on a test…”
I couldn’t agree more, Mr. President. But, as always, the devil is in the details. The Education Sector report Beyond the Bubble details how technology, along [...]
Open for Discussion: The Future of Student Assessment
There is one place where you can find a rare consensus among NCLB proponents, critics, teachers, and policymakers—none are really satisfied with the state of testing today. At a time when students are tested more than ever—and test results are used to make critical judgments about the performance of schools, teachers, and students—our testing methods [...]
Comparing Treatments
The recently-passed stimulus bill provides money for comparative analysis of medical treatments for various ailments. It’s the first such authorization, and it will allow us to answer whether ailment X is best treated with pills, therapy, or surgery. These types of comparisons have long been absent in discussions of educational pedagogy, but yesterday’s IES/ Mathematica [...]
Science Magazine Enters the Arena
I recommend the January 2, 2009 issue of SCIENCE, containing a special section on education and technology. With articles on subjects such as cognitive tutors, open education resources, and technology and testing, it’s a worthy read (pesky subscription required, view overview and article abstracts). More importantly, the edition represents a welcome commitment by the magazine [...]
Another Take on NAEP
As Kevin notes, the spin around the new NAEP results is really quite something. The statements about the scores (which show moderate, but not earth-shattering improvements) range from mildly over/under enthusiastic to wildly celebratory or wholly dismissive.
Senator Kennedy managed to use the occasion to condemn spending on the Iraq war, while President Bush went [...]
The Purpose of Testing
The Post reports today that Maryland will replace written-response questions with multiple-choice questions on its high school exit exams so they can be graded more quickly. All of the districts want to get their test results back faster than the month or so it currently takes so there’s near unanimity for this change among superintendents. [...]
Understanding "Standards"
There has been much discussion of standards in the last week, fueled by the release of two major reports. The National Center for Education Statistics raised some interesting questions about the rigor of state standards and variation between the states. Their report compelled Secretary Spellings to argue against national standards on the editorial pages of [...]
Stands Scotland where it Did?
WaPo gives more background to the racial tensions that have surfaced at Montgomery County’s Winston Churchill High School following a string of recent fights and letter sent home by the school’s principal describing them as “Black-on-Black violence.” Residents of Scotland, an historically African-American community in the school’s attendance area viewed the comment as a specific [...]
Lowering Student Loan Default Rates: What One Consortium of Historically Black Institutions Did to Succeed 
College and Career-Ready: Using Outcomes Data to Hold High Schools Accountable for Student Success
03/11/10 | Kevin Carey is quoted on the rising costs of education in The Economist.
03/10/10 | Chad Aldeman's False Fronts paper is quoted on Accuracy in Academia.
03/09/10 | Ben Miller is quoted on Federal Family Education Loan defaults on The Huffington Post.
03/09/10 | Ben Miller is quoted on loan origination on the Firedog Lake blog.
03/07/10 | Kevin Carey calls for a Race to the Top in higher education in a column in The Chronicle of Higher Education.