Given how much the rest of education has changed since the middle of the 20th century, it’s remarkable that the model of large-scale student assessment we have today still looks pretty much the way it did back in the nineteen-fifties: a group of kids under careful watch, lined… Read More »The Future of Testing
In the 1950s, C. P. Snow famously argued that academia had separated into two cultures — the sciences and the humanities — with no commerce between them. As both a novelist and a scientist himself, Snow shuttled between the two worlds, and lamented that they did not combine… Read More »A Place for the Humanities in the Digital Age
Creativity and critical thinking sit atop most lists of skills crucial for success in the 21st century. They represent two of the “Four Cs” in P21’s learning framework (the other two being communication and collaboration), and they rank second and third on the World Economic Forum’s top ten list… Read More »At the Intersection of Creativity and Critical Thinking
Educators have come increasingly to recognize that student success depends on more than content knowledge and skills alone. After all, learning is unavoidably fraught with setbacks and discouragements, so personal traits, like “grit” and “growth mindset,” are needed if students are to keep at it. Likewise, the pursuit… Read More »Integrating Cognitive, Social, and Personal Competencies
Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos recently released a list of proposed priorities for her department’s competitive grants program. Number one is “Empowering Families to Choose a High-Quality Education that Meets Their Child’s Unique Needs.” In other words—no surprise—school choice initiatives remain at the top of the Secretary’s agenda. DeVos’s argument… Read More »The School Choice Paradox: Competition vs. Monopoly
With Betsy DeVos as head of the Department of Education, it is a sure bet that school choice initiatives will be at the top of national school reform efforts in the coming years. DeVos, a longtime advocate for alternatives to traditional public schools — including charter schools, vouchers, education savings accounts,… Read More »When Is School Choice a Bad Choice?
It is a guiding principle in test development that stimulus materials and test questions should not upset test-takers. Much like dinner conversation with in-laws, tests should refrain from referencing religion, or sex, or race, or politics — anything that might provoke a heightened emotional response that could interfere… Read More »Why Are Standardized Tests So Boring?: A Sensitive Subject
ACT, Inc. released the results of its 2016 National Curriculum Survey earlier this year. The Survey goes out every three or four years to elementary, middle school, high school, and college teachers, as well as to workforce professionals. It collects information about what respondents are teaching, how they teach it, what… Read More »Is the ACT a Valid Test? (Spoiler Alert: No)
The standards-based education reform movement, kicked off by A Nation At Risk in 1983, has been around long enough now to start showing results, if it’s going to. Unfortunately, there is not much evidence that this path is leading anywhere good. The latest Nation’s Report Card, based on National Assessment of… Read More »College As Culture Shock
If project-based learning were to form the core of curricula in American schools, our problems with large-scale standardized testing would become even more pronounced than they are now. This is not a reason to forego project-based learning, of course; rather, it’s a reason to find a better way… Read More »Authentic Learning Requires Authentic Assessment