Assessment

[marjoriep@AOL.COM]

     On March 26, Ken Haycock wrote:

Are we in a time warp here? Class ranks still used? I haven't seen or
heard of them for decades.
I thought that we were more concerned about what a student can do, areas
needing attention and what teachers, parents and the student can do to
improve. Isn't this the basis of both improved standardized testing and
authentic assessment.
How is comparative data helpful?

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     Good questions Ken!
     Unfortunately, Ohio is rapidly sinking backwards in time here, with a
legislature that believes proficiency testing will somehow make schools more
accountable and students more focused learners.  Dispite this narrow
perspective, the State Department of Education had made OBE a priority and
had produced a standards document which would have been a guideline for an
instructional program based on authentic performance indicators.  During the
hearing process, the fundamentalists mounted a frenzied and emotionally
charged campaign that has caused our state legislators to declare that no
form of outcome-based education will be a part of Ohio's schools.  So, we are
back at the level of a curriculum design that is assessed through objective
testing and schools that still place great value on such things as class
rank.
     I regularly have teachers in my courses who say, "we spend much of our
time preparing our students to pass the proficiency tests."   Have other
states or provinces  faced this problem?  How have they moved beyond it?

Marjorie Pappas
Wright State University
Dayton, OH
mpappas@desire.wright.edu
marjorieP@aol.com