assessment

See the short video FairTest: You can't judge learning with a standardized test available on youtube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkJlst6vDyY.

For Immediate Release, June 23, 2008

Contact:

Lisa Guisbond 617-730-5445, 617-959-2371 (cell)
Jim Nehring 978-772-9749
David Krane 617-276-6241 (cell)
Ruth Rodriguez-Fay (508) 353-7888 (cell)
Trudy Knowles (413) 562-5337 (home) (413) 572-5724 (work)

Readiness Project Members Criticize Final Report on MCAS and Assessments; Say MCAS Overhaul is Urgently Needed to address Negative Consequences

The Readiness Project subcommittee charged with reviewing MCAS and assessment expressed an urgent need for substantive change to the current system. To underscore this sense of urgency, the subcommittee’s consensus report echoes Brown v. Board of Education, saying, “In order to move toward important new educational goals, MCAS – as the ‘system’ it was originally intended to be – must evolve significantly and that evolution must begin with deliberate speed.”

Findings

http://www.projo.com/opinion/contributors/content/CT_regents4_05-04-08_E...

Lisa Guisbond: Resist the testing bandwagon

01:00 AM EDT on Sunday, May 4, 2008

LISA GUISBOND

CAMBRIDGE

THE RHODE ISLAND Board of Regents will discuss on May 15 proposed changes to the state’s high-school-graduation requirements that may increase the weight placed on state test scores. The board should think twice before going down this road.

Testing Our Children:

A Report Card on State Assessment Systems

Introduction

Executive Summary:
Preliminary Findings March 2004

[ FairTest copied this from another website, failed to capture the title, the file is no longer on the website that is noted at the end of this document.]

This Executive Summary of Preliminary Findings incorporates
the June 2003 Preliminary Findings. All data are for the 2000-2001
school year.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Proposition 227 and Skyrocketing Test
Scores: An Urban Legend from California

Stephen Krashen
The Journal of the Texas Association for Bilingual Education (in
press)

SELECTED ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY ON
LANGUAGE MINORITY ASSESSMENT
1995

Ascher, C. "Testing Bilingual Students: Do We Speak
the Same Language?" PTA Today (March 1991, pp. 7-9).

Discusses cultural and linguistic bias issues in bilingual
testing, options for administering tests to bilingual students,
and problems associated with these options. Includes a short
description of an alternative, "dynamic assessment."

Deborah Meier

Alfie Kohn

All of us, as parents and citizens, want to make sure our schools
are doing a good job and our children are learning. Unfortunately,
the MCAS exams-and the "tougher standards" philosophy
that they reflect-not only fail to provide meaningful information
but actually interfere with the goal of providing students with
a high-quality education.