Doug Noon of Borderlands reviews the latest on assessment reform, arguing that the current standardized testing regime used in schools is too simplistic and too top-down to give teachers the means to create real learning gains. He offers a memorable analogy:
If we’d have used an NCLB-style approach to the Apollo moon mission, President Kennedy would have simply ordered NASA to fly conventional airplanes higher and higher until they fell out of the sky, and then blamed the pilots for lacking the will and the know-how to get the job done.
If you’re interested in this topic, it just so happens we currently have a forum discussion going on about how the Obama administration should change testing.