Regardless of whether Sen. Barack Obama really thinks portfolios should be part of student assessments, the issue has sparked quite a bit of discussion in the blogsphere.

Over at Learning the Language, my colleague Mary Ann Zehr points out that portfolios have been tried as a method of evaluating English language learners, with mixed success.

On the Teacher Beat blog, colleague Stephen Sawchuk wonders what teachers would think of using student portfolios, which can be very time consuming, as part of the assessment mix. (Sawchuk dubs this dust-up “Portfoliogate.”)

The Core Knowledge blog declares about “Portfauxlios": “Say it Ain’t So, O.”

And Mike Petrilli, who kicked off the debate about portfolios with his blog post (which appeared to send the Obama campaign into a mini-tizzy), thinks the Obama campaign has continued to muddy the waters on assessment issues.