assessments

With rapid, relentless and continuous advancement in technology, the requirements of students and teachers are also undergoing a tremendous change. The report "Education Technology and Smart Classroom Market: Worldwide Market Forecasts and Analysis (2013-2018)," defines and segments the global ed tech market.

Here's a multiple-choice question: If the federal government penalizes states where pupils do badly in school, but lets the states themselves set the pass mark, will the states a) make the tests harder; or b) dumb them down?

While assessment has an important role to play as one of multiple measures for evaluating student learning and achievement, the continued reliance on one-time testing diverts attention away from content and the substance of what is being taught.

Results of the 2012-2013 national occupational competency exams show that almost 89 percent of seniors at York County School of Technology who were tested scored either "competent" or "advanced," exceeding the national standard of 72 percent and the state average of 82 percent for career and tech ed high schools.

For me, the bigger questions remain the value of standardized tests in the education of children, especially the impact they have on what gets taught, how it is taught, and how learning is accurately measured.

A look at Ohio’s new A-F report card system, slated to be rolled out in August, shows many school districts score poorly in areas such as closing achievement gaps between students — one of the new graded measures.

Susan Grobsmith’s children will slide the state English exam back across the desk when their teachers hand them out Tuesday. The three children in grades four through eight at West Genesee will fold their hands in their laps and politely refuse to take the standardized test.

The No Child Left Behind Act increased student and teacher accountability, tests and led to the development of the Common Core Standards. All of these are noble changes, well-intentioned changes and no one is arguing that change was needed, but the implementation of the changes in all grade levels meant that the students in grade 1-12 were held to standards for which they were not prepared.

The memo notes that nearly all of the teachers at one Washington elementary school had students whose test papers showed high numbers of wrong-to-right erasures and asks, "Could a separate person have been responsible?"