Jack Foster's Idea: "a cadre of specialists"

This from Jack Foster in the Courier-Journal:

...Rather than continue to search for a cheaper and less time-consuming state testing system that is not helpful to students, parents or teachers, I believe it is time to find a way to improve the reliability and validity of classroom assessments so they can be used for accountability purposes and eliminate the need for a separate testing system for state accountability purposes. How might this be done?

I propose that classroom assessment responsibilities be given to a cadre of specialists who would administer state-designed assessment instruments at regular intervals throughout the year in every classroom in the commonwealth. The content of these tests would be tightly integrated with classroom instruction and be directly aligned with state core content standards for each subject and grade level.

Teachers would continue to assess student progress on a daily basis, but report card grades would be based on the results of these tests, thus motivating students to do their best on them.

Finally, "grading" of student classroom learning would be uniform and comparable among all classes, schools and districts across the commonwealth. Data generated by these tests could be aggregated and analyzed for school, district and state accountability purposes and to improve the assessment instruments, while eliminating the need for a separate, once-a-year state test.

This approach has many potential benefits. It could relieve teachers of the time-consuming task of creating, administering and scoring their own classroom assessments for which they have insufficient time and expertise; provide greater consistency across the state in what is tested and how it is tested in each subject at each grade level; provide almost immediate feedback to students and teachers to improve learning and instruction; bring a high level of rigor and validity to classroom assessments; reinforce a focus on teaching core content; and the tests would matter to students.

Money currently spent on CATS could be used to develop the classroom assessment instruments and money currently spent on teaching assessment skills to teachers could be used to support a cadre of assessment specialists throughout the state. Much of the testing could be done electronically.

The transition from a CATS-like accountability system to one envisioned here must be carefully planned and should be developed in parallel with a revision of the core content standards that has been proposed.

Doing it right is more important than doing it quickly...