Doug Christensen, the Nebraska education commissioner, is resigning...
Mr. Christensen has fought for years to keep Nebraska’s unique, district-created assessments, saying local teachers are best equipped to judge their students’ achievement. But the legislature is considering whether to make standardized tests the state’s only tool to measure academic success. ("Nebraska Bill Would Boost State Tests' Status," March 26, 2008).
Nebraska currently is the only state that does not use statewide standardized tests to meet accountability requirements under the NCLB law. And while the state education department has worked hard to make the home-grown assessments comply with the federal law, that hasn’t happened, said Jim Scheer, a member of the Nebraska board of education. “We need to find something that allows us to become compliant, because the federal government and NCLB are not going to go away,” he said.
But while the state legislation has some district-level support, it is drawing sharp criticism from top Nebraska education officials and standardized-testing critics nationally.“I see nothing positive in terms of good public policy or good education policy in state testing,” said Douglas D. Christensen, the state commissioner of education. “I’ve spent my life trying to build up an accountability system that starts from the classroom and builds up,” as opposed to one that starts at the
top and trickles down, he said...
