John Hood’s Daily Journal makes the following excellent suggestion regarding public school standardized tests:
Give up on the notion that state government can design and implement its own testing program.
The argument for a North Carolina-only approach, that it allows the
tests to fit North Carolina?s curriculum, was always questionable (why
should the state?s public schools have an idiosyncratic curriculum to
begin with?) and is now massively outweighed by considerations of
validity, cost, and comparability. North Carolina should purchase off-the-shelf tests from independent national companies.
The recommendation fits well with this forum’s previous discussion about the flaws associated with the “bend-but-not-break” standards North Carolina adopted in the 1990s.
There’s nothing inherently unreasonable about setting an admittedly lower-than-ideal standard when you have a lot of progress to make. The problem with that approach is the inertia that surrounds that initial lower-than-ideal standard. Teacher bonuses, administrators’ and education bureaucrats’ progress reports, even “school pride” are all tied to the lower-than-ideal standard.
Take the test-making decisions out of the hands of people who will be affected directly by test results, and you remove a strong barrier to increased achievement.
