Encore – We Are All Accountable For Our Kids

This is a re-post of Jamie Post Candee’s popular “We Are All Accountable For Our Kids” originally posted February 11, 2015 I spend a lot of time talking with state chiefs, policy makers, teachers, and parents about the need for tests. I often think about this debate...

Measurement Moments – Part 5

A test typically has a single specified purpose. In fact, if a test serves more than one purpose, the secondary or tertiary purposes are rarely well served. For example, the single purpose of an English language learner (ELL) assessment is to determine a student’s...

After the Test: Data Presentation and Interpretation

“Today’s eagerness to jettison our commitment to leave ‘no child behind’ is a shame,” writes Chad Aldeman in a recent article (“In Defense of Annual School Testing”) in The New York Times.  He argues that standardized testing, although not perfect, has improved...

Measurement Moments – Part 2

In my last post I discussed how the test author or developer could make a test more or less difficult simply by using different items with a different distribution of item difficulties. Although I used, as examples, the ACT Assessment and the SAT, two tests that use...