Sooner Is Better: When to Assess
Elementary school teachers in Vail, Colorado have got it right! According to an article in Vail Daily, this year elementary teachers spent the first two days of school administering a one-on-one reading assessment to all of their students.
0 Comments Posted Friday, August 31, 2007
The Myth about “Predictive” Measures
Measures like DIBELS, SRI, or MAPS are the result of schools and districts wanting to predict how their students will do on specific state standardized tests. Will scores go up this year? Will they go down? The companies that publish these tests focus much of their energy on studies that show how scores compare to a "normalized" population, as well as on potentially specific assessments.
1 Comments Posted Thursday, August 23, 2007
Are we teaching the “right stuff?”
Recent studies are showing us two facts. According to a recent study by the Center on Education Policy, math and reading are being taught MORE during the school day in 62% of America’s school districts, often at the expense of other subjects like science, social studies, and the arts. But progress in raising math and reading scores has actually decreased since the passing of No Child Left Behind instead of going up, according to a study published in the Educational Researcher, despite the increased “back-to-the-basics” emphasis. So if we’re teaching more reading and math, why are our students’ test scores not improving? Why are the gaps in achievement not narrowing? Perhaps we’re teaching the wrong things....
0 Comments Posted Monday, August 13, 2007
Myth: Teaching “test-taking skills” is the best way to raise test scores
Test prep can indeed give schools a short-term boost in state scores. But long-term sustained improvement of school or district wide student achievement can only be gained through understanding underlying reasons why students are not scoring well.
0 Comments Posted Wednesday, August 01, 2007
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