Abstract
How can assessment be used to foster intellectual development and educational success? Do our educational testing programs encompass progressive views of intelligence and achievement? What is the best fit between test policy, test practice, and what matters most to us, access to enriching instruction for all our students? The trio of epigraphs above contain several themes that are central to the chapters in this volume. The authors of these chapters see assessment in education as a powerful and crucial tool for effective instruction, remediation, and placement. Yet they all struggle, in different ways, with the central problems that testing has presented over the past ninety years: How can we most effectively and fairly identify and nurture talent? How can we best intervene when there are learning problems? And how can we ensure that our assessment tools do not limit us, or even lead us astray, in these goals?
If it were not possible to change intelligence, why measure it in the first place?
Binet, 1905 (Brown, 1985 translation)
Seems to me we’re forcing a lot of kids’ talents into this narrow little funnel and hoping that it comes out in reading scores and math scores. And it just ain’t fair.
Elementary school teacher, Northern California
(P)olicy at best can enable outcomes, but in the final analysis it cannot mandate what matters.
McLaughlin, 1987: 173
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O’Connor, M.C. (1992). Overview. In: Gifford, B.R., O’Connor, M.C. (eds) Changing Assessments. Evaluation in Education and Human Services, vol 30. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-2968-8_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-2968-8_2
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