A brief take on the "performance _pre_view", and why the standard performance _re_view tends to diminish, not enhance, performance.

High school principal George Wood eloquently contrasts standardized NCLB-style testing with his school's performance assessments.

" The New York Performance Standards Consortium represents 28 schools across New York State. Formed in 1997, the Consortium opposes high stakes tests arguing that "one size does not fit all." Despite skepticism that an alternative to high stakes tests could work, the New York Performance Standards Consortium has done just that...developed an assessment system that leads to quality teaching, that enhances rather than compromises our students' education. Consortium school graduates go on to college and are successful."

High School Principal George Wood eloquently contrasts standardized NCLB-style testing and his school's term-end performance testing.

Lumina Foundation pushes a Eurpopean-style process to define education goals state- and nation-wide, with mixed success. "Chemistry, history, math, and physics have been among the most successful", whileothers have had a hard time beginning. "Supporters of the Lumina project say it holds the promise of turning educational assessment from a process that some academics might view as a threat into one that holds a solution, while also creating more-rigorous expectations for student learning. Mr. Jones, the Utah State history-department chairman, recounted in an essay published in the American Historical Association's Perspectives on History how he once blithely told an accreditation team that "historians do not measure their effectiveness in outcomes." But he has changed his mind. The Lumina project, and others, help define what learning is achieved in the process of earning a degree, he said, moving beyond Americans' heavy reliance on the standardized student credit hour as the measure of an education. "The demand for outcomes assessment should be seized as an opportunity for us to actually talk about the habits of mind our discipline needs to instill in our students," Mr. Jones wrote. "It will do us a world of good, and it will save us from the spreadsheets of bureaucrats."

"So far, the most useful tool to me, in physics, has been the rubric, which is used widely in grading open-ended assessments in the humanities. "

A focus on improving the grading experience, rather than the learning experience, but still a big step forward for (some) hard scientists.

"Teaching a writing seminar has also provided me with an opportunity to use clickers in ways that are new to me. "

... as measured by student evals and "value-added modeling".  Note some of the student eval items, though... e.g., students agree or disagree with "In this class, we learn to correct our mistakes."

"We conclude that value-added data has an important role to play in teacher evaluation systems, but that there is much to be learned about how best to use value-added information in human resource decisions." No mention of the role of assessment in improvement.

Tom Friedman reports (approvingly) on Arne Duncan's plans to upgrade the teaching profession.  Any gueses how this might apply to "higher" education?

Stanley Fish reviews "Why Does College Cost So Much?" bu Archibald and Feldman, two economists who conclude "there is no college cost crisis".

So here it is: by definition, the value-added component of the D.C. IMPACT evaluation system defines 50 percent of all teachers in grades four through eight as ineffective or minimally effective in influencing their students' learning. And given the imprecision of the value-added scores, just by chance some teachers will be categorized as ineffective or minimally effective two years in a row. The system is rigged to label teachers as ineffective or minimally effective as a precursor to firing them.

How assessment of value-added actually works in one setting: the Washington, D.C. public schools. This article actually works the numbers to show that the system is set up to put teachers in the firing zone. Note the tyranny of numerical ratings (some of them subjective) converted into meanings like "minimally effective".

" Readiness for Organizational Learning and Evaluation (ROLE). The ROLE (Preskill & Torres, 2000) was designed to help us determine the level of readiness for implementing organizational learning, evaluation practices, and supporting processes"

An interesting possibility for a Skylight survey (but more reading needed)

Measuring student success for federal purposes in community colleges -- and only one passing mention of learning. The factory model prevails -- stamp that widget (student) and send it out the door (they sell themselves!)

"Complex systems tend to exist in one of three states. Each state needs a different evaluation design."

"Colleges and universities have transformed themselves from participants in an audit culture to accomplices in an accountability regime."

A philosophical critique of a rapidly-approaching "metric future", with "comensuration" (assigning meaning to measurements) run amok. While the application of student learning outcomes given in the article is not ours, the critique of continuous quality improvement challenges some of our assumptions.

Not surprisingly, the #1 indicator of performance measurement quality is "usefulness".

"So how does the maintenance of high academic ranking as a research institution fit into the land-grant mission? Simply put, it doesn't."

Another for the "HE Identity Crisis" collection...

"These are great ideas shared by AEA Conference veterans for making the most of the AEA conference:"

... or any conference.