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Gaston Caperton

Standardized tests have much in common with French fries. Both of them differ in composition as well as quality. French fries are available in numerous incarnations, including straight, curly, skins-on, skins-off, and, in recent years, with sweet potatoes. Regarding quality, of course, the taste of French fries can range substantially – from sublime to soggy. It’s really the same with standardized tests.

Take the No Child Left Behind Act, for instance, a federal accountability law requiring scads of standardized tests to be used in evaluating schools. Do you know that almost all of the standardized tests now being employed to judge school quality are unable to distinguish between well taught and badly taught students?

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Everybody was a good student. The kids were just encouraged to do what they like to do and what was best, and there was a structure; there was a program. It's not you ran around doing anything you felt like. I skipped a grade, but I didn't pay any attention and no one else paid any attention. Just that I was the smallest kid in the class, but the idea that somebody is a good student; somebody is not a good student - it just never arose. There were tests, but they just gave information about what's going on. This is something we ought to be doing better. The kids weren't ranked; there were no grades. There's a lot of cooperative work and cooperative projects and they encouraged us. You know, study, challenging questions, and it was extremely successful. I remember everything very well. I went into the academic high school and it's kind of like a black hole. I was able to get all As and a scholarship to go into college. I might well not have gone, except for what I learned on my own.

Are in-depth group discussions provided during class time? Are students coached to question their thinking processes and those of their classmates? Are students afforded opportunities to evaluate their progress regularly? Are students encouraged to pose questions regularly in class? Are students provided with guides to help them reflect on their thinking (such as Bloom’s Taxonomy)? Do class projects engage students in analysis, synthesis, and evaluation? Are students given opportunities to consider various opinions and to justify their own beliefs?

Table 1 Bloom's Cognitive Taxonomy Competence Description Question/Prompt Knowledge Dates, events, formulas, other facts When did the United States become an independent country from England? What is the formula for area? Comprehension Recognize meaning, sequence, events, interpret information, compare ideas, make inferences, predict ideas What is the author's purpose? How are these numbers related? Is water of sunshine more critical to plant life? Human life? Application Use of information and concepts to solve problems Using your knowledge of calories and your physical makeup, calculate how much energy you must exert to lose three pounds per month. Demonstrate your understanding of how to create a Web site. Analysis Recognize patterns, parts, components Considering the stock market, examine which investments were the most lucrative this quarter. Organize these games by level of difficulty. Synthesis Use of information to create a new system, generalize, draw conclusions When did the United States become an independent country from England? What is the formula for area? Evaluation Assess concepts, weigh opinions for subjectivity, select items, judge Which type of dog would be best suited for your family, given your lifestyle and housing? Which local newspaper is written the most objectively?