TOO MUCH EMPHASIS ON HIGH STAKES TESTING

Why We Need to Differentiate Between Assessment & Testing

Posted by Peter DeWitt on December 8, 2011

Educator DeWitt maintains that assessment, both formal and informal, formative and summative, is a necessity to differentiated instruction. It goes on every day, and is needed to understand student strength and weaknesses. On the other hand, high stakes testing, intended as summative testing, receives a disproportionate amount of attention nowadays, focuses only on the subjects being tested. It can have a number of negative effects, the worst perhaps being that it attempts to put all students on a path that they simply cannot handle. Says Dewitt bluntly, “Our high stakes testing era is ruining education.”

To read the article, please go to: http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/finding_common_ground/2011/12/why_we_need_to_differentiate_between_assessment_testing.html