Links for 8/3/10

DAVID LEONHARDT

I don’t think this is an argument against tests. It’s an argument for better tests…

There is no question that coming up with accurate tests is hard. The tests need to measure both knowledge and skills, and some skills can’t easily be captured by a standardized test. If we end up judging students and teachers on bad tests, we could do significant damage.

But what’s the alternative to giving up on tests? It’s almost certainly to give up on the idea that teachers can be evaluated in any rigorous way.

We would instead be left to rely solely on the judgments of their colleagues and bosses — which, needless to say, have flaws too… Worst of all, we would not even know how to make teachers better, which is certainly possible, because we wouldn’t know who the good ones were.

GRAHAM BOWLEY

Dr. Jackson and Dr. Sample are part of a cozy and lucrative club: presidents and other senior university officials who cross from academia into the business world to serve on corporate boards…

Others question whether scholars have the time — and financial sophistication — needed to police the country’s biggest corporations while simultaneously juggling the demands of running a large university…

Sarah Newell Usdin and Neerav Kingsland

Five years ago, New Orleans was perhaps America’s worst schools system. The FBI convicted over twenty district officials for stealing from kids. A valedictorian of a local high school failed the high school exit exam. Five times. Her school had failed her. Her district had failed her. Her school board had failed her. At every level, the system was broken.

Five years later and the results in NOLA are incredible…

we’ve gone from “F” to “C” in five years. Now we need to go from “C” to “A”…

Scott Jaschik

a major new research project -- led by a scholar who favors standardized testing -- has just concluded that the methods used by the College Board (and just about every other testing entity for either admissions or employment testing) are seriously flawed. While the new research doesn't conclude that the tests are biased, it says that they could be -- and that the existing methods of detection wouldn't reveal that…

question-by-question analysis doesn't detect bias…