Educational Reform of Assessments in the Schools
by One recommendation that sounded quite innovative was an idea from a principal in 2001. “Imagine teachers in your school receive a report on their students three times a year, an analysis of each student’s reading, writing, and math skills. What’s more, the school-developed assessments would be scored against rubrics the staff has written using state standards and the school’s expectations for good work.
The result (would be) reliable, comparable, timely assessment data that can really improve instruction tomorrow, in their classrooms and across the school” (MiddleWeb, 2001). Could this be an exercise in common sense? Surely schools should already be doing such things to enhance the level of learning. But alas, they are not.
In a small district of 600 students, such as the author’s, only 300 students are attending middle school at any given point. The task of assessing reading, writing and math skills could be shared by teachers in the appropriate subjects or could be done by guidance counselors and a child study team. The hours of work that will be needed to compile such data will be negligible when considering that such an assessment of the students given to all the teachers in a district would allow them to create assessments throughout the school year tailored to the development levels of the class sections. While it may be more work at the beginning, over the long-term such a practice would undoubtedly create students who are more readily prepared for the world which awaits them.
In the end, the amount of work put into such a concept of assessment on the educator and administrator side is directly proportionate to the amount of improvement that will be seen in the middle school student upon completion of three years of examination in such a process. This form of tailored assessment would greatly enhance the state of education and is not something that requires special preparation, infinite funding or additional staff. It only requires extra time and effort that has to be requested on a state or national level. If such a task was completed, the data of the new assessments would speak for themselves.
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