bruce d baker - school finance/policy

LBCarfagna @schmidtphi thought of you: RT: @dmlresearchhub "Knowledge-based assessments are a mismatch for our educational aims" http://t.co/XdD9bTlX

http://schoolfinance101.wordpress.com/about/

funding a prereq condition for innovation

http://mitpress.mit.edu/sites/default/files/titles/free_download/9780262518376_Measuring_What_Matters_Most.pdf

For many, assessments are a lighthouse in the fog of education—a clear guide by which to make safe decisions. But in reality, assessments create the fog. Current assessments perpetuate
beliefs that the proper outcomes of learning are static facts and
routine skills—stuff that is easy to score as right or wrong. Interest, curiosity, identification, self-efficacy, belonging, and all the
other goals of informal learning cannot even sit at the assessment table, because these outcomes are too far removed from current beliefs about what is really important. p. 164

The purpose of assessment is normative. The goal is to improve, not prove.  

Choice is the critical outcome of learning, not knowledge. Knowledge is an enabler; choice is the outcome. 

hmmm. all very interesting.
getting out of the box.. rather than improving the box..

We have concluded with a reminder that the assessment enterprise must be constantly attentive to questions of fairness. Because assessment is normative, it raises issues of fairness Final Summary 167that science normally does not. Choice-based assessments bring these fairness considerations into strong relief because they explicitly favor some choices over others.

The queasiness we feel about making decisions regarding which choices are better and worse indicates that we are getting closer to the proper concerns of education. 

i thought this was about improving, not proving.. where does fairness even enter that? deciding better/worse? that's a personal self-assessment - no?

assessment - to sit beside..
no?

perhaps... we need to step away - give up the management - the control issue - and let

the assessment enterprise must be constantly attentive to questions of fairness.     - the individual.

let's just give one little thing a shot.. before we spend 10 more years and umpteen dollars on improving assessment [aka - improving how we prove things]

imagine we scale the individual.. imagine self-assessment .. that's it. talk to self. everyday.