Here are some posts I put up when this cheating scandal in Atlanta first broke in 2011. See here, here and here.
The emphasis on test scores is all about the technocratic compulsion to measure one kid againsst another, one teacher against another, one school against another–to what end? Does anyone with good sense think that this demand that everhyone measure up to some bureuacrats's standard is somehow going to significantly improve learning?
Assessments are part of learning. No one is questioning that. But anybody who knows anything about how learning happens understands that bubble tests give the most superficial kind of assessment. They have some superficial value, but they don't tell you the important things that other assessments and a teacher's just knowing his or her kids can tell you.
This compulsion toward standardized testing is complex, but it abets the idea that most teachers are incomptent, and that we need some objective standard to assess teachers and to hold them accountable. But as I've argued before, if you want to improve educational outcomes, train teachers well, pay them a decent wage, and trust them to do their jobs. Everything follows from that.
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