Measuring what really matters

Since the passage of No Child Left Behind, large-scale assessments have come to play a central role in federal and state education accountability systems. Teachers and parents have expressed a number of concerns about their state testing programs, such as too much time devoted to testing and the high-stakes use of testing for teacher evaluation. We don't dispute that federal and state testing and accountability policies have been problematic or that there are ethical issues with high-stakes uses of a single measure. But rather than doing away with state tests, we should improve them so they do measure what matters, and so that what matters gets taught in our public schools. In short, we need a better system of assessments.