Education Commons^™

Standardized Testing: Help Or Harm?, Steve Holtrop

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

"Outside of the halls of education, we have many real-world ways to test knowledge and skills. If we want to teach someone to bake a cake or do a J-stroke in a canoe, we don’t give a paper and pencil test – we look for successful demonstrations of the skills. Even where we need a paper test for some head knowledge stuff, like when we get a driver’s license, the road test is the real proof of the pudding. In school settings, then, what we really need are valid measures of what students know and can do. A well-rounded toolbox …