Newswise — Peter Afflerbach, author of Understanding and Using Reading Assessment, K-12, draws a distinction between assessments that measure achievement and those that create it.
Afflerbach, a University of Maryland professor who serves on the NAEP Reading Committee, points out that standardized tests are used by States to demonstrate annual yearly progress, but that it is the "other daily regular assessments" made in the classroom a thousand times over the course of the school year that inform instruction and produce student achievement.
Afflerbach suggests that current use of a single test to "measure student achievement, teacher goodness, and school accountability" is an unethical practice because it ignores a warning test designers make. Proposals to improve NCLB accountability by adopting multiple measures earned a measured response. If multiple measures mean "much more attention to formative daily and weekly assessments in addition to a year-end summative assessment, then I'm all for it," Afflerbach notes. He would object to the use of multiple standardized tests, though, suggesting they would replicate an existing problem.
An International Reading Association podcast of Peter Afflerbach's remarks is available at http://www.reading.org/downloads/AfflerbachPodcast.mp3.
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