Learning Measured in Test Scores???

After our discussion in class last night I started thinking about the importance of test scores in teaching. I don't think that we'll be moving away from standardized testing anytime soon but I think it's very important to implement other forms of assessment in order to come up with a more complete view of each child. In the Ayers chapter, we got a glimpse of how to qualitatively assess a child which I think gives a great overview of the child as a student and a person. It's very apparent that this kind of assessment of a child is much more telling than a standardized test score.


I think that this qualitative, observant style of assessment isn't more widely adopted because it seems very time consuming when a teacher has 30 students (or maybe even over 100 students in middle school). I think the logistics of assessment is somewhat what determines how it is done in the U.S. It is so much easier to analyze millions of test scores instead of millions of qualitative write-ups. As pre-service teachers I think we should adopt this more all-encompassing view of our students to get a better gauge of our progress and their progress as students. Hopefully our country's students realize that their knowledge is much deeper than a test score, but that they can also feel confident in their knowledge and abilities in order to take these mandatory tests.