That is the main reason we are moving to electronic portfolios in our district. We want our students AND teachers to be able to share who they really are and what they really know outside of a test score.

As for a legitimate alternative to a standardized test, Texas tried one out and it worked very well. They called it Performance Standards Project. You can find more about it here: http://www.texaspsp.org/

The funny thing about the Texas PSP was that it was meant for gifted students only, with the underlying belief these kids are wasting their time on multiple choice tests, which most of them are. All students, especially the lower students, would have benefited from this type of assessment. Basically, it was PBL where the student generated a project for final assessment by a panel locally and then another at the state level. Genuine learning and assessment. But, as you pointed out, it is expensive. It did not last past the pilot term. The site is still active so schools can utilize it, but I believe it has been a few years since it has been updated.

That type of assessment is what pre-service teachers need to be seeing during internships and apprenticeships. It is real-life PBL, and the mentor gets to see firsthand how the student handles it. But I’m sure that is a dream world since money gets in the way.

I appreciate your perspective.

With regards to pre-service teachers, I went through a similar experience. I was in a class of 30 chosen from over 200 applicants. We were chosen largely on the basis of an interview rather than our test scores. That’s a lot more expensive and time consuming than taking the top scores.

As someone who teaches pre-service teachers, I can usually tell within a few weeks who is going to be a great teacher. Not that the others will not, but it’s just not as evident. So yes, I can tell when I see it.

The issue you address about recognizing the flaws of standardized testing or testing of almost any nature is that while most see the flaws, the attitude of “nonetheless” is usually the default response.

Because good assessment is expensive, we rely on poor data or at least limited data to base many decisions upon. I recently sat in on meeting with our Ministry (the equivalent of your state officials) where we looked at our district goals and outcomes. I asked the question, “how do we tell our story of learning using qualitative data that addresses more than test scores?” While they agreed that might be useful, they weren’t sure how we do that. As usual, that kind of data doesn’t fit nicely into a cell on a spreadsheet.