Colorado's Education Commissioner takes stock of where we are with high stakes testing

Colorado's Education Commissioner William Moloney declared that standardized testing and longitudinal analysis have at last established a beachhead in Colorado. He does a good job showing how education reform based on rigorous testing was actually introduced by several Democratic governors back in the 1990s. Bush, in his words, "trumped them all" with NCLB.

The point I take from all of this is that this stuff is really hard. We are nearly a decade past the "call to action" he cites and most states still cannot tell what courses individual students have taken or what teachers taught which kids. High stakes tests currently only hold kids accountable in most states and districts. Getting to the place where we can see what works to close gaps and provide predictive support for change will take a considerably more work.

Chris