RE: Accountability vs. Testing

I think something important to keep in mind, with both testing/assessment and accountability, is that we need to strengthen the idea of accountability for success rather than for failure. Standards and expectations should be high, and students should be encouraged, motivated, and SUPPORTED to succeed and achieve together, as well as "expected" to do so. Education is not a zero-sum game, though most of the current norm-referenced testing makes it so, with certain percentages condemned to be losers and inferiors. Then the blame game and finger-pointing begins, and accountability means certains students, teachers, parents, administrators, schools and communities are going to be "held accountable" -- read BLAMED -- for "failure." One of the things you come to learn in adult education is the tremendous learning potential, and the tremendous commitment to obtaining a real, meaningful education, possessed by all kinds of people in every walk of life. These are often people who have been written off, people who never got past the 3rd grade. "Comparison" testing a la the SAT9, which purports to compare apples and oranges, shows us nothing more than the socio-economic privileges or disadvantages of various large communities in our state. Assessment and accountability are really something else entirely. Assessment should aimed at helping the learner (and the teacher) see what has been mastered or absorbed, and what needs more work, better or different instruction etc. It must be on-going and closely connected with learning, not some disconnected and abstract culmination, dreaded mostly as a potential blot on a school, teacher's or student's record.