RE: Assessments

I agree wholeheartedly. The whole idea of norm-referenced testing and deciles is a prescription for failure and blaming the victim. Standards are one thing. Every single student in CA can and hopefully will meet or exceed standards -- yet on a norm-referenced test, scored by deciles or quintiles, half the students and likely half the schools would still be "below norm" or average.

On another related topic, assessment of student learning in adult education is a constant process, daily and hourly, because generally speaking, our students can 'walk' at any moment, we have open entry/open exit programs in which attendance is purely voluntary for the overwhelming majority of students. Therefore, teachers -- and students -- must be constantly aware of what students are learning, what they're not getting. If we don't meet their needs, if they don't get results for their hard efforts, if they don;t understand why they are learning what they're learning, they can and will leave.