RE: accountability

Brian Miller wrote:
"In a sense, we are doing what we as educators know is bad education; we are teaching to a test."

I would like us to rethink that sentiment, that became truism among many educators. I would say instead: THERE IS NOTHING INHERENTLY WRONG WITH TEACHING TO THE TEST, AS LONG AS THE TEST REFLECTS WHAT WE EXPECT STUDENTS TO KNOW.

If we accept that, the issue becomes clearer. Calif. has a set of academic standards that reflect what the state believes is important for essentially every student to know. The CST part of STAR reflects these standards. The CST part of START becomes more important piece of API every year, while the norm-referenced part becomes less important. "Teaching to the test" is good in such case - standards and the test are interchangeable in this context.

To put it another way, educators often correctly complain when students are tested on material they have not studied. Surely when the curriculum and the test are aligned, there should be nothing to complain about.