Measuring Up: What Educational Testing Really Tells Us

by Daniel Koretz

I strongly support the goal of improved accountability in public education. I saw the need for it when I was myself an elementary school and junior high school teacher, many years ago. I certainly saw it as the parent of two children in school. Nothing in more than a quarter century of education research has led me to change my mind on this point. And it seems clear that student achievement must be one of the most important things for which educators and school systems should be accountable. However, we need an effective system of accountability, one that maximizes real gains and minimizes bogus gains and other negative side effects. We need a system analogous to an FDA-approved drug: both effective and safe. All that we have seen so far tells us that the simple test-based accountability systems we use now do not meet this standard.

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