A Response to Life in the Classroom—Assessment By Teachers, For Learning by Bernie Froese-Germain
Overall, this was a great, informative article. It reminds the reader of the ongoing struggle between the government and the teaching profession in regards to the types of assessment which should be used in schools.
It seems to me that this controversy exists because the two sides (government and teachers) want to be using assessment for the same purposes but with different approaches. Both parties seem to be concerned with assessing student learning. Both standardized testing and classroom-based testing have their strengths so I don`t think that all of one and none of the other is a practical solution. Both governments and teachers seem to be interested in using student assessment as a method of gauging the effectiveness of teaching.The difference here is that some governments believe that such large-scale tests can be used to evaluate teacher performance on an teacher-by-teacher basis. Teachers, on the other hand., believe that classroom assessment is the proper way to gauge the effectiveness of learning. The article goes on to explain how many teachers in the profession are thinking about or have already left the profession because so much pressure is put on the teachers to have their students perform well on standardized tests that teachers are having to neglect teaching the curriculum in order to focus on the student`s skills in taking tests. I believe that where the `stakes`are high enough (jobs or pay could be lost) that standardized testing becomes counter-productive.
I think overall this was a very well written article, and gives good range of views on assessment from a number of countries.
