Why School Testing Is Futile

Back from Siberia. I can't blog on my work computer and my iPad hasn't arrived yet, so I've been away for a while. Things didn't seem to improve while I was gone and being quiet was hard.

With all the discussion of education and the issues with funding here in Texas, this blog entry caught my eye. It's basically about the presumed cheating in the DC schools to achieve higher test scores. I've never been enamored with standardized testing when used to judge teachers. In the first place it sets bad incentives and as the blog entry notes, virtually all studies fail to control for variables that may be as important as teacher and administrator's skill: education of parents, income, etc.