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From online teacher collaboratives and student test prep sites to digital report cards and data mining software, technology is coming to the aid
of educators charged with assessing student progress as never before.
During the 1990s, much national attention was focused on improving K-12 education by setting goals for a new millennium. National, state, and local standards committees were convened to discuss what students should know, at what ages, and to what levels of mastery. Although the details will undoubtedly evolve-in fact, must evolve-in response to changing times, many important decisions have been made in recent years about standards to be taught and measured.
Now we have moved on to the hard part-ensuring that all students meet these rigorous new standards. Teachers continue to immerse themselves in the process of locating instructional materials and approaches that address the standards and meet the learning needs of all their students. Administrators are grappling with the challenges of tracking and managing student and teacher data in a way that monitors progress and informs decision making. Politicians, parents, and other stakeholders are demanding helpful and precise information about the progress of individuals, schools, and districts. And we are all continuing to debate the value of different assessment tools to measure not only some but all of the standards we have set out for ourselves.
The age of accountability is definitely here. And technology is playing a central role in helping with the challenges it presents.
Testing Fever
Although most educators would agree that a rich array of assessment tools and data sources are needed to measure a school's progress, standardized testing has taken center stage. Ironically, while colleges debate the idea of abandoning SAT scores as a way of screening incoming students, K-12 decision makers are moving rather rapidly in the opposite direction. As of 2001, 49 states required public schools to administer standardized tests, and 39 had plans to use these tests for high-stakes decisions such as student promotion, high school graduation, or educator salaries.
Even those with serious misgivings about the value of standardized tests to measure important elements of student achievement seem resigned to the need to help students respond to the challenge the tests offer. Just as teenagers still being judged by their...