Note to NEA RA. More on testing for accountability and teacher evaluation.

In a timely blog post, Dana Goldstein writes.

This is bad instruction informed by test-based accountability. Opposing such accountability policies doesn’t necessarily mean that one in anti-test; rather, it’s important to note that the preferable use of tests is to diagnose the strengths and weaknesses of individual students, so as to better target instruction toward them. When testing policies are set up to punish adults, educators are incentivized to raise test scores at any cost, not to use tests to help better instruct children.