How timely and useful is the information teachers receive from the tests mandated by NCLB?
Not very. Most high-stakes testing occurs in the spring and results are not available until after school begins the following fall. By then students have moved on to the next grade, often to a different school. When testing occurs in the fall, the test focuses on content covered the previous year. When the fall test results are received later that year, they have little relevance to the content and skills being taught in the current grade. Proponents of NCLB testing claim that the tests provide accurate diagnostic information that can help teachers improve and individualize their instruction. The tests can tell teachers that a student is not doing well in mathematics – something they already know—but not why. Put simply, high-stakes tests are not built to provide diagnostic information in a timely manner. Q. What other assessment technologies can be used to help teachers tailor their instruction? Today’s high-stakes tests generally contain forty to sixty items sampling knowledge and sk
