Richard’s Educational Technology Blog

I feel like I go against the grain on a daily basis with other educators on the issue of evaluation in education. I want to make the point that evaluation and (dare I say) testing are not inherently evil things. Most of the comments that I hear about No Child Left Behind (NCLB), or other educational data collecting initiatives, are negative. Last week I heard Dr. Winfried Bohm present at BYU. In his presentation he pointed out some limitations with evaluation in education, which I agree with. However, one of his comments was, “You can weigh a cow as many times as you like, the cow will not gain weight’ – things do not improve by evaluation”. This is a comment much like the ones I hear from educators, usually (but not always) from the ones who don’t want to take responsibility for improving the quality of their teaching. I can’t help but thinking that this comment from Bohm is one of the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard! While there are holes in educational evaluation, saying that it hasn’t led to improvements is really milking it for all it’s worth.

Last year I had the opportunity to attend a presentation by Kati Haycock from Education Trust in Washington DC. Her presentation dealt with on the evaluations that have been implemented as part of NCLB. If you haven’t had a chance to look at her presentation yet, please take a minute to look at it (www.byu.edu/mse/resources.html). Haycock, like Bohm, pointed out that there are problems with the current evaluation systems used in schools in the US, however she showed many examples of how data from evaluations helped schools find major gaps in the education they were providing to certain groups. Many minority groups were consistently getting the tail end of the educational system, even though their poor performance was often covered up by high performing majority groups. Concerned school districts were able to fix these problems and give new opportunities to traditionally ignored populations. More important are the findings that show that the one element that makes the difference in a child’s education is the teacher. Many want to say that failure in the classroom comes from a child’s family problems, or health issues, or funding restraints. While those are, or course, important issues, data shows that they are not the factors that make a difference in a child’s learning. We can blame parents or tax-payers all we want, but when it comes down to it, it’s us, the teachers that make the difference. While I feel a little awkward disagreeing with someone as respected as Dr. Bohm, the point he was making with the “weighing a cow” comment was just goofy. Of course you don’t evaluate a student as a method for improving their education – anyone who believes that must live in a barn. But I’m not sure what other way would be better for measuring a student’s performance against a standard than by doing some sort of evaluation. The whole idea is utterly crazy, and certainly not as black & white as he made it sound. I’d love to hear anyone else’s opinion on this issue (and sorry for the cow puns).

This entry was posted on Monday, October 4th, 2004 at 3:58 pm and is filed under Teaching and Learning. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.