What Counts as Assessment in the 21st Century?
here's an interesting read by by Ken Buckman In recent years,there has been an ocean of ink poured over page upon page concerning the topic of assessment. I’m a philosophy professor in Texas where assessment seems to have its epicenter, so I think I have a unique perspective on the topic. Not only is assessment on the march due to misguided Texas legislative initiatives, not only is the Governor of Texas,Rick Perry,pushing an agenda of assessment and standardization,but the man who chaired U.S.Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings’s Commission on the Future of Higher Education,Charles Miller,is in the vanguard of the advocates of assessment and is himself from Texas. Assessment is one of those wonderful buzzwords that receivetraction every few years,accumulating a bandwagon of popular sentiment,but which remains so vapid and ill defined that it really has no meaning at all—except that it does have consequences. One serious consequence is that assessment often equates with sta...