Who will lead on assessment innovation?

10 May Who will lead on assessment innovation?

By Dale Chu

“There go the people. I must follow them for I am their leader.”

— Alexandre Auguste Ledru-Rollin                                                                              

One of the few things that have become increasingly clear in the fog of the standardized testing debate is the glaring lack of leadership from education officials: state, national, or otherwise. Indeed, in an interview I did with FutureEd’s Lynn Olson a few years ago, she suggested this was a problem in light of the state of disarray in testing:

[I’m] surprised by how fragmented the state testing landscape has become, particularly given the desire among states in the past decade to collaborate on high-quality, standards-aligned assessments that would do a better job of demonstrating what students know and can do.

From the collapse of PARCC to the complexities of K-12 testing, this fragmentation has its roots in many sources, but none may be more culpable than the failure of state and national leaders to actually lead on the issue. At the risk of sounding trite, the absence of leadership is all the more agonizing following two years of Covid-disrupted learning.

I’ve written previously on how U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona and his team at the Department of Education are uniquely positioned to fill this void. Although it remains to be seen if he’ll wholeheartedly embrace the challenge of pushing for better assessment systems while safeguarding the equity guardrails provided by today’s standardized tests, a recent comment of his raised eyebrows. In response to a question Cardona was asked about how state test scores this spring might reflect poorly upon schools, he had only this to offer: “I want to take it a step further. Some are waiting for that data to then try to create a picture because their plan is to privatize.”

To be fair, if testing this spring continues to paint a lousy picture of student performance, some may seize it as another reason to bash traditional public schools. But were Cardona’s seemingly impromptu remarks on testing an intentional and deliberate shift in messaging from the Department, or were they, in hindsight, not very well considered or thought out?

Regardless, Cardona hasn’t had an easy go of it of late. But when it comes to testing at least, he still has an opportunity to lead from the front if that’s where he wants to be. It certainly could go a long way towards stiffening the backs of many state leaders who are looking to him and his team for direction.