Parsing the portfolio policy
My post about Obama surrogate Melody Barnes’s embrace of student portfolios is causing concern within the edusphere. Eduflack notes that “Retreads of failed experiments are certainly not innovations in education improvement.” Robert Pondiscio at the Core Knowledge Blog pleads “Say it ain’t so, O,” and argues that “portfolios were found to be completely unreliable as large-scale accountability measures years ago.”
But Michele McNeil, a bona fide reporter, insists on Education Week’s Campaign K-12 blog that this position is neither new nor newsworthy.
We’ve heard Obama’s many advisers talk about portfolios before, and in August, Obama himself at a campaign event in Virginia said: “We should come up with teachers, what are the best ways to assess performance. You know, peer review, portfolios, or a mix of things that help us evaluate. And are we measuring progress during the course of a year.” In November during one of his first big education policy speeches in New Hampshire, he held up one school district’s use of “digital portfolios” as a model of how to reform assessments. And here, the American Prospect blog makes mention of Obama’s support for student portfolios.
I’m almost positive that McNeil’s first mention of portfolios (from the “campaign event in Virginia”) is referring to teacher portfolios, in the context of a pay-for-performance plan. But point taken about student portfolios; now I’m more alarmed than ever.
Still, here’s the question: does Obama support “testing-plus”–standardized tests as we currently know them, plus additional “indicators” such as portfolios? Or does he want portfolios instead of tests? McNeil thinks it’s the former:
Here’s my own transcription of what she said (and you can listen to the full show here, with the portfolio discussion around minute 22): “We have to deploy and employ the proper kinds of assessments…portfolios for example and other forms of assessments that may be a little bit more expensive but they are allowing us to make sure children are getting the proper analytic kinds of tools.” Asked to clarify what she means by portfolios, Barnes says: “we’re talking about tests that require children to assess their entire year … to put together through writing and through speaking…we’re looking at language skills as well as writing skills to get a sense of how well they’ve learned their lessons.”
My reading of this isn’t that Obama wants to “dump” testing, but to reform it and include alternative ways of testing kids, such as portfolios.
Reading the same lines, I respectfully disagree with McNeil. It still sounds to me that Barnes is talking about portfolios instead of standardized tests, even if she uses the word “test” to describe portfolios.
But rather than making us parse words, perhaps the Obama campaign could clarify: are you in favor of continuing standardized testing under NCLB, or not? Maybe Obama education adviser Linda Darling-Hammond will give us an answer at tonight’s debate.
Related posts:
- Another Ohio ed professor throws the baby out with the bathwater
- Re: A victory for the School Bankruptcy Theory of Education Reform!
You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
October 22nd, 2008 at 9:41 am
I’m hoping that after her performance in last night’s debate Darling-Hammond won’t be the pick for Secretary of Education.
October 22nd, 2008 at 9:59 am
re: portfolio assessment
I was particularly put off by Darling-Hammond’s constant reference to the high-faluting essay exams students must pass in Europe and Asia. Her implicit point seemed to be that essay exams given to exiting high school students in the UK are the equivalent of the portfolio assessments she would apparently like to see given to all children of all ages in U.S. public schools.
It is simply false to assert that essays are by definition a better measure of critical thinking, inquiry, “21st century skills,” and all the rest of the folderol our children must endure to make it through 13 years of public schooling.
Darling-Hammond should take a practice SAT test and come back to us with that claim.
Last year my husband, a history professor at NYU, took one part of a practice SAT-V test: a passage on the history of American Indians. As I recall, it was a passage on historiography.
He got all the answers right, as you would expect, but the interesting aspect of this experience was the fact that he did not find the questions trivial, simple, or even particularly “easy.” The reading level of the passage and the 4 answers was advanced college level and he took all of the allotted time to read and choose his answers.
The SAT-V is a serious test of very high-level reading and reasoning skills.
And it is multiple choice.