This post was mentioned on Twitter by kriley19: Joanne Jacobs: Portfolio assessment inflates scores http://bit.ly/89gc2G Full http://bit.ly/6ZvK55...

No one in real life takes a test. They all write reports and create portfolios, so that’s what our kids should be learning.

If you insist on a **standardized**, a “Multiple Guess”, no-think test, kids will all fail – that just shows how bad those tests are. It’s all rote memorization and everyone knows how bad THOSE teachers are. Portfolios allow kids to be Critical Thinkers and show off their 21st Century Skills. Standardized tests are like the 18th century, factory model of schools.

I can’t believe anyone is so stupid as to think that lazy teachers would choose the better system. They don’t want to do any work during their 4 hour days while they’re paid $200,000 for only working for half the year – 180 days out of 365 is even less than half!!!!!

heh.

Gotcha.

Hey… maybe we can do that! Just look at people’s grades and if they’re high enough, we’ll give the school rewards.

Yeah. Let’s see how that works out.

While there is considerable room for subjectivity in these individually determined portfolio assessments, particularly in defining goals, they likely have a legitimate role for students with severe cognitive disabilities whose IEPs differ significantly from the state’s academic standards–students whose goals have to do with primary communication and mobility issues, for instance. When used in this manner and with this population, we need to be vigilant that rigorous and meaningful goals are set and appropriately measured.

For many other students with disabilities, we need to change our thinking away from that which equates disability with “slow” and expects that it is reasonable to simply lower the bar and turn out a population that has been instructed several grade levels below that of their typical peers.