Concerned about your child’s behavior at school?  Think he might have ADHD?  Looking for help from the school’s special education program?  A new study reveals that when two groups of primary school children are matched in terms of identical behavioral issues, but one group is diagnosed with ADHD and the other is not, the kids...Read More

Most educators are familiar with at least three different categories of assessments: Formative assessments – which are essentially ”on the fly” assessments that provide a snapshot of where students happen to be with respect to their on-going competence on a subject being assessed; these assessments have been increasingly used over the past two decades; Summative...Read More

In this blog post, I’d like to talk about what they call ‘’value added’’ measures in school reform.  Basically, this means judging teachers according to the standardized test results that their students get over the course of the year.  First, let me say something about the term ‘’value added’’ because at first glance an unassuming...Read More

I’m getting fed up with the term ”data-driven instruction” that I keep hearing and reading about in the educational media.  To help articulate exactly why the word conjures up such a disagreeable sensation in my gut, I’ve listed seven reasons why the word should be stricken from every educator’s vocabulary. ”Data-driven instruction” is a term...Read More

Think of an assessment in school and very likely you’ll think of a teacher handing out some papers with questions on them, and students providing the answers.  In fact, this scenario represents by far the bulk of assessments that teachers give to students.  But, this type of assessment barely scratches the surface of what is...Read More