Diana Pullin

Assessment, equity, and opportunity to learn

Providing all students with a fair opportunity to learn (OTL) is perhaps the most pressing issue facing the U.S. education system. Moving beyond conventional notions of OTL – as access to content, often content tested; access to resources; or access to instructional processes – the authors reconceptualize OTL in terms of interaction among learners and elements of their learning environments. Drawing on sociocultural, sociological, psychometric, and legal perspectives, this book provides historical critique, theory and principles, and concrete examples of practice through which learning, teaching, and assessment can be re-envisioned to support fair OTL for all students. This book offers educators, researchers, and policy analysts new to sociocultural perspectives a readable and engaging introduction to fresh ideas for conceptualizing, enhancing, and assessing OTL; encourages those who already draw on sociocultural resources to focus attention on OTL and assessment; and nurtures collaboration among members of discourse communities who have rarely engaged one another’s work.

Opportunities to Learn in Practice and Identity

The theory of learning in many schools today is based on what I would call the “content fetish” (Gee 2004). The content fetish is the view that any academic area (whether physics, sociology, or history) is composed of a set of facts or a body of information and that the way learning should work is through teaching and testing such facts and information. However, for some current learning theorists, “know” is a verb before it is a noun, “knowledge” (Barsalou 1999a, 1999b; Bereiter and Scardamalia 1993; Clark 1997; Glenberg 1997; Glenberg and Robertson 1999; Lave and Wenger 1991; Rogoff 1990). Any actual domain of knowledge, academic or not, is first and foremost a set of activities (special ways of acting and interacting so as to produce and use knowledge) and experiences (special ways of seeing, valuing, and being in the world). Physicists do physics. They talk physics. And when they are being physicists, they see and value the world in a different way than do non-physicists. The same applies for good anthropologists, linguists, urban planners, army officers, doctors, artists, literary critics, historians, and so on (diSessa 2000; Lave 1996; Ochs, Gonzales, and Jacoby 1996; Shaffer 2004). Yet if much decontextualized, overt information and skill-and-drill on facts does not work as a theory of learning, neither does “anything goes,” “just turn learners loose in rich environments,” “no need for teachers” (Kirschner, Sweller, and Clark 2006). These are the progressive counterpart of the traditionalists’ skill-and-drill, and they, too, are problematic as a theory of learning. Learners are novices, and leaving them to float among rich experiences with no guidance only triggers human beings’ great penchant for finding creative but spurious patterns and generalizations that send them down

Can You Take Dictation? Prescribing Teacher Quality through Testing.

The new teacher testing initiatives present a new opportunity and a new challenge to clarify thinking about the nature of the teaching profession and about the preparation of well-qualified individuals to meet the impending shortage of teachers for the nation’s schools. This article examines recent implementation of the controversial Massachusetts Educator Certification Tests and the educational, legal, and public policy issues in the implementation of a teacher testing program.

Accountability, Autonomy, and Academic Freedom in Educator Preparation Programs

As external pressures on teacher education programs mount, including recent federal critiques and requirements, institutions and their faculty must consider how they will respond to calls for increased accountability. This article discusses the legal and policy issues associated with the academic freedom claims that might arise in the current atmosphere of increased accountability and diminished autonomy for teacher education programs. It assesses the institutional academic freedom interests of both public and private institutions. It also addresses the potential outcome of academic freedom claims by individual faculty.

Social Science and the Courts Challenges and Strategies for Bridging Gaps Between Law and Research

Social scientists collect vital information that bears on issues of education policy. When the courts are faced with an opportunity to make a decision that shapes education, judges need access to high-quality research, but they must also be convinced that it can be useful in their decision making. This article approaches the question of how social science can be made more effective in judicial decision making. The authors examine the use of social science evidence by the courts and the theories of jurisprudence that bear on its effectiveness. As an example of the difficulty of influencing the outcome of a case, they review the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision involving the use of race in school assignments in Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1 (2007).

Chapter 1 – Whose Schools Are These and What Are They for?: The Role of the Rule of Law in Defining Educational Opportunity in American Public Education

Publisher Summary Equity in funding is not the only issue in dispute in the state right-to-education cases. Funding sources aside, the more recent state school finance cases have focused less on the funding patterns for schools and more on the adequacy, or sufficiency, of educational opportunities and outcomes. There is every reason to believe that this is the wave of the future in school finance litigation and, perhaps, state legislation. The focus on asserting a right to an adequate education and on the opportunities required to provide that education may represent a powerful shift in the efforts to define the nature and role of schools. Or the consideration of issues of adequacy may be the point at which the ambiguous dialog over the nature and role of schools may finally break down. If every child is to be the recipient of an adequate education, can there be an agreement on a definition of the nature and content of such education? Is an adequate education for all children the same as the appropriate education people have agreed to provide students with disabilities? And if they can agree on what should be provided, can they agree to provide the resources to make this education available for all children?

Achieving Legal Viability in Personnel Evaluations

Legal viability of an evaluation means that the evaluator can successfully address pertinent legal issues and avoid debilitating legal difficulties in conducting an ethical personnel evaluation and applying its results. While the 1988 Personnel Evaluation Standards contain no specific standard on legal viability, following the document’s twenty-one standards substantially aids evaluators to avoid legal difficulties. Nevertheless, meeting legal viability requirements is becoming increasingly complex and difficult in the face of the expanding role of personnel evaluations in high-stake decisions, including initial and advanced certification, sanctions and rewards, and terminations. Evaluators increasingly need sound, definitive guidance to meet procedural and substantive due process requirements and, in general, to keep their evaluations legally defensible. Eight years of experience in applying the 1988 Standards provides a foundation for developing a specific legal viability standard. This article argues for the inclusion of such a standard in the next edition of The Personnel Evaluation Standards. A prototype standard is presented to help the Joint Committee and its constituents deliberate on this matter.

Debra P. v. Turlington

The educational equity issues presented by the use of minimum competency tests (MCTs) to deny high school diplomas are addressed in Debra P. v. Turlington 1 a lawsuit addressing the state of Florida’s use of a functional literacy examination to determine the award of regular high school diplomas. The litigation provided the first judicial forum for addressing issues concerning the fairness of MCT programs used to make critical determinations about students. In addition, the court decisions entered in the case present new challenges to education and testing professionals concerned about the validity of criterion-reflected tests used to certify a student’s successful completion of a program of elementary and secondary education.

What Counts? Who is Counting? Teacher Education Improvement and Accountability in a Data-Driven Era

This chapter offers an overview of policies for reform and accountability in teacher education, addressing the role of evidence, and the opportunities for improvement within the field of teacher education. It focuses upon efforts to utilize tests or assessments and data-driven methodologies to inform government, the public, and educators. The discussion draws from the manner in which these issues have played out in the United States, to contrast with approaches and opportunities in the Australian context. The unsatisfying outcomes of many past initiatives in the United States point to the need to improve reform and accountability efforts in order to maximize the chances for meaningful change in education. The chapter concludes with a call for reflection and action within teacher education itself, arguing a “window of opportunity” exists, particularly in Australia, to develop a more confident way forward in the context of present reforms.

Assessment, Equity, and Opportunity to Learn: Contents

Providing all students with a fair opportunity to learn (OTL) is perhaps the most pressing issue facing the U.S. education system. Moving beyond conventional notions of OTL – as access to content, often content tested; access to resources; or access to instructional processes – the authors reconceptualize OTL in terms of interaction among learners and elements of their learning environments. Drawing on sociocultural, sociological, psychometric, and legal perspectives, this book provides historical critique, theory and principles, and concrete examples of practice through which learning, teaching, and assessment can be re-envisioned to support fair OTL for all students. This book offers educators, researchers, and policy analysts new to sociocultural perspectives a readable and engaging introduction to fresh ideas for conceptualizing, enhancing, and assessing OTL; encourages those who already draw on sociocultural resources to focus attention on OTL and assessment; and nurtures collaboration among members of discourse communities who have rarely engaged one another’s work.