Here’s my friend, Marcia Kastner’s email blast about her COMMENTARY this week! Thought you’d like to see this.

Before we start to base so much on testing (student, school, and teacher accountability, for starters), let’s be sure that the tests are valid and reliable.

Hello everyone,

 As you know, I’ve written a book titled “TESTING THE TEST:  How to Recognize When Math Tests Are Flawed, How to Fix Them, Why We Should Care.”  If you’ve had a chance to read my book, I hope you’ve found it helpful and informative.  In my book you will see that I feel passionately that math tests must be valid, that is, measure what they were designed to measure about what students know – and don’t know.  Only valid tests give educators accurate information about student achievement, which is absolutely necessary for improving education.

 Unfortunately, I’ve discovered that many national and state standardized tests have flawed math questions that prevent the tests from being valid.  My concern about these tests, as well as the growing emphasis on using test scores for teacher, school, and student accountability by state governments, encouraged me to write an article about this issue.  I am happy to report that my article has just been published as a Commentary titled “Testing the Test” on the back page of the May 11, 2011 issue of Education Week, the premier source of news, information, and analysis on K-12 education!  In the words of the Commentary Editor, my article is “thought-provoking” and discusses a “provocative topic.”  You can read the article on my Web site at http://marciakastner.com/ed-week-commentary_311.html.  Let me know what you think!

 I would like to continue to spread the word about this topic.  Please let me know if there are other outlets or specific organizations and people who would benefit from reading my book or article.

I look forward to hearing from you!

 Thanks,

Marcia Kastner

info@marciakastner.com

www.marciakastner.com

About Miriam

Miriam Kurtzig Freedman, JD, MA—an expert in public education, focused on special education law— is a lawyer, author, speaker, consultant, and reformer. For more than 35 years, Miriam worked with educators, parents, policy makers, and citizens to translate complex legalese into plain English and focus on good practices for children. Now, she focuses her passion on reforming special education, with her new book, Special Education 2.0—Breaking Taboos to Build a NEW Education Law. Presentations include those at the AASA Conference, Orange County (CA), Boston College (MA), CADRE (OR), and the Fordham Institute (DC). Her writings have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Education Week, Education Next, Hoover Digest, The University of Chicago Law Review on line, DianeRavitch.net, and The Atlantic Monthly on line.

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