The Future of Testing in The State Of Michigan
Is this the last year for the M-STEP?
As standardized testing season gets underway in Michigan many are left to wonder if the M-STEP is a useful tool in measuring educational progress. The state’s top education official has proposed replacing the M-STEP with yet another standardized test.
Detroit Today host Stephen Henderson talks to Dr. Rod Rock, superintendent of Clarkston Community Schools about the effectiveness of standardized testing in Michigan.
Rock believes that, “when we look at our students we know that there are multiple ways to greatness and we think about one standardized test that’s supposed to measure all of those ways, it’s very inaccurate and inadequate in my mind in doing so, and marginalizes too many students who are in fact brilliant in many ways but can’t show us in that standardized test.”
Rock tells Henderson that, “…tests drive curriculum and it should be the other way around.”
He elaborated further saying that standardized testing needs to figure out, “How can we observe students doing the things they’re doing as knowledgeable people and educated people and determine what it is they know…as opposed to what they don’t know and then build upon those and help students feel good about themselves.”
Click on the audio link above to hear the entire conversation.
