Marc Tucker, president and chief executive officer of the National Center on Education and the Economy, argues in a paper released Thursday that there are several measures to reform the nation’s accountability model – essentially a complete overhaul that includes reducing test-taking in schools and creating a career ladder for teachers, among other suggestions.
“The test-based accountability system now universally mandated in the United States – a system that reflects in every way the blue-collar conception of teaching as an occupation – has had 10 years to prove itself,” Tucker writes. “There is no evidence that it is contributing anything to improved student performance of the very low-income and minority students for which it was in the first instance created.”
Part of that dilemma, Tucker told reporters during a press briefing Wednesday, stems from the fact that upon the enactment of No Child Left Behind, states were required to stretch their testing budgets thin, resulting in more frequent and lower quality tests.