Student Assessment

The measurement or assessment of students’ academic achievement lies at the heart of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. Results from such measures, usually tests, are employed for several purposes: the application of schools and school districts for funds from the government to support educational programs, to target students in need of special assistance in school in order to prevent their eventual drop out from school, to provide a basis for planning new programs, and so forth (Griswald, 2005). The purpose of the discussion here is not to cast doubt upon the predictive (i.e., power to account for variance in scores), statistically based effectiveness of achievement testing, either in elementary or in secondary grades in school. Rather, our goal is to provide a broad view of the role of assessment in understanding students’ career in school as the pursuit of knowledge. Measurement of human behavior must follow our conceptions of people’s capacity for mental functioning, and not have education designed by the cannons of measurement.