Making Sense Of Test Scores in the Trump Era -- Without The Politics

Education On The Line

Educators are barraged with a range of test scores from K-12 schools that are often confusing and seem to conflict with each other. Some show students improving. Others show the opposite.

Listen to Linda Darling-Hammond and Pedro Noguera, two of the nation's premier education scholars and advocates, make the case for why we need tests --- not as weapons to label and stigmatize students and schools, but as tools to improve learning.

Darling-Hammond, founder and Chief Knowledge Officer of the Learning Policy Institute, and chair of the California State Board of Education, points to latest test results showing improvements in California, as well as in districts who are beating the odds like Los Angeles and Compton Unified. An overemphasis on tests, she says, has meant less emphasis on higher-level thinking in our schools. Noguera, Dean of the USC Rossier School of Education, argues that we should pay more attention to learning itself and how to get kids engaged and motivated.

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1. Beyond Confusion: What Tests Tell Us (00:00:00)

2. Do Tests Matter And Why? (00:03:05)

3. NAEP, State Exams, And PISA Explained (00:05:20)

4. Why "Proficiency" On Tests Is Not the Same As "Grade Level" (00:10:20)

5. Beyond Averages: Using Tests to Inform Teaching (00:14:10)

6. Districts In Low Income Communities Show Improvements Are Possible (00:18:30)

7. Engagement, Extended Learning, And Pathways (00:23:20)

8. Does Smart Phone Use in Schools Affect Test Scores? (00:28:00)

9. Broadening Definition of Success Beyond Test Scores (00:32:40)

10. Accountability That Improves Practice (00:37:20)

11. What’s On The Test Matters (00:41:30)