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I’ve never had a boss who didn’t have a pretty good idea how well I was doing my job. If schools were run along the lines of most workplaces, principals would reward their best teachers and get rid of the worst ones, and no one would question whether they should all be held accountable for the education of their students. Simple common sense said that of course they should.
Reform-minded educators have decreed that the progress of students will be measured by testing and retesting them. There are dangers in this, the chief one being that to facsimilate progress, students will be taught to the tests they will be measured by. But flawed data is better than no data at all. The reformers—many of whom send their children to private schools that reject this kind of incessant testing and skewed teaching—believe that in imposing their tests they are serving the public well.
