The Answer Sheet: using standardized tests for high stakes decisions

A Columbia University teacher writes about the problems with our faith our standardized test scores: "Yes, we 'just' need better tests. But creating better tests is very hard and very expensive. And in a system as vast and complex as ours, it’ll be tempting to continue using tests that can be graded quickly and that don’t look very different from the ones we now use. But without a radically different approach to standardized testing in this country, we are unlikely to get different results."