Education, RattleBag and Rhubarb

In medicine and education: “The secret of quality is love”

“The secret of quality is love,” Avedis Donabedian, a professor at the University of Michigan’s School of Public Health, expert in the field of quality measurement. That’s a rather remarkable statement from a scientist whose expertise was accountability measures and quality control. It’s from a NYTimes article How Measurement Fails Doctors and Teachers by Robert M. Wachter *. The article is a…

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RattleBag and Rhubarb

Tests that matter: Measuring the PDS Difference

We asked….They told. The High School Survey of Student Engagement (known as the Hessie) is a highly regarded survey measuring the academic, social, and emotional engagement of high school students across the United States. It is administered annually by the Center for Evaluation and Education Policy at Indiana University. Since the survey’s inception, over 500,000 students nationally have participated in…

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Education, RattleBag and Rhubarb

Susan Engel on testing tests

From the NYTimes Scientifically tested tests …there are few indications that the multiple-choice format of a typical test, in which students are quizzed on the specific formulas and bits of information they have memorized that year, actually measures what we need to know about children’s education. Susan Engel was also on The Academic Minute on WAMC this morning.  You can…

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RattleBag and Rhubarb

Heard on the Hustings

“You don’t make a hog fatter by weighing it.” Everyone went to school and that makes everyone an expert on education. And of course, truth is, education must be everyone’s business. Our future depends on it. And apparently the hot education topic on the hustings is the future of the No Child Left Behind Act. The quotation above is from…

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