How Involved Should Teachers be in Testing?

Education Week article on proposed new assessements states:

Raising an issue that has proved controversial in the past, several of the panelists invited by the Education Department to testify said that teachers should be intimately involved in the design of those tasks, even to the point of contributing to the scoring process.

“What we have found in the use of our testing program is that people become very familiar with what the standards are for their particular area of the curriculum,” said Jim Dueck, the assistant deputy minister of accountability and reporting in the Canadian province of Alberta, which relies on panels of teachers to score parts of its grade 12 tests.

Greater teacher involvement also creates better opportunities for professional development and teacher buy-in, said Jeff Nellhaus, the commissioner of education for Massachusetts.

“Teachers end up being the best ambassadors of your [testing] program when it’s being criticized,” Mr. Nellhaus said. “Having teachers involved in item development, [and] scoring of performance tasks, to the extent feasible, is critical to ensuring the quality, transparency, and integrity of the system.”

For complete article see:
Funding for Common Assessments Poses Challenge
By Stephen Sawchuk,
Published Online by Education Week: November 13, 2009

http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2009/11/13/12stim-assess.h29.html?tkn=U[VFkW5xkQtThTGw9Sr%2BXmy2JFDKXZA5%2FaEz