e-valuation

For those who are doing or are interested in learning more about the MSC evaluation approach, think about signing up for the MSC Yahoo Group.

ETS Test Link is a searchable database that includes tests and measures contributed by both ETS and non-ETS individuals and covering a wide range of content, both cognitive and affective. Many, but not all, are downloadable.

Investment ratings by the big three rating companies (Moody’s, Standard & Poors, Fitch’s) are supposed to be the independent evaluative data that provide potential investors with a sound judgement of where to best put their money. Turns out, though, that Moody’s gave high ratings to AIG just before they were bailed out by the US government, and to Lehmann Bros just before they declared bankruptcy. Also turns out that Moody’s (and the other raters) receive big bucks from the companies they are rating, giving at least the appearance of less than independent evaluation and more cynically giving the appearance that companies buy ratings. Moody’s, on the other hand, blames rogue employees diverting attention from these pecuniary relationships. While there may be some incompetent or unethical evaluators at Moody the suggestion this is a one-off diverts attention from the very fundamental connection that exists within our society between capital and goodness. In his article Blowback (American Journal of Evaluation, Vol. 29, No. 4, 416-426 (2008)), Ernie House illustrates similar entanglements in the drug industry, where the appearance of good science masks profit making.

When good becomes synonymous with profit (which is what happens in neo-liberalism) then evaluation CAN serve the profit making (or the ideology that prizes profit making) which becomes the indicator of good. Evaluation no longer gets left to evaluators ~ the drug industry funds its own clinical trials and the capitalists fund their own rating systems to support their end goals. This scenario creeps into educational and social programming evaluation and should set off alarm bells.

It may be a little comforting to see the value of Moody stock dropping.

There is no reason to be surprised that Obama continues with his teacher pay for results mantra, and he now adds the expansion of charter schools. There is much babble about “data driven” decisions, but as always the devil is in the data. Apparently Obama hasn’t bothered to look very closely at the research on charter schools, which in general should not give any policy maker comfort in giving the nod to the expansion of these publicly funded ‘private’ schools. Overall, student test scores are lower in charter schools. And, where are the data that point clearly to a connection between forms of teacher compensation and improvements in student learning?

I’m not sure what the NEW culture of accountability is meant to be, but I am guessing that this new culture has all the potential to be scarier and more destructive than the old culture. The Clinton and Bush administrations have buried American education deep under neoliberal regulatory accountability. The NEW culture seems to be about more not different, with even more regulatory requirements driven by the “yes, you can” experiences Obama identifies as the sources of his own success (those fabulous early morning tutoring sessions with his mother).

There is nothing to give one optimism here, and whatever good Obama might do for the country is not going to manifest itself in improvements to education and schooling under these plans.

Here are links to a couple of Jerry Bracey pieces in the Huffington Post that point to the hypocrisy and sophistry in Obama’s education plan.

Bracey #1

Bracey #2

The debate about what IQ scores mean and whether differences between groups are meaningful continues in spite of evidence that environment makes a huge difference. Richard Nisbett gives a nice short and lucid account of the matter in this article.

For there is nothing either good or bad, thinking makes it so.

William Shakespeare

The only man who behaves sensibly is my tailor; he takes my measurements anew every time he sees me, while all the rest go on with their old measurements and expect me to fit them.

George Bernard Shaw