In Reaction to Arne Duncan's Remarks

In reaction to: Beyond the Bubble Tests: The Next Generation of Assessments -- Secretary Arne Duncan's Remarks to State Leaders at Achieve's American Diploma Project Leadership Team Meeting

The article, Beyond the Bubble Tests: The Next Generation of Assessments -- Secretary Arne Duncan's Remarks to State Leaders at Achieve's American Diploma Project Leadership Team Meeting, relates well to our last class discussion, greatly in part to the issues of standardized testing. Many students cannot be accurately tested with norm referenced tests for many reasons. For one, many students get nervous when taking a standardized test, also, the tests are very “black and white” and do not have much dimension or show other higher-order thinking skills that students may possess. These types of assessments serve their purpose mostly for accountability, to prove that it was taught by the teacher, but just as students cannot be accurately assessed with these types of tests, neither can teachers. These types of tests don’t “prove” what other skills or concepts the teacher might have taught.

I think the new “2.0 Assessments” will be a major positive step for Business Education. Recently, funding has been taken away from Business Education programs in schools because they are relying so heavily on what is being tested in the state assessments. The idea of a more well-rounded curriculum that supports not just Math and Reading, but other subject areas as well, is a huge step in the right direction for Business Education. It was even noted in the article that, “The administration has proposed to spend more than a billion dollars to support a well-rounded education in high-need schools—including $265 million in grants to strengthen teaching and learning in the arts, foreign languages, history, civics, and financial literacy.” I was so happy to see the words "financial literacy". This proves that the education administration believes business ed. courses are just as important as the core subjects! I think this will bring more awareness to business education and hopefully shed light on the importance of personal finance and other courses. In the 21st century, students cannot afford to go without these classes, no matter what their future plans are.