Does measuring more mean better results?
Policymakers love to tout the results of various standardized tests to prove whatever it is they’d like to prove about schools.
The reality is a bit more complicated – but also, rather simple:
That’s the one actual lesson of NAEP; the dream of data-informed, data-driven decision making as a cure for everything that ails us is just a dream. Data can be useful for those who want to actually look at it. But data is not magical, and in education, it’s fruitless to imagine that data will settle our issues.
