The more I work on this Douglass project, and the deeper I get with my QCC/GPS comparisons, the more anxious I become to see the real curriculum, the thing we really have to teach, and by that of course I mean the CRCT [Criterion-Referenced Competency Test], because we won’t know what the state really wants to have happen in the classroom until we know what it is they’re generating standardized tests on.
They can give us interesting performance standards, suggested tasks, and examples of student work all they want, but if their CRCTs don’t reflect a performance-based instructional outlook, they’re not going to get that in the classroom. No one in his right mind would strike out into performance assessment knowing that students are going to be quizzed on discrete facts. And that’s a fact.