Resources
Book Review
The Heart of the Matter:
Using Standards and Assessments to Learn.
Beverly Falk. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2000.
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The Heart of the Matter begins with a concise history of standardized tests, what they typically demonstrate (which is often what children don't know), their biases, and how they are used and, too often, misused. However, the book is not simply an attack on standardized tests, but rather a call for "assessments in the service of learning." According to Falk, such assessments address important questions such as: Do the assessment tasks mirror real-world work? Is the information useful for instruction? Is evidence about any dimensions of learning provided?
Falk helpfully contrasts "inquiry assessments" and "evaluative assessments." Inquiry assessments "look at students and their work in an open-ended way to find out what they know, how they know, and what their strengths and vulnerabilities are. [They] chronicle students, growth and development through a wide range of lenses or perspectives... [They] aim to reveal a wider range of information about students than those demonstrated by most tests" (p. 41).
Usually carried out in the classroom, inquiry assessments include teacher kept records, student work samples, and student kept records. Falk richly illustrates her discussion of inquiry assessments with samples of student work and teachersâ observational records of students at work. She also considers the role "group inquiry processes," such as the Descriptive Review processes and Collaborative Assessment Conference, can play in the teacher's integration of assessment, instruction, and curriculum. For her, this process should be viewed as a cycle that includes "observing/gathering evidence; recording; reflecting (individually and in networks of other teachers); and implementing" (p. 58).
In turning to more evaluative assessments, Falk treats in detail the problems of standardized testing, as commonly practiced, and calls for "standards-based performance assessments," which "combine some of the features of inquiry assessments with some of the features of the evaluation tests that have been traditionally used for reporting student progress" (p. 64).
"Standards-based assessments are evaluative in that they measure if students know specific facts, possess certain skills, or have command of key concepts. However, they evaluate student learning in ways that are different from those employed by most standardized tests: They look at student learning in relation to standards that have been articulated for the discipline and age level and they evaluate this learning in performance-oriented ways that call on students to apply the knowledge and explain what they understand." (p. 64) The book provides some promising models of standards-based performance assessments, such as the Early Literacy Profile developed in New York State.
Falk argues that the primary purpose of standards and assessments should be to support teaching and learning, and offers both principles for doing so and practical models for schools and teachers to use in creating curriculum plans and assessment instruments, for example, developing rubrics. In her view, teachers should learn more from assessments than just a student's score or grade.
Falk discusses three types of assessment initiatives that impact teacher learning: "teachers assessing student learning by observing, documenting, and collecting their work over time with classroom-based assessment frameworks; teachers scoring student responses to externally administered, standards-based performance tests [like those discussed above]; and teachers examining and validating their own practice by participating in the National Board of Professional Teaching Standards assessment and certification process" (pp. 131-2).
Particularly interesting is the book's consideration of what teachers learn when they evaluate, or "score," student responses to standards-based performance tests. According to Falk, studies of teachers who have been involved in using standards and rubrics in scoring sessions suggest that "the process positively impacts teacher learning in a number of ways [including] helping teachers clarify goals and expectations for their teaching as well as for their studentsâ learning, deepening their knowledge of their discipline, revealing important information about what their students know and can do, and offering overall insights that can be useful to their teaching." (p. 141).
Falk's book provides a powerful argument against standardized testing as it is commonly practiced. More importantly, it presents an alternative, one that integrates appropriately "idiosyncratic" classroom assessment practices and a new vision for "standards-based assessment" that can cut across classrooms and schools. In making her argument, Falk draws on her own experience as school director, researcher, teacher educator, parent and learner. Her argument is grounded in up-to-date research and richly illustrated with examples and models that will be of immediate practical value to teachers, teacher educators and researchers. For educators who regularly review student work with colleagues, it will help to put their work in a wider context of assessment practices.