Good Enough Evaluation > NCLB

I couldn’t help but scream when Peter Elbow mentioned No Child Left Behind. As someone coming from working at an elementary school, I can’t say how much NCLB has destroyed education. Through ridiculous testing and ludicrous standards (by 2014, the nation will have to have 100% proficiency in both math and reading, which will not happen) NCLB has undermined actual progress toward collapsing the achievement gap and has influenced a few districts to “cook” their scores. I’ve been wary of evaluations and assessments, but I think Elbow’s “Good Enough Evaluation” has quieted my fears.

Right out he refuses to call his evaluations objective, nor does he sink into a postmodern pit of despair. Instead of calling an evaluative practice fair, he suggests we can determine if it is “more fair [or] less fair.” Here he’s got my full attention, since this line of thinking means many practices will have to be tried in order to find a suitable solution: an evaluation of evaluations, if you will.

He lands on an answer: Rubrics. I love rubrics.* When a prof handed me back a paper with the score calculated so neatly for me, I knew what my strengths were and what weakness I had. It helped me address the many dimensions to the writing process and I was able to prepare for my next paper. Clearly defining the expectations for the class is so important and I think the rubric helps to do this. Students will understand what it is that I will be looking for on their papers. An added bonus will be collecting all the scored rubrics and see if a writer has continually had strengths/weaknesses in certain areas of writing that I will be able to address.

The contract seems like a great tool too. I won’t try that out for my first semester, but it is something I want to keep in my pocket. By engaging the students in a contract, the teacher makes it explicit what it is that s/he expects from the students. If approached democratically, the teacher can have the students amend or cut out things they don’t want in the contract. It also emphasizes writing as a process as opposed to a product.

Although I agree with the work that Inoue is doing, I just don’t know if it’s feasible to create a useful community-based assessment within the semester we will have with our freshmen. I do think an English 1000 teacher can implement some of his ideals and can implement some more community-based activities. By setting clear expectations and involving the students, I think we can have effective evaluative methods without creating a monster like NCLB.

*Although I did have the odd moment where I went in to see my TA about a paper he had graded of mine with a rubric. Through using the rubric, he gave my paper an A-, but he told me it should be an A paper. Apparently the rubric wouldn’t let him give me that score. So although I think they are handy, I still have some personal resentment.