As many of you have heard, there may have been wide spread cheating committed by teachers and administers in the Atlanta Public School District according to reports. The scandal involves teachers and administration changing the incorrect answers students gave on standardized tests to the correct answers in an effort to improve the district's test scores. Although it may take months (perhaps years) for the particulars of the alleged scandal to become public, the situation brings up several pertinent questions about how we measure competency in the classroom.

It has become increasingly common to use standardize tests to measure student progress and to evaluate teachers. The issues with this might be that it is strictly a quantitative measure, which fails to account for many of the subtle nuances and complexities that take place in a classroom environment. The method of standardize test scores can, however, be used as a codified measure of progress when test scores are compared with previous years' scores.

Teaching is a difficult thing to measure as there are both qualitative and quantitative aspects to the art and science of teaching - in my opinion teaching is both an art and a science. Although we want to make sure our students make progress year-on-year, measuring this is problematic. Measuring progress can be difficult in a single classroom and this problem can exacerbate as measurements extend to district and statewide parameters. My question for everyone in the blogosphere is how do you measure student progress in your classrooms? What do you believe is the best method: qualitative, qualitative, mix-methods, or do we need to develop a new method to measure student progress? 

Thanks, 

Eric