Jay Mathews of The Washington Post is generally a fan of standards and tests, but in a recent column in Washingtonpost.com he praises Deborah Meier's newest anti-testing book, In Schools We Trust: Creating Communities of Learning in an Era of Testing and Standardization. Meier understands exactly where the standards movement is coming from, Mathews writes, but she believes that holding schools accountable to test scores contradicts what we know about how human beings learn and what tests can and cannot do. He wonders whether the Meier model - with kids learning in small seminars, debating with learned teachers and doing their own research - is realistic, given today's teaching force. "A Champion in the Fight Against Testing Standards," by Jay Mathews, Washingtonpost.com, September 24, 2002.
