Kevin Bushweller, Project Editor, Education Week
May 8, 2003
Among the annual series of tabloid-size publications from the editors of Education Week is one devoted to technology. The newly released 2003 edition focuses on computer-adaptive testing and other ways of harnessing technology to the challenges of assessment. Though not exactly gripping, it's informative, especially regarding computer-assisted grading of essays and the pushes and pulls exerted by No Child Left Behind. (It turns out to be quite a challenge to do efficient computer-adaptive testing when everybody's results must be scored against a single standard.) There is much information about the extent of states' technological preparedness and, as always, some troubling gaps appear. For example, several western states have their students-to-instructional-computers ratio down below 3, while in California, Alabama, Nevada, and Louisiana it's above 5. Several states assert that, in every one of their public schools, at least half the teachers have (school-based) email addresses, while in New York and Massachusetts that's the case in fewer than two-thirds of the schools. This is more a reference work than report or study, but you may want your own copy if you don't already have one. For further information, surf to http://www.edweek.org/sreports/TC03/article.cfm?slug=35exec.h22.
