Description
Has the standards movement in the United States led to improved classroom instruction and effective assessment? In too many cases, the answer is no. As authors Robert J. Marzano and Mark W. Haystead explain, two major reasons account for this situation: state and national standards documents typically identify far more content than teachers can actually teach during a school year, and the standards are not written in a manner that supports effective instruction and assessment.
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Arguing that national standards are not written to support effective instruction and assessment, Marzano (Cardinal Stritch U.) and Haystead propose a way to transform them into usable aids for instruction, with an emphasis on formative assessment in the classroom. They claim that the standards propose too much content and that they mix multiple dimensions in a single statement. They discuss examining standards and designing measurement topics, stating them in the format of a scale, and designing and using formative classroom assessments. They then describe assigning grades using measurement topics. The second section, which forms the bulk of the book, consists of scoring scales for sample measurement topics for language arts, math, science, and social studies in kindergarten through eighth grade, and life skills in kindergarten through 12th grade. No index is provided. Haystead works in standards evaluation at Marzano's company. Annotation ©2008 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
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