Joy to the world!

The word assessment arouses a variety of responses in teachers and students, but it is safe to say that none of them are happy ones. For some it represents a punishing ordeal, for others an indictment of their faults or defects, and for still others, the oppressive weight of an inhumane and usually highly-technologized administrative mandate. Results are used to celebrate a tiny fraction of the privileged while confronting the rest with their inherent “inadequacies,” insufficient “effort,” and lack of status. Posing behind a facade of “objectivity,” and “standards,” judgments are made that derail lives, create suffering, and reify social inequalities. It is costly, labor-intensive, and punishing. And all of this is entirely unnecessary(...more)