What to Do When You Catch Your Fillet Mignon Smoking Weed: A Survival Guide

High Steaks, get it?

While Williams does point out a number of flaws in high-stakes-testing, when it comes to assessing assessment he does not go far enough. Assessment is more than a political force; it is an economic one.

Let's talk about the giant duck in the room. ETS, NTE, SAT, SAT 9, ACT, GRE, LSAT, etc., etc., etc., are all money-making forces. These blood-sucking leeches have corrupted and decimated education to the point where- having morphed it into an INDUSTRY of profit and efficiency - education is no longer recognizable. It is in the industry's best interest to find, solicit, and elect politicians whose goals are most closely aligned with their own. As such, the newly forged education industry will doubtless prove a formidible opponent to topple. To maintain profit, it is in their best interest if the status quo does not change and they will fight tooth and nail to make sure it does not.

In the cold detached world of profit, loss, and bottom-line efficiency what room is there for the concerns of the student? Is it any wonder our system is failing? While Williams's discussion of Holistic scoring is well intended - it may even work within the industry to improve students' writing - Williams fails to address the over-arching problem of education as industry.

Students, not profit, should be the focus of any policy aimed at correcting perceived deficiencies in our educational system. To this end, Williams deserves some credit for unearthing some potential focal points for improvement, namely: writing as an incremental process; shifting demographics; class size; teachers working together; teacher pay; and the break down of the family. Williams describes writing as one of the most complex disciplines to assess (297). Therefore, it should follow that any solution for improvement should be equally complex (it should also look to undermine the education industry).

Imagine a world where, for writing, you had the same instructor from beginning to end. From grades 1 to 12. Let's stretch our imagination a bit further by suggesting that not only we have the same instructor, but the same group of 10 - 15 classmates for the same stretch of time(again just for writing). Such an approach might resolve issues of "the break down of family" by creating an environment where a student from a broken household could - at least on some level - substitute family with classroom - and without fear of abandonment. Additionally, by having the same instructor all twelve years, any lack of continuity from grade to grade would be eliminated while simultaneously addressing the issue of writing as an incremental process - the instructor being able to assess the student's entire body of work over a number of years. Of course, keeping records of assessment over such a long period of time is a considerable amount of work, and instructor pay should reflect the additional load. But, perhaps the most radical suggestion for improvement I can offer addresses grading.

I like the concepts of rubrics, student workshops, and teacher as coach. Why not implement these in the system described above, but, instead of earning a grade throughout a semester with a final grade at the end, just have one final assessment upon graduation that looks at the entire body of work? This approach would really put the students' grades in their own hands - where it belongs. At the same time, this approach would stealthily avoid concerns of students' aversion to writing which may result from negative reactions to criticism from a wicked red pen.

Williams raises some interesting concerns, but ultimately falls on the wrong side (or short side) of the issue. My ideas may be radical, but I believe they have merit. What do all of you think?