Assessment, assessment, assessment.  I don’t think there’s an educator out there that hasn’t gotten their earful of this term.  With AYP and NCLB, we can’t avoid assessments and it’s emphasized in our schools as early as Kindergarten with for example, GKAP.  How disheartening though to know that the initial purpose of assessments and how they are used now are so different.  Instead of using assessments to support student learning and to individualize instruction we now use it to retain them and identify them for special services.  Even worse we use them for school report cards which translates to school funding.  Some of the misconceptions reminded me of Ruby Paine, such as “low-IQ children are mostly non-Anglo and poor” (p. 219).  No wonder our country isn’t near the forefront of literacy, math, and sciences.  Equally disheartening is the fact that these practices of dismissing people who are low SES  and/or of differing cultures and race continues to dominate the popular belief of policy makers.  I do use a lot of alternative assessments in my field and have used portfolios in the past when I taught first grade, but now adays, that’s not enough.  I hope that NCLB gets set aside with the next administration that comes in November but I won’t hold my breath.