An Educational Crisis: The Need for Informal Assessment

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Students are falling through the cracks, being left behind, and are not being educated properly; these are statements we hear every day about our educational system. Attempts have been made to reform and overhaul the educational crisis. However, few have been successful. High expectations are being placed on students to perform well on standardized tests so “no child is left behind” and schools are not labeled as “failures.” This strict discipline of teaching to the test is only harming the quality of education students are receiving. Informal assessment needs to become the primary focus of evaluation rather than formal assessment.

Formal assessment tends to narrow a teacher’s instruction often swaying the teacher to focus primarily on what is going to be on the test. Teaching to the test minimizes the amount of comprehension that is expected of students—focusing more on memorization and hindering the development of higher order thinking, creativity, and critical thinking skills. While the United States has put emphasis on standardized testing with No Child Left Behind, Finland has taken a very different approach. “Finland has not adapted, including standardization of curriculum enforced by frequent external test; narrowing of the curriculum to basic skills in reading and mathematics; reduced use of innovative teaching strategies” (Darling-Hammond, 2010, p.168). This has allowed teachers to widen their range of instruction so that it is not forced to meet the demands of very strict state or national standards. Assessment should be “school based, designed by teachers to evaluate higher-order thinking and performance skills” (Darling-Hammond, p. 167). Informal assessment can do just that by drastically reducing the emp...

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... fair is not always equal. Fair is allowing adequate opportunities for students to demonstrate understanding. All students enter school with different levels of understanding and backgrounds and this should not interfere with their ability to be academically successful.

Works Cited

Brown, G. L., Irving, S., Peterson, E. R., & Hirschfeld, G. F. (2009). Use of Interactive-Informal Assessment Practices: New Zealand Secondary Students' Conceptions of Assessment. Learning And Instruction, 19(2), 97-111.

Darling-Hammond, L. (2010). The flat world and education: How America's commitment to equity will determine our future. New York: Teachers College Press.

Spinelli, C. G. (2008). Addressing the Issue of Cultural and Linguistic Diversity and Assessment: Informal Evaluation Measures for English Language Learners. Reading & Writing Quarterly, 24(1), 101-118.

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