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Lesson 05: Teacher Inquiry: What Counts as Evidence?
What Counts as Evidence?
Currently, certain kinds of evidence “count” with policymakers, politicians, taxpayers, and the media. Specifically, student scores on high-stakes standardized tests are among the most valued evidence used to measure standards-based outcomes and school success. Within Campbell’s Law, Campbell noted that social policies with high stakes attached tend to corrupt implementation and ultimately hurt those the policy is intended to help.
Since test scores are an all-important measure, many types of potentially useful evidence either do not count or count for less among policymakers, politicians, and the media. For example, student portfolios, once seen as an effective tool for assessment, do not count in policy-making circles because we cannot establish norms in accordance with social science standards. Teacher observations may also be rich sources of evidence, but again, are not scientific; they are too idiosyncratic to the teacher, too susceptible to bias, and too context-based. Project-based demonstrations of understanding may also be rich and descriptive sources of evidence of student learning, but they have not been standardized in any way that could make them a meaningful measure for policy purposes.
The result is that our measures of learning and progress have to be standardized and scientific to use as data in an educational policy. When we work to provide evidence on a large scale, such as within states, we tend to look for evidence that is cheap and easy to create, like a test score. We could find ways to standardize portfolio assessment or performances of understanding, but those ways would be complex and expensive, thus disincentivizing policymakers from building them into educational policy.
Teachers can improve their practice using a variety of evidence discovered through the inquiry process. This evidence, while valued by the teachers, may not be valued by the state and federal policymakers who are the ones who determine what counts according to the governmental sources that fund public education.
Applied Learning
To check your understanding, summarize the major concepts associated with the question “What counts as evidence?” as described here, and consider how this applies, or not, to leadership practices in your school.
Note: There is nothing to submit. This is a formative assessment for you to gauge your understanding of the content. If you have questions, please email your instructor or post in the Raise Your Hand forum.