credit: learningtrust.org

At the end of May, 2013, I began what would turn into a four part series on the problem of mandatory, high stakes testing in education. Much has changed since that series. I’ll provide links for the original series at the end of this article, but the series that begins with this article is substantially updated. As is always the case, I don’t know where the series–and the interests of readers–will take me. I simply hope I can provide some useful and thought-provoking ideas.

The school year is drawing to a close.  It’s always a bittersweet time.  It is good to bring the year to a close, to finish all that we’ve worked on for a year and to take some small satisfaction in all we’ve learned.  But it’s a sad time as well, for all too soon, each of my classes, made up of all of…