Of course, remediating with summerschool only requires *some* standardized testing. I don’t know that testing many times per grading period would help, but I now see how it helps to have standardized testing.

Thanks, wally!

That is significant because many people, myself included, skated through school without correcting some serious deficiencies in our basic skills. (Like spelling and grammar usage.)

That was possible simply because there was no one holding the schools accountable. Granted, it would have been much more painful for me in high school if I couldn’t have just muddled my way through English without actually learning anything. But perhaps if we had been required to take objective, standardized tests I wouldn’t have needed 3 semesters of remedial English in college.
(Indiana University taught me high school English, the hard way.)

By comparison, my daughter failed the math portion of her ISTEP test last year, and the school had no choice but to provide summer school classes for her in math. She had to take a math class that lasted for four hours a day, five days a week, for six weeks. But in the end she learned the material and is now better at Algebra than her older brother who managed to just get past the test.

It is the remediation that makes testing plans work, not the test itself. I didn’t used to believe that. Now I do.