Investing

What do we use when we choose to invest our money in a company or to buy stocks? When an art student goes on an interview what is it that we see that person carrying? In both cases it is a "portfolio."

Last October I read an article about how difficult it is in some cases for some college admissions offices to choose one candidate over another. The difficulty lay in the fact that the college did not have a portfolio of each candidate and had to rely on tests. I have oftentimes suggested the portfolio/webfolio as a method of assessment and a method all scholars use to show what they can do. These folios would provide important information for all teachers who gets that scholar year after year. The folio would help inform instruction from grade to grade for each scholar and save time for teachers and provide continuity to the scholar. In addition, this folio would be instrumental in the college admissions process or in securing a job. I have always been amazed at how we seem to abandon the real work of each scholar for some test that is really irrelevant to what the scholar has done. The folio also provides us benchmarks over a period of time to show growth or not. The folio is a far better assessment tool than any random test we give. Another major problem is that we constantly assess our scholars one way, the tests, and rarely use another form of assessment. If the youth is so important to our future why don't we use a variety of assessment tools for them as we do for other aspects of our life?

Then as the year was ending I read another article that explained the same problem a different way. The solution was the same, the portfolio/webfolio. The new stupid is continued misuse of data collection and the way in which it is gathered. It still amazes me how the leaders have just not gotten it. Where should we look to find the data? From the scholars themselves, not from test makers and continued stupidity of the wrong tests. When we look to make choices as citizens from contractors to stocks, we always look at a body of work at the portfolio of the service we seek. So why wouldn't teachers want to see what the scholars in their class have done in previous classes? Why wouldn't college admissions offices want to see what these scholars have done in the classroom instead of on some test, neither designed nor graded by the person making the inquiry? Talk about stupid.

In an email correspondence with an educational leader about the plans for assessment for the year, the response, "Lots in flux, looking at standards and assessments broadly. Too early to tell where it shakes out. " This is really not encouraging. We keep hearing about the need to assess and the costs and problems inherent with the current system, the need to rewrite NCLB, and ways to cut costs. Tests that we use cost a lot of money. A portfolio system will not cost a great deal and the return on the investment will be tremendous. We already know what has happened with our poor investments. Portfolios are a good investment in our future.