I’ve been reading RTTT stuff and NCLB stuff and Ted Hirschberg’s stuff and value added / growth model stuff…

And what I don’t understand is this:

Where does the certainty that these tests measure what the testers think they do come from?

I’m not being facetious here. I’m really not.

I don’t understand that certainty. I wish I had it about my own ideas. Or maybe I don’t.

I think there’s a danger when you stop thinking that your idea is good and start thinking that it’s True.

I think these people believe that their tests are True. Or that if they keep working on them, they will be.

Education itself is often good, but it’s rarely True.

As my favorite TV president once said, "There are few days with absolute rights and absolute wrongs, and they usually involve body counts."

I fear the body counts that are coming — and are already here — if the current educational leaders in this country don’t stop and realize that what they have are ideas, not truisms.