Grant Wiggins, Director of Educational Research and Development for CLASS (Consultants for Learning, Assessment and School Structure) in Rochester, NY, talks about why it is beneficial for community members to be educated about and aware of school assessment activities. Excerpted from the video series Restructing to Promote Learning in America's Schools, videoconference #4, Multidimensional Assessment: Strategies for the Classroom (NCREL, 1990).
"So I think it's in fact very important to get the community involved, because I think they're more anxious both to participate in some of these things, in fact in many performance based assessments, community members are brought in as outside expert witnesses in their field to serve on some of these boards, and it's awfully good public relations, it enables you to have a better articulation of the larger world and its needs and standards with the school world. I think there's tremendous potential for community involvement because right now folks don't understand assessment at all, and it's one reason why parents just want test score numbers in the newspaper. I think they only want that because they don't really understand assessment in the way that we now purvey it."
Date posted: 1995