Obama calls for Richer Assessments, Teacher Involvement

This week in Nashua, New Hampshire, a teacher named Judy Loftus asked the President what he planned to do about NCLB, and pointed out that it is harming her students. Part of his response is quite intriguing:

Obama: This year is when reauthorization for what’s called No Child Left Behind would be coming up – as part of the broader education legislation that’s up for reauthorization. And what we’re saying there is, on the one hand, we don’t want teachers just teaching to the test, on the other hand, we also want to keep high standards for our kids. And I think the best way to do that is to combine high standards, measurable outcomes, but have an assessment system that you work with teachers on, so that its not just a matter of who’s fillin’ out a bubble and you’re also taking into account where do kid start, because not every kid is going to start at the same place, so you want to see where do they end up (applause) at the end of the year.

I just had a meeting with my team this week about this, trying to find ways that we can improve the assessment system, so we’re still holding schools accountable, we’re still holding teachers accountable, but we’re not JUST holding them accountable for a score on a standardized test, but we have a richer way of assessing whether these schools are making progress.

My thought: So there may be an opening here, first of all, for more authentic measurement of student learning, and second of all, for actual teachers to get involved.

What do you think? What would richer assessments look like for you?