“Teaching is an art form rooted in the wise and careful use of educational research and assessment tools. When government policy makers continue to implement evaluation methods and tools criticized by education professionals they are embarking on a very dangerous nation-wide experiment. Focusing their attention on data collection and high-stakes testing creates the illusion of knowledge and control. It allows people who lack understanding to assert that they have it, when in fact what they are actually putting in place is more like a marketing strategy designed to intentionally bypass the truth. They are misusing scientific measures, ignoring what is actually most important and meaningful, measuring what is not easily quantifiable with numbers…” ~Christopher Chase

The following is a Letter to the Editor which I wrote that was published today (March 11, 205) in Our Town, a local newspaper in Rockland County, New York.

There’s a scene in the film Dead…