From the mouth of a colleague

“In three weeks, we gave PARCC, AIMSWEB and MAP tests and a unit test. We probably gave a CFA, too!” My coworker said.

The mind does boggle. For readers who don’t know, PARCC is the new attempt at a standardized, common core-based, national achievement test. AIMSWEB and MAP are benchmark tests to track student growth through the year. The unit test was a math test, very loosely based on what we had been able to teach. (We tried to teach to that test, but there wasn’t enough time.) A CFA is a common formative assessment, otherwise known as the weekly quiz that frequently took most of my 82 minute teaching block for some students, although others happily blasted through that quiz, not necessarily because they knew the answers.