Leadership Strategies for Assessment Reform: Dancing with an Octopus

Lambert, Leslie T., JOPERD--The Journal of Physical Education, Recreation & Dance

Several years ago I heard the simile "like dancing with an octopus." It stayed in my mind and has often resurfaced as I studied educational reform and wrestled with its many challenges in my own work. At times, the arms of the octopus stretch out in all directions and become a confused tangle. Educational reform creates, at once, invigorating and unsettling feelings. I am filled with the excitement of inventing something new and the uncertainty of stepping into uncharted territory.

The late 1980s and 1990s have brought rapid, unprecedented challenges to education, requiring us to rethink and revisualize our practices. This is not the first time American education has been restructured - for example, in the 1890s, urbanization, industrialization, and immigration precipitated dramatic changes in the schools. Educators fashioned the reform initiatives of that era, following the philosophy of Rousseau and the Progressive movement mantra of John Dewey. Nearly a century later in 1983, the infamous A Nation at Risk report (1983) called for school reform, while John Goodlad's A Place Called School (1984) provided a dismal overview of the shortcomings of curriculum and teaching. Again, there were educational reformers on the forefront - Theodore Sizer, John Goodlad, Grant Wiggins. This time, educators were not the only ones to follow the lead of education reformers. Indeed, the reform initiatives have been championed by the business community.

As a result of the educational reform agenda of the past decade or more, many aspects of the educational enterprise are in metamorphosis (e.g., curriculum, assessment, beliefs about learning and instruction, school schedules, calendars). One of the most significant challenges has been apparent in assessment. With the business community heavily involved in the current restructuring movement, models of accountability and benchmark assessment have been widely used. Often, assessment reform has become a catalyst for other changes, precipitating new ways of thinking about and doing business in the schools and causing the "abandonment of the conventions that brought us to this point" (Peters, 1994, p. 3). Changes have occurred in curriculum form and function; instructional methods have become more congruent with learning theory; the functions of the school itself have begun to transform.

With assessment reform has come a new vocabulary - standards, benchmarks, outcome assessment, performance assessment, authentic …

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Publication information: Article title: Leadership Strategies for Assessment Reform: Dancing with an Octopus. Contributors: Lambert, Leslie T. - Author. Journal title: JOPERD--The Journal of Physical Education, Recreation & Dance. Volume: 67. Issue: 7 Publication date: September 1996. Page number: 40+. © 2009 American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance (AAHPERD). COPYRIGHT 1996 Gale Group.

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