Round up the anti-testing nutters

WaPo rounds up all the anti-testing nutters to give their opinions in Putting assessments to the test. Conspicuously absent is anyone defending the opposing viewpoint. Not exactly fair and balanced.

Then we get a related story on the DIBELS test in which we get more slanted views. In this case, we get the comically slanted criticism of Ken Goodman, the inventor of whole language:

It is an absurd set of silly little one-minute tests that never get close to measuring what reading is really about -- making sense of print

Not quite as silly as Goodman's whole language program which encourages kids to guess at words instead of decoding them. Naturally, many kids taught via Goodman's method turn out to be poor decoders and poor readers who perform poorly on such tests. Goodman's kids also don't make much sense out of print either. And, of course, DIBELS does contain a reading comprehension test and an oral fluency test which correlates highly with student's ability to make sense of print.

WaPo is really giving NYT a run for its money for the goofiest education articles as of late.