Dr. Cox was the recipient of the Helen Heffernan Memorial Curriculum Award for significant and exemplary contributions to education in 1997. I see the birth of accountability with the Nation At Risk, published in 1983. We weren't really being held accountable for student learning until then. Education evaluation was relatively young at that time. We're still trying to learn about the evaluation business.
Numbers appear deceptively simple with the public when in actuality they are much more complex.
Most legislators refuse to acknowledge this complexity. They take a number and draw many conclusions that are often inaccurate. We need to focus on raising the level of understanding with the general public. Assessment is not nearly so much my passion as educating ourselves and the public about the uses and misuses of as sessment information. So much is done with test scores that falls into the categories of misuse or abuse.