Many of the state senators were amazed that the ISBE examples of performance assessment activities were seriously considered rigorous activities to measure learning state standards. When these senators thought of rigorous learning standards as applied by 11th graders, they hadn't been thinking of Mickey Mouse activities like these. I assumed that after the senators' reaction to these ISBE generated materials, that ISBE would be embarrassed and quickly shelve those social studies performance assessments that someone was paid royally to develop. These samples are provided to teachers as examples of rigorous assessment activities to determine whether students in 11th grade classrooms are meeting the state standards.
Some folks never learn.
Each student receives three scores for his or her product . A student earns a score between 1 and 6 for each of the three areas. After encountering her first rubric last year in eighth grade, even my daughter immediately recognized the subjective nature of awarding points based on such unclear criteria. Let me give you an example, although I urge you to visit the site and see for yourself. Of course if you are a parent of a child in public school, you see these kinds of rubrics routinely.