On Testing and Evaluation

1985 NCTE Annual Business Meeting in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Background This resolution stemmed from continued concern about overemphasis on testing at the expense of instruction.  NCTE members pointed out that multiple-choice, short-answer tests yield little diagnostic information useful to teachers and continue to disrupt the curriculum and distract teachers from working to develop students' higher-order thinking skills.  Be it therefore Resolution Resolved, that the National Council of Teachers of English affirm the importance of uniting evaluation and learning;           that NCTE seek ways to empower English teachers to be confident evaluators and constructive critics of large-scale assessments, standardized and classroom tests of language arts; and           that NCTE seek to develop new and alternative models of testing and assessment, to be shared with teachers and test developers.