On Developing Alternatives to Standardized Testing

1976 NCTE Annual Business Meeting in Chicago, Illinois

Background The proposers of this resolution affirmed their belief that teachers must be accountable to their students and to the public for their students' progress in the language arts.  But they contended that standardized tests of language ability yield limited information about students' skills in communicating. Alternative models for assessing language growth are already available, they said, citing Paul Diederich's Measuring Growth in English (NCTE, 1974).  Be it therefore Resolution Resolved, that the National Council of Teachers of English encourage and support the development and dissemination of alternatives to standardized testing for assessment of student growth in language processes.