Assessing Student Performance - (Jossey-Bass Education) by Grant P Wiggins (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Now in paperback!

"The most comprehensive and exhaustive treatise available on the imperative to change the ways we test and assess student performance...it will become a major reference work for supporters of student-centered assessment."

--Educational Leadership

"A 'must' book for the on-going debate on American school reform."

--Theodore R. Sizer, chairman, Coalition of Essential Schools

What is assessment and how does testing differ from it? Why are performance tests, by themselves, not an adequate system of student assessment? How might we better "test our tests" beyond current technical standards? And why won't increased national testing offer the accountability of schools we so sorely need? In Assessing Student Performance, Grant P. Wiggins explores these questions and clarifies the limits of testing in an assessment system. He analyzes problematic practices in test design and formats that prevent students from explaining their answers. By showing us that assessment is more than testing and intellectual performance is more than right answers, Wiggins leads us to new systems of assessment that more closely examine students' habits of mind and provide teachers and policy makers with more useful and credible feedback.

Review Quotes

"The most comprehensive and exhaustive treatise available on the imperative to change the ways we test and assess student performance...it will become a major reference work for supporters of student-centered assessment." --Educational Leadership

"A 'must' book for the on-going debate on American school reform." --Theodore R. Sizer, chairman, Coalition of Essential Schools

"In the current torrent of talk about testing, Grant Wiggins' book constitutes an essential contribution. Rooted in historical knowledge, punctuated by acute philosophical analyses, and mindful of policy issues, Wiggins lays out the rationale for authentic forms of assessment." --Howard Gardner, professor of education and co-director of Project Zero, Harvard University

About the Author

GRANT P. WIGGINS is the president and director of programs for the Center on Learning, Assessment, and School Structure (CLASS), a nonprofit educational research and consulting organization in Pennington, New Jersey.