Reformers.

Ever critical of standardized testing as the sole means of measuring ability in students, countless educational reformers continued the mantra that assessments should be performance-based, that authentic methods of assessment were crucial. Noted assessment researcher Grant Wiggins said in his dynamic work, Understanding by Design (1998), "If tests determine what teachers actually teach and what students will study for — and they do — then test those capacities and habits we think are essential and test them in context." And yet, standardized tests, whether administered on a district or national level, continued to be the norm in terms of not only measuring student abilities, but also in measuring schools. Principals routinely bemoaned the fact that local newspapers published standardized test scores in a format that was designed to "rank" schools according to their average scores. They knew that the picture of a school's success...