How "Assessment" Destroys Education

For statist reasons of control, there is more pressure on all schools to demonstrate "student outcomes" based on measurable and universal standards. Schools are not left to their history, choice of faculty, or institutional values; they must conform to alien criteria demanded from above.

This sad state erodes the essence of teaching and learning, which is (amazingly enough) the teacher-student relationship. The assessors become mediators, interlopers who neither teach classes nor know students. The teachers are not trusted to teach and grade according to their competence. Grades, which used to be the basic standard of assessment, are not enough. We must assess learning in other ways, too. So, we must ask, why not assess the assessors, and so on...forever?

Those who cherish the Western patrimony of knowledge needing students and students needing knowledge through teaching and learning will have a hard fight ahead. But I, for one, will not give up.