then there's the nerd part of being me

So, I reread George Hillock's THE TESTING TRAP (2002) where he compares writing assessments in New York, Illinois, Texas, Oregon and Kentucky. He concludes that if good writing is to occur in public schools, the writing needs to be assessed. Why? Because in order for teachers to teach good writing, they need the bureaucratic pressure of the exams. Instead, most states have tests that measure an odd breed of writing, except for Kentucky. Kentucky has the most complete, forward thinking assessment of writing in the nation. New York? According to Hillocks, they have one of the least visible ideas of what writing should look like other than to analyze text like a teacher can do. Shame Shame. It was good rereading this book, though, because as he talked about all of Kentucky's leaders in the writing movement, I knew all of them. That felt pretty good.