Role of educational leadership in confronting classroom assessment inequities, biased practices, and a pedagogy of poverty

Abstract

This chapter examines the connection between educational leadership, classroom assessment practices, and a “pedagogy of poverty” as a social justice issue that has been ignored for too long. Unlike classroom observations of instruction, principals and other educational leaders rarely observe, question, or investigate what goes into the grades that students receive and the tests that inform those grades. The chapter explores possible reasons that assessment problems continue to exist unnoticed, year after year, despite the insidious impact they have on all aspects of teaching and learning. The chapter explains the two types of assess-ment, formative and summative, but focuses squarely on the teachers’ summative assessment practices and the impacts they have on student expectations, motivation to learn, and achievement. Part of that impact can be seen in the ways that assessment practices foster and are supported by a pedagogy of poverty - a watered down form of curriculum that is most often served to students in poor urban schools but can also be found in rural districts as well as in affluent suburbs. The chapter argues for assessments that contribute to student learning. Classroom assessment practices are under the direct influence of educational leaders. But improving the quality of classroom assessments will take both increased assessment literacy at all levels of schooling and a commitment to moving beyond datadriven decision making to recognizing that sound educational decisions require high quality data. The best source of that data comes not from standardized tests, but rather from the classrooms themselves.