Smagorinsky: 'Who will watch the watchers?'
In a new column on the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Get Schooled blog, Peter Smagorinsky hits on the main problem with the new Georgia Milestones and end-of-course tests—the lack of time lawmakers allowed to pilot the tests before implementing them.
Smagorinsky, Distinguished Research Professor of English Education ****in the Department of Language and Literacy Education, recalls a question posed nearly 2,000 years ago by the Roman poet Juvenal: "Quis custodiet ipros custodes?" Who will watch the watchers?
"In rushing untested policies into practice without providing the resources to support their implementation, and then blaming teachers for the results, they make a farce out of one of our nation's most serious and important commitments: the education of our next generation of citizens," he writes.