Steve Ferrara

Steve Ferrara, director of student assessment at the Maryland State Department of Education, talks about the difficulty of changing curricula, instruction, expectations, and standards--all of which affect assessment. Excerpted from an interview with Steve Ferrara (North Central Regional Educational Laboratory, 1995).

"First of all, I would say, to me, the most perplexing problem has more to do with Maryland's efforts at reforming public education and improving student learning and performance rather than with anything in the assessments themselves. We're finding it extremely difficult, as are other people around the country, and in fact we know this to be true in Taiwan and Germany as well. We're finding it's difficult to get people to truly change what they do. We're finding it difficult overcome the inertia of low expectations and standards in some places and the inertia of providing unstimulating and non-challenging curriculum and instruction. I find this perplexing because the need for reforming programs seems so self evident and so ultimately important for right now and for the future."

This Critical Issue summary was researched and written by Deborah Winking, senior consultant at Panasonic Foundation in Pleasanton, California, and formerly an evaluation associate at North Central Regional Educational Laboratory in Oak Brook, Illinois.

Date posted: 1997