Charlie DePascale
@charliedepascale.bsky.social
We are about to close the curtain on 2025 and begin a new year. As we do so, let's take a moment to reflect on what it means to move from one year to the next, and what lessons we can apply to ourselves and our field.
Happy Holidays!
charliedepascale.blog/2025/12/19/a...
Happy Holidays!
charliedepascale.blog/2025/12/19/a...
A Point of Inflection and Reflection
We are about to close the curtain on 2025 and begin a new year. We like to think of this time brief period of time at the end of the year as an opportunity to slow down, to reflect on the year past…
charliedepascale.blog
December 19, 2025 at 8:14 PM
We are about to close the curtain on 2025 and begin a new year. As we do so, let's take a moment to reflect on what it means to move from one year to the next, and what lessons we can apply to ourselves and our field.
Happy Holidays!
charliedepascale.blog/2025/12/19/a...
Happy Holidays!
charliedepascale.blog/2025/12/19/a...
Two recent posts by @andrewdeanho.bsky.social spurred my thinking about Technical Advisory Committees (TACs): TAC members are storytellers, passing on through oral tradition the key tenets of our field.
charliedepascale.blog/2025/12/09/f...
charliedepascale.blog/2025/12/09/f...
From Homer to Ho: Let’s Talk TACs
Two recent posts by Andrew Ho spurred my thinking about Technical Advisory Committees (TACs); specifically, the role that the committees and their members play in our field. Perhaps even more impor…
charliedepascale.blog
December 9, 2025 at 2:14 PM
Two recent posts by @andrewdeanho.bsky.social spurred my thinking about Technical Advisory Committees (TACs): TAC members are storytellers, passing on through oral tradition the key tenets of our field.
charliedepascale.blog/2025/12/09/f...
charliedepascale.blog/2025/12/09/f...
Equating served us well when our main concern was linking tests. As we shift our focus from tests and testing to student assessment, we need to expand our linking repertoire.
charliedepascale.blog/2025/11/12/s...
charliedepascale.blog/2025/11/12/s...
Strengthening Our Links
I have little doubt that the future of standards-based assessment is going to be much more complex, multi-dimensional, and well, messy than the testing situations with which we are familiar and com…
charliedepascale.blog
November 12, 2025 at 3:55 PM
Equating served us well when our main concern was linking tests. As we shift our focus from tests and testing to student assessment, we need to expand our linking repertoire.
charliedepascale.blog/2025/11/12/s...
charliedepascale.blog/2025/11/12/s...
Join me and Susan Lyons for an engaging discussion on my new book, Fundamentals and Flaws of Standards-Based Testing. Together, we will explore key lessons from my three decades in large-scale state testing and what they mean for the future of educational testing.
Register here: bit.ly/43zZJue
Register here: bit.ly/43zZJue
October 29, 2025 at 11:26 PM
Join me and Susan Lyons for an engaging discussion on my new book, Fundamentals and Flaws of Standards-Based Testing. Together, we will explore key lessons from my three decades in large-scale state testing and what they mean for the future of educational testing.
Register here: bit.ly/43zZJue
Register here: bit.ly/43zZJue
We've been pushing boundaries for years, but how close are we to reaching the limit of the utility of our current approach to equating state tests?
charliedepascale.blog/2025/05/28/a...
charliedepascale.blog/2025/05/28/a...
Approaching The Limit of Equating State Tests
Since my last post, several people have asked what I meant by my claim that virtually every decision related to the operation of state testing programs since 1990 has made equating more difficult. …
charliedepascale.blog
May 28, 2025 at 6:05 PM
We've been pushing boundaries for years, but how close are we to reaching the limit of the utility of our current approach to equating state tests?
charliedepascale.blog/2025/05/28/a...
charliedepascale.blog/2025/05/28/a...
@andrewdeanho.bsky.social challenged us to find a way to be both accurate and engaging in the way that we communicate about tests and test scores. I'm willing to give it a go while taking a closer look at his "accuracy - engagement tradeoff."
charliedepascale.blog/2025/05/15/a...
charliedepascale.blog/2025/05/15/a...
A Commitment To Communicate
Andrew Ho, in his NCME presidential address, defended his use of metrics such as weeks, months, and “years of learning” citing what he dubbed as “the accuracy-engagement tradeoff” while asking “Can…
charliedepascale.blog
May 15, 2025 at 6:00 PM
@andrewdeanho.bsky.social challenged us to find a way to be both accurate and engaging in the way that we communicate about tests and test scores. I'm willing to give it a go while taking a closer look at his "accuracy - engagement tradeoff."
charliedepascale.blog/2025/05/15/a...
charliedepascale.blog/2025/05/15/a...
The sooner that we start treating state testing like the data collection activity that it is and not as an anachronistic measurement exercise in self-abuse, the better off we'll be.
charliedepascale.blog/2025/04/15/n...
charliedepascale.blog/2025/04/15/n...
Nothing Is Certain Except Tests and Taxes
Happy Tax Day! April 15. That one day each year that Americans are focused collectively on a massive, state-run, data collection enterprise. Seems like the perfect time to reflect on that other st…
charliedepascale.blog
April 15, 2025 at 3:23 PM
The sooner that we start treating state testing like the data collection activity that it is and not as an anachronistic measurement exercise in self-abuse, the better off we'll be.
charliedepascale.blog/2025/04/15/n...
charliedepascale.blog/2025/04/15/n...
What is our story? What is it that we hope to accomplish with assessment and accountability? What makes instruction or schools effective? Why do we have such a difficult time answering fundamental questions and crafting a compelling narrative?
charliedepascale.blog/2025/02/25/r...
charliedepascale.blog/2025/02/25/r...
Running In Circles, Chasing Our Tales
What is our story? What is it that we hope to accomplish with assessment and accountability? What makes instruction or schools effective? Why do we have such a difficult time answering fundamental …
charliedepascale.blog
February 25, 2025 at 8:40 PM
What is our story? What is it that we hope to accomplish with assessment and accountability? What makes instruction or schools effective? Why do we have such a difficult time answering fundamental questions and crafting a compelling narrative?
charliedepascale.blog/2025/02/25/r...
charliedepascale.blog/2025/02/25/r...
On the feast of St. John Bosco, while we are searching for solutions to dismal test scores, sharing a post first published in 2023.
wp.me/p4pWe7-To
wp.me/p4pWe7-To
Education is a Matter of the Heart
On January 31st, we celebrate the feast day of St. John Bosco, whose words, Remember, Education is a Matter of the Heart, are a credo of educators around the world. Don Bosco, as he was known, was …
wp.me
January 31, 2025 at 2:15 PM
On the feast of St. John Bosco, while we are searching for solutions to dismal test scores, sharing a post first published in 2023.
wp.me/p4pWe7-To
wp.me/p4pWe7-To
Reposted by Charlie DePascale
Sometimes the majority of studies in a field can point in one direction and yet the studies can be similarly flawed. That's what Doug Fuchs at Vanderbilt argues in a forthcoming article in the Journal of Learning Disabilities about the evidence for special ed inclusion. 🧵 (1/8)
January 15, 2025 at 12:59 PM
Sometimes the majority of studies in a field can point in one direction and yet the studies can be similarly flawed. That's what Doug Fuchs at Vanderbilt argues in a forthcoming article in the Journal of Learning Disabilities about the evidence for special ed inclusion. 🧵 (1/8)
Posts of Christmas Past – Merry Christmas
In my first Christmas post from 2017, I recall my top 12 Memories of Christmas.
charliedepascale.blog/2017/12/25/m...
In my first Christmas post from 2017, I recall my top 12 Memories of Christmas.
charliedepascale.blog/2017/12/25/m...
My 12 Memories of Christmas
As time goes by, certain memories of Christmases past become stronger than others. Most are filled with family, food, music, and fun; but a few other things manage to creep in as well. On Christm…
charliedepascale.blog
December 25, 2024 at 3:52 PM
Posts of Christmas Past – Merry Christmas
In my first Christmas post from 2017, I recall my top 12 Memories of Christmas.
charliedepascale.blog/2017/12/25/m...
In my first Christmas post from 2017, I recall my top 12 Memories of Christmas.
charliedepascale.blog/2017/12/25/m...
Special prize to the first person to correctly identify the inspirations for the totally fictitious spirits of assessment past, present, and future: The opportunity to be featured or the promise you’ll never be mentioned in a 2025 blog post. Winner’s choice.
Posts of Christmas Past – Day 7
On Christmas Eve, my 2022 assessment-themed retelling of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Like state testing, it’s longer than it should be, but as long as it needs to be.
charliedepascale.blog/2022/12/19/a...
On Christmas Eve, my 2022 assessment-themed retelling of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Like state testing, it’s longer than it should be, but as long as it needs to be.
charliedepascale.blog/2022/12/19/a...
A Christmas Carol (Testing Version)
State testing was dying; to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The actions, or more aptly put, the inactions taken by the assessment community over the years had signed the death wa…
charliedepascale.blog
December 24, 2024 at 5:04 PM
Special prize to the first person to correctly identify the inspirations for the totally fictitious spirits of assessment past, present, and future: The opportunity to be featured or the promise you’ll never be mentioned in a 2025 blog post. Winner’s choice.
Posts of Christmas Past – Day 7
On Christmas Eve, my 2022 assessment-themed retelling of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Like state testing, it’s longer than it should be, but as long as it needs to be.
charliedepascale.blog/2022/12/19/a...
On Christmas Eve, my 2022 assessment-themed retelling of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Like state testing, it’s longer than it should be, but as long as it needs to be.
charliedepascale.blog/2022/12/19/a...
A Christmas Carol (Testing Version)
State testing was dying; to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The actions, or more aptly put, the inactions taken by the assessment community over the years had signed the death wa…
charliedepascale.blog
December 24, 2024 at 5:02 PM
Posts of Christmas Past – Day 7
On Christmas Eve, my 2022 assessment-themed retelling of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Like state testing, it’s longer than it should be, but as long as it needs to be.
charliedepascale.blog/2022/12/19/a...
On Christmas Eve, my 2022 assessment-themed retelling of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Like state testing, it’s longer than it should be, but as long as it needs to be.
charliedepascale.blog/2022/12/19/a...
Posts of Christmas Past – Day 6
In this 2021 post, I recounted how that mother of all interdisciplinary performance tasks, the Christmas Diorama, helped deepen cultural understanding and also revealed common ground. Maybe, in 2025, we need more dioramas.
charliedepascale.blog/2021/12/15/m...
In this 2021 post, I recounted how that mother of all interdisciplinary performance tasks, the Christmas Diorama, helped deepen cultural understanding and also revealed common ground. Maybe, in 2025, we need more dioramas.
charliedepascale.blog/2021/12/15/m...
Maybe It’s Time for a Diorama
Back in my youth, when it was fashionable, if insensitive, to celebrate Christmas unabashedly in public elementary schools, a good part of the curriculum and instruction after Thanksgiving was devo…
charliedepascale.blog
December 23, 2024 at 4:59 PM
Posts of Christmas Past – Day 6
In this 2021 post, I recounted how that mother of all interdisciplinary performance tasks, the Christmas Diorama, helped deepen cultural understanding and also revealed common ground. Maybe, in 2025, we need more dioramas.
charliedepascale.blog/2021/12/15/m...
In this 2021 post, I recounted how that mother of all interdisciplinary performance tasks, the Christmas Diorama, helped deepen cultural understanding and also revealed common ground. Maybe, in 2025, we need more dioramas.
charliedepascale.blog/2021/12/15/m...