DIBELS test: a question of validity

The fact that the DIBELS test is used for different purposes in different schools points to a heated debate among testing experts about the validity of the test, which is given annually to about 2 million schoolchildren in the United States—sometimes as often as three times a semester. DIBELS has been championed as “scientifically valid” by Bush administration officials seeking to advance the teaching of reading through an emphasis on phonics. Kenneth S. Goodman, a past president of IRA, calls it “an absurd set of silly little one-minute tests that never get close to measuring what reading is really about—making sense of print.” Read more about the debate in this article from The Washington Post.