ABSTRACT
The performance exams discussed in the last chapter make the work of the Holt mathematics department public. Parents, community members, teachers from other districts, teacher candidates, members of the State Department of Education, and faculty from MSU’s mathematics department can all see what Holt students can do. These exams also engage people in the difficulties of assessing student learning and help communicate to others what the department values. Judges, for example, mathematicians from MSU, learn the considerations that concern Holt teachers as they assess their students’ learning. And, the inclusion of judges who do not necessarily know the mathematics that students have studied concretizes the notion that everyone can reason about mathematical ideas.
