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Mike Petrilli of the Fordham Foundation thought he had a big scoop:  "Obama campaign wants to dump NCLB testing, use portfolios instead."  He draws his slender evidence for this claim from a comment by Obama spokeswoman Melody Barnes. Barnes mentions the promise of portfolios and "other forms of assessments that may be a little bit more expensive but...are allowing us to make sure children are getting the proper analytic kinds of tools."  Petrilli's conclusion:  "embracing portfolios is a clear signal of an intention to roll back accountability."

"Not so fast," say Michele McNeil and Alexander Russo.  According to Russo,

Observers suggest that there was no explicit connection made between portfolios and getting rid of standardized assessments.  EdWeek's Michele McNeil says the same, and has a rough transcript here. And the campaign says there's no there there, calling Petrilli's remarks "an enormous distortion."

Russo comes down especially hard on Petrilli: "We all get things wrong sometimes....  But it's too bad if Petrilli can't say so.  Being in DC too long has that effect on people."

I can't comment on Petrilli's humility, but I do think he has fallen prey to the perverse either/or thinking so common in DC. Too many think tank dwellers construe any mention of alternative assessment as treachery to accountability and standardized assessment.  Say what you will about Obama's education proposals, but he has worked to avoid this pitfall.  Russo quotes Obama from last May:

This doesn't mean that we won't have a standardized test, I believe children should master that skill as well and that should be part of the assessments and tools that we use to make sure our children are learning. It just can't dominate the curriculum to the extent where we are pushing aside those things that will actually allow children to improve and will accurately assess the quality of teaching that is taking place in the classroom. This is not an either/or proposition, it is a both/and proposition, and that's what we will be working on by fixing NCLB.