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Time Magazine's cover story about Michelle Rhee is lighting up the blogosphere. One particular passage from the story is attracting special attention:

“The thing that kills me about education is that it’s so touchy-feely,” she tells me one afternoon in her office. Then she raises her chin and does what I come to recognize as her standard imitation of people she doesn’t respect.... “People say, ‘Well, you know, test scores don’t take into account creativity and the love of learning,’” she says with a drippy, grating voice, lowering her eyelids halfway. Then she snaps back to herself. “I’m like, ‘You know what? I don’t give a crap.’ Don’t get me wrong. Creativity is good and whatever. But if the children don’t know how to read, I don’t care how creative you are. You’re not doing your job.”

This quotation clearly unsettles Core Knowledge blogger Robert Pondiscio, who counts himself a supporter of many reforms Rhee champions. He worries that her bare-knuckles manner will backfire, and he objects that good teachers are by definition "touchy-feely."

I share his concern, and I'll add another. Are we so sure champions of standardized test data are NOT touchy-feely? Do current standardized assessment systems really offer reliable, objective measures of student learning? Some researchers question the validity of widely-touted state test-score gains--in New York City, for example.

As Harvard assessment expert Daniel Koretz reminds us, state test results can be anything but straightforward.

Let's face it. Education remains a touchy-feely business, moreso than many of us would like. Business-minded reformers are hardly immune to this problem.

All the more reason to invest more time, energy and resources in much better accountability and assessment systems. That would do all of us--soft-hearted and hard-nosed alike--a world of good.

Image source: lavendergirl.com