In "Adapting Educational Measurement to the Demands of Test-Based Accountability" Koretz takes the time-honored engineering approach to educational measurement, identifying specific problems with current practice and proposing minimal modifications of the system to alleviate those problems. In response to that article, David Thissen suggests that a conceivable alternative to proposals to "fix" current practice in test assembly would be to acknowledge the problems described in the first part of "Adapting Educational Measurement to the Demands of Test-Based Accountability," along with more disadvantages of TBA chronicled elsewhere, and conclude that achievement tests should be used less for accountability--or not at all. Thissen further argues that there are other strategies that could be pursued, either as alternatives to or in parallel with the kind of "adaptation" Koretz proposes: We could make more of an effort to educate policy makers, and the public about the weaknesses of assessment and the Rube Goldberg contrivances like "value-added models" built on its back as tools of accountability and reform. Thissen closes his response by saying that it may not be practical to do better than incrementally improve current practice and still produce the kind of "accountability" that policymakers desire. However, some could hope that more effort would go into a change in the culture from one of "accountability" back to one of pride in accomplishment and trust in educators.