I’ve heard from teachers who feel so much pressure to teach to a test that it takes the joy out of teaching and learning, both for them and for the students.
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Obama’s next step will be to meet with Education Secretary Arne Duncan, teachers, and school officials in the Oval office on Monday to figure out how to reduce testing time.
“It’s important for them to have that experience obviously for any K-12 school system”, Gobler said. And, importantly, the administration is suggesting that tests should take up no more than 2 percent of instructional time. They said the administration supports legislative proposals to cap testing time on a federal level, but wanted to offer states a model for how to cut down on testing absent congressional action. But here is the problem: the results of these tests count so much in the federally mandated “accountability system” that states and school districts are giving students dozens of additional tests to prepare for the federal tests.
The new guidance on the standardized testing reads: “No single assessment should ever be the sole factor in making an educational decision about a student, an educator, or a school”. Nationwide, the average time for eighth graders-who have the most mandatory testing-stands at 2.3 percent, or 4.2 days for the 2014-2015 school year.
-Some pockets of the country had substantial numbers of students opting out of standardized tests.
Before you get excited about the administration taking “some” blame for the testing mess, please notice what they think their mistake was-not telling states specifically enough what they were supposed to do.
Obama’s administration announced that it will immediately begin getting serious about finding ways to both reduce testing and make existing testing more effective. George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind uses standardized testing to measure a schools’ performance and its teaching staff as well. The results showed that 64% of those who participated in the poll believe there is “too much emphasis on standardized testing” while 19% said it is “about the right amount”.
The city’s new plan follows a small shake-up in New York State’s education world.
“Everyone is culpable here”, Casserly said.
MARTIN: OK, so you say the annual testing requirement is going to stay in place.
But even testing supporters agree about an overload. “There’s a clear problem here”.
The state Education Department released a questionnaire online so teachers can have a few input on what goes on the tests.
The issue of how much and how often students should be tested is one that education officials and parents have grappled with for years. They provided states with flexibility when they should have provided hard and fast crystal clear directions.
“There is a very strong possibility that people will eliminate the tests that are actually useful”, Casserly said.
Standardized testing has always been a tool to measure a teacher’s success based on how well the students perform. That number has grown since the introduction of the Common Core academic standards. The federal government doesn’t require Common Core, but the administration has backed it with financial incentives.
Alberto Carvalho, the superintendent of Miami-Dade schools, has significantly reduced the number of tests his students take.
She pointed to “rigid” federal testing mandates along with the constraints of No Child Left Behind, which she said extended Washington’s role in setting testing schedules, leading to the avalanche of standardized tests students are required to take.
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Pushing for cutting back tests in the Elementary and Secondary Education Act reauthorizaton: Language encouraging states and districts to “audit” their tests has been a part of the department’s ESEA request to Congress.
