Missouri Educators React to POTUS' Call To Limit Standardized Testing

Why do we need national exams, state exams, county exams and school-specific exams to give us this feedback?

Similarly, the action plan's for flexibility in use of test scores for educator evaluation mirror things Colorado already is doing, said Katy Anthes, the state education department's interim associate commissioner.

After years of pushing for more standardized testing in public schools, the Obama administration announced October 24 that it wants to reduce the number of tests students must take and even limit the amount of time they may spend on them. He joined Jim Braude and Margery Eagan on Boston Public Radio to discuss our test-obsessed system. They anxious that the cap on time spent testing - which the administration said it would ask Congress to enshrine in legislation - would only tangle schools in more federal regulations and questions of what, exactly, counts as a test.

Washington State Superintendent Randy Dorn said in a statement that he agrees over-testing is a problem and he points out that Washington requires only two tests more than the federal minimum. The Obama administration still supports annual standardized tests as a necessary assessment tool, and both House and Senate versions of an update to the No Child Left Behind law would continue annual testing. "Oh, tomorrow we have another standardized test, like another one?!"

"I would acknowledge the president believes there's more we can and should do", he said. FairTest's Bob Schaeffer argued that "documenting testing overkill is ... just the first step toward assessment reform" and highlighted the need for concrete efforts to reverse current policies-"not just more hollow rhetoric and creation of yet another study commission".

The Obama administration is now calling for a national limit on standardized testing in schools. Well aware of the popular hostility towards standardized tests, the two administration officials more identified with their proliferation have suddenly discovered that over-testing can "take valuable time away from teaching and learning, draining creative approaches from our classrooms". "It's a relatively modest reduction", Reville said.

The president has joined a growing chorus of teachers, parents and students who say testing is taking the joy out of the classroom.

Just remember, they aren't changing it because of the failure of 55 million students to conform to a one-size-fits-all curriculum; they are changing it because the test scores are used to grade the teachers, and the teachers are failing. "As President, I want to hold all of us accountable for making sure every child, everywhere, is learning what he or she needs to be successful".

Under President George W. Bush, schools where students did poorly on tests faced the threat of being shut down.

"How much constitutes too much time is really hard to answer", said Michael Casserly, the council's executive director.

According to a study by the Council of the Great City Schools, the average student will take about 112 tests K - 12th grade. "If you're like most of the parents and teachers I hear from, you wouldn't choose D".

Testing - when tests and results are 100 percent transparent for students, parents and teachers - is one of several important measures for assessing student progress and learning.

Jose Vilson, a middle school math educator in the Inwood/Washington Heights neighborhood of New York City and author of "This Is Not A Test: A New Narrative on Race, Class, and the Future of Education", said he is concerned about how well school districts with fewer resources can align their test-prep materials with exams.