Title: In the Battle over Testing, Only the Children Should Win
Abstract: As Congress finally begins to reauthorize NCLB, tensions are high over one issue in particular: testing. We must not forget that our common goal is a better education for students. If someone asked me what education issue is the most misunderstood and in need of major rebranding, I would provide my answer without a moment's hesitation: testing. It seems the whole country is talking smack about testing these days, and the grievances are numerous and expansive. Ever since the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) mandated annual high-stakes testing for English language arts and math in grades 3-8 (and once in high school), educators and parents have bemoaned the awfulness of what they perceive to be an education system obsessed with testing. Teachers complain that yearly testing's outsized influence on classroom instruction and student achievement is misguided at the very least and, at worst, destructive. Parents are concerned that too much testing is crowding out other aspects of education that they hold dear, such as arts, music, and gym. Then there's the larger question of how best to measure student achievement. Do standardized tests really provide teachers and parents with a complete picture of a student's abilities and potential? [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Just as the education community loves to get behind silver bullet solutions, it also loves to pile on when one issue gets singled out as the root cause of problems. Now that testing has moved to center stage in Washington (Congress has finally taken action on how to reauthorize NCLB), the education community, true to form, has lit up the skies with a barrage of opinion pieces and editorials about the good, the bad, the everything of testing. The shot across the bow that started it was a draft bill to reauthorize NCLB that was authored by the chairman of the Senate Education Committee Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.). Introduced in mid-January, the bill offers several testing scenarios. The most controversial would allow states (and maybe even districts, pending state approval) to decide for themselves how often to test students. This would be a drastic change from the annual testing requirements that are part of NCLB. Metaphorically speaking, this version of the bill would shrink the federal foot print as it pertains to annual testing from a size 12EEE to a diminutive size 5A. The Senate bill also included an option that would retain the current annual testing requirements of NCLB but without the federally mandated consequences. (For you dog lovers, this would be the all bark, no bite scenario). A House version of the bill, introduced in early February, also maintained NCLB's testing requirements. Local vs. federal While most policy makers believe a final bill to reauthorize NCLB will retain the current law's annual testing requirements, it is amazing that we are even talking about an option that would drastically reduce the federal government's power to hold schools accountable for student achievement. Despite the fact that local governments provide most of the funding for public education, the federal government has led the charge for educational equity and opportunity since World War II. And it is both ironic and telling that this draft bill was introduced at the start of 2015, exactly 50 years after the Elementary and Secondary Education Act was first passed in 1965. Public opinion about testing and accountability and the federal government's role in both has clearly shifted. The early stages of this shift began with the federal government's decision to hold schools accountable for student performance using standardized test scores and then labeling schools that were unable to make the grade as failing. While this kind of rigorous accountability system ensured that the performance of student groups was being monitored and tracked, it also set in motion an antitesting and antifederal oversight movement that is gaining steam. …
Publication Year: 2015
Publication Date: 2015-04-01
Language: en
Type: article
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