The NEA-supported bipartisan Student Testing Improvement and Accountability Act (H.R. 4172) by Reps. Chris Gibson (R-NY) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) would reduce the federal role in testing to the pre-No Child Left Behind (NCLB) status known as grade-span testing, giving educators more time to teach and students more time to learn. With grade-span testing – meaning once in elementary, once in middle, and once in high school – the number of federally-mandated standardized tests students take during their K-12 years would drop from 14 to 6. States or school districts could choose to administer their own assessments more frequently, particularly to help improve instruction in a timely manner.
“The federal testing mandates, when combined with the amount of state and district level assessments, has snowballed to create the feeling that our schools are not centers of learning, but rather are test-prep factories,” said NEA President Dennis Van Roekel. “The over-emphasis on standardized testing has caused considerable collateral damage in too many schools, including narrowing the curriculum, teaching to the test, reducing love of learning, pushing students out of school, and driving teachers out of the profession.”
TAKE ACTION TODAY! – Tell Congress to reduce the federal role in testing.
8 comments:
Push for parents as proctors! I think the testing craze would come to a screeching halt.
While MCAS was administered this week at the high school, the non-testing students who were in the classes being tested were re-routed to the auditorium where they sat for 2 blocks....doing absolutely nothing! How does this add to time on learning? Yet if the teacher "wastes" 30 seconds in the classroom, he or she is kicked to the curb!
It does not translate to "time on learning"; it translates to "nobody at NBHS cares when this happens." Perhaps that's why NBHS needs a restart
No, many care. This is the directive from admin who have no common sense.
MCAS testing conditions at the high school have always be shady.
MCAS Testing Security is shady in many communities, they just don't have the state breathing down their necks and continue to get away with it. It's so easy to believe certain communities have smarter students. We know wealthy communities=Higher Test Scores. Are we sure that it also means better teachers?
Well, the admin is going.
How do you divide the staff in their duties and teach at the same time. If I have to proctor I can't be in my class. If I can't be in my class then the class needs coverage. No coverage, where do the kids go for coverage? The auditorium. Not all the kids in sophomore classes are testing. If you remove the teacher nothing is going to happen in the class. What is more concerning is that the staff that is calling in and the lack of substitute teachers. There are many classes being covered during other teachers prep times. If this is going on now what's going to happen after April 1?
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