Are we testing too much?

06-15-2011

Blog by Randi Weingarten/Huffington Post

For all the efforts to improve education that are made in classrooms, school board meetings, research institutions, congressional chambers and elsewhere, one factor has in many ways eclipsed them all: an intense focus on standardized testing. High-stakes tests -- flaws and all -- seem to be driving everything from what subjects are taught, to how they are taught, to whether schools are closed, to how teachers are evaluated and compensated. Schools have even experimented with paying kids for higher test scores. Sadly, the pressure to measure has even diverted schools from implementing strategies known to improve student outcomes. Beginning with the No Child Left Behind law and continuing today with Race to the Top, the federal emphasis on standardized assessments has become so excessive that it has modified state and district behavior in troubling ways. (more...)

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