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Thursday, July 7, 2011

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Unprecedented testing madness

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Unprecedented testing madness

Unprecedented testing madness

"All you’re learning about is how to fill out a little bubble on an exam and little tricks that you need to do in order to take a test and that’s not going to make education interesting." -- President Obama
It's been denounced by educators far and wide. Education research has approached a consensus on it's negative affects, especially on poor kids and children of color. President Obama has repeatedly criticized it. The world's highest performing school systems discard it.

In February 2009, Atlanta Superintendent Beverly Hall was named 2009 Superintendent of the Year in San Francisco. Ms. Hall stepped down from her post on June 30, days before the release of a report that documented widespread cheating by teachers and administrators in the 55,000-student Atlanta Public School District.
Paul Sakuma / AP / File
Yet the nation's standardized testing madness, sanctioned under No Child Left Behind law continues to expand