Another superintendent cites school testing 'perversion'
Now comes an email from the superintendent of Hudson ISD, near Lufkin, forwarding a statement she sent to her local paper about standardized testing mandated out of Austin.
Mary Ann Whiteker says she agrees with the North Texas superintendents who say high-stakes testing is "strangling" public education. And she agrees with Education Commissioner Robert Scott that testing in some places has become a "perversion" of its original intent.
Excerpt (with full letter below):
As a 39 year professional educator, I can assure you that [today's] testing/accountability system does NOT promote classrooms that engage students in 21st century learning, but rather classrooms where students memorize and fill out "bubble" answer sheets in order to graduate.These tests are then used to determine campus / district ratings based on the weakest/lowest
Obama's right to focus on teacher training
The White House is announcing a plan today that would be a Race to the Top-like initiative to encourage better teaching. The administration wants Congress to appropriate $5 billion that the Education Department could give to states that show promising ways to improve the training and licensing of their teachers.
The administration earlier used Race to the Top to encourage states to pursue such reforms as raising the standards for their schools. I support the emphasis now on improving teacher preparation.
Yes, I have mixed feelings about creating a new spending category. For deficit reasons, I don't like it. For education reasons, I think this is on the mark. It's a tossup, but I'm going with my education side.
Along with requiring more precise teacher evaluations, the next wave of teaching reforms needs to focus on the way teachers are prepared for the classroom. For example, are future instructors leaving college with a strong