Teachers, students rally against standardized testing
Calling for fewer standardized tests, about 65 teachers, students and activists marched Friday from the Capitol to the building that houses the Texas Education Agency.
"More teaching, fewer tests: education at its best," they chanted, building off comments made by the state's education commissioner in January that questioned whether testing in Texas public schools has gone too far.
Students begin taking the new State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness this month. Lawmakers required that the new end-of-course exams count as 15 percent of a student's grade in each course, unlike the old Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills.
While state and local business leaders have supported the tests and Texas' accountability system as a way to make sure students are ready for college and careers, many parents decried the mandate over concerns about the tests' affect on grade-point averages, class rank and college admissions.
At a Texas Association of School Administrators meeting in January,
