Sunday, April 15, 2012

The Innovative Educator: Making a case for opting out of standardized testing is crap

The Innovative Educator: Making a case for opting out of standardized testing is crap:


Making a case for opting out of standardized testing is crap

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Here in New York where I work everyone knows that schools shut down during the last couple weeks of April and are transformed into testing torture mills that kids are forced to enter and endure. Suddenly once vibrant classrooms are stripped of memories of learning and children's work across the year. That's all torn off the walls so children under fluorescent lights can only stare at blank walls for days on end. Technology has no place in the testing chambers. Connection to the outside world is forbidden.  There are tears and vomiting and instructions on how to handle each.  It's the 21st centuryMilgram Experiment where teachers are paid to do something that at some point they realize is terribly wrong. However, like with Milgram, where people were paid to administer deadly shocks to others, although many are very uncomfortable administering these tests, and even