End Teach to the Test: Bad for Students and Their Teachers — the Latest Condemnation from the American Federation of Teachers
Is there a light at the end of the teach-to-the-test tunnel? A quirky pineapple that grabbed news headlines in the spring of 2012 may have marked a turning point in how much stock is given to a standardized test’s ability to accurately measure what children know.
First, flickering sparks of discontent flashed up from parents of special ed children having to do with the tests themselves. This has been a longstanding issue in this community even when tests were low-stakes. When No Child Left Behind was first implemented in 2003, special education parents grew sensitive to the inability of many public schools to accommodate a child’s need for more time given the structure of standardized tests, or otherwise ease the challenges of a special ed child’s ability to take several days’ worth of tests, whether the disability is cognitive or physical.
Fast forward to 2012, and almost a decade of damage later. In the past year, parents and educators around th
First, flickering sparks of discontent flashed up from parents of special ed children having to do with the tests themselves. This has been a longstanding issue in this community even when tests were low-stakes. When No Child Left Behind was first implemented in 2003, special education parents grew sensitive to the inability of many public schools to accommodate a child’s need for more time given the structure of standardized tests, or otherwise ease the challenges of a special ed child’s ability to take several days’ worth of tests, whether the disability is cognitive or physical.
Fast forward to 2012, and almost a decade of damage later. In the past year, parents and educators around th
