Education system needs to rethink school testing - latimes.com

Education system needs to rethink school testing - latimes.com:

Better schools through smarter testing

We need to redesign testing so that it becomes integral to the subjects students are studying, rather than an add-on afterward.

By Arthur Levine

August 3, 2012

Despite the barrage of criticism that schools are spending increasing amounts of time testing our children and teachers are being forced to teach to the test, the reality is that testing is no fad. Initiatives like California's STAR test, the high school exit exam and Academic Performance Index, or API, scores are here to stay, and are likely to become even more pervasive in schools nationwide. But in the years ahead the way testing happens must change in a manner that will benefit our children and that parents are likely to embrace.

The increasing emphasis on testing in U.S. schools is a consequence of perhaps the most profound change in American education in modern times — the shift in focus from teaching to learning. When education systems concentrate on teaching, the emphasis is on the process of instruction, measured in the length of time students are