Time on testing: 738 minutes in 3 weeks
How much time do teachers and students spend on standardized tests? That’s one of the big questions in public education today, which Adam Heenan, a Chicago school teacher and member of the Chicago Teachers Union addresses here.
By Adam Heenan
A few days ago, a colleague walked into our social studies department with a bubbled-in answer sheet from a test he had just administered. One student had turned the sheet on its side and bubbled in the colloquial acronym “YOLO” — You Only Live Once — on the exam. The teacher had created the test, but to the teenager, it was just one more exam in a seemingly endless series of bubble-sheet, auto-scored assessments.
(By Adam Heenan)
I laughed at what the student had created, mostly because the “YOLO” script was evenly distributed across the length of the bubble sheet, demonstrating the student’s skill in measurement and design. But of course it isn’t funny. In my school, in just three weeks’ time, I have calculated that we spent 738 minutes (12 hours and 18 minutes) on preparing for and administering standardized tests. Our students are experiencing testing fatigue,