Test state's students with tools of past or future?
Michael Kirst
Updated 4:36 pm, Friday, September 20, 2013
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Reaction to Opposition of AB 484 - Year 2013 (CA Dept of Education) |
California faces a big question about standardized testing this year that comes down to this: a choice between the past and the future.
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson, the state Board of Educationand the state Legislature all chose the future - embodied in Assembly Bill 484, which would bring online new tests to measure student readiness for the rigors of careers and college starting next school year.
But officials in Washington appear to be of two minds. On the one hand, they support California's move to embrace the new, more challenging Common Core standards in mathematics and English language arts, and the computer-based assessments that go with them.
But making the transition means setting aside the past and shelving the old pencil-and-paper multiple-choice exams that have driven instruction in California for more than a decade.
Federal officials have signaled that suspending the old exams could put California technically and temporarily out of compliance with the mandates of No Child Left Behind. That has made for some interesting headlines, but the truth is, it's not