Gov. Brown again takes aim at testing overload in schools
Governor Brown took aim at excessive testing in the schools – an ongoing theme of his governorship –
Students, Brown said, already have “tests coming out their ears.”
“California is recognizing that the genius of each child is not how they bubble in an A, B, C and D,” he said, to the cheers of the crowd, in contrast to the heckling he received from anti-fracking activists toward the end of his 12-minute speech. As he did in his State of the State speech in January, he paraphrased William Butler Yeats by declaring that “education is not filling a pail, it is lighting a fire in the soul and spirit of every child.”
His remarks came a day after what amounted to a major victory for California when U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced that he would not fine the state for refusing to administer the California Standardized Tests for one last time this spring as required by the federal No Child Left Behind Law. Instead, California had opted to administer field tests this spring of the Smarter Balanced assessments in English language arts and math based on new Common Core standards adopted by 45 states, including California. Just last September, Duncan had threatened to withhold