Students Learn by Doing, Not Testing
Eliminating weeks of meaningful instructional time (projects, research, learning activities, performances, field trips…) so that tests can be administered to measure student growth and achievement is like an overweight person cancelling membership at the gym for a month in order to get weight and blood pressure checked at the doctor’s office each day.
This approach makes CENTS to edupreneurs and data miners because they view education through data-driven and test-centric glasses. From a learning and student-centered perspective, this approach is academically, socially, and emotionally bankrupt.
The Common Core regime of annual high stakes testing will not improve student proficiency but it will certainly increase the profits of those selling CCSS workbooks, test prep materials, and software solutions.
Standardized tests should be administered on a grade-span basis to more accurately identify and measure trends in student learning over a multi-year time period as student cognitive growth may be delayed one year but sprint ahead the next.
The relationship between standardized testing and the Common Core is toxic, and has Students Learn by Doing, Not Testing | WagTheDog: