Some say standardized testing is a civil right. What about less testing as a civil right?
For some time now some civil rights groups have been contended that maintaining annual standardized testing in any new federal law is a civil right. How about the opposite? How about refusing to bombard students with unnecessary standards tests as a civil right. As Congress this week debates a new federal education law to replace No Child Left Behind, here’s a look at the testing debate by Monty Neill, executive director of the National Center for Fair and Open Testing, known as FairTest, a nonprofit organization that works to end the misuses of standardized testing and to ensure that evaluation of students, educators and schools is fair, open, valid and educationally sound.
By Monty Neill
As a recent letter from African American and Latino community groups to congressional leaders explained, standardized testing is a civil rights issue because the overuse and misuse of standardized exams causes disproportionate harm to students of color. The letter calls on Congress “to pass an ESEA reauthorization without requiring the regime of oppressive, high stakes, standardized testing and sanctions that have recently been promoted as civil rights requirements…. What, from our vantage point, happens because of these tests is not improvement. It’s destruction.”
Under No Child Left Behind, the United States has built a system of high-stakes testing to judge and control students, teachers, schools and districts. It subordinates learning to test preparation and contributes to profoundly unequal educational opportunities and outcomes. (NCLB is the current version of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, ESEA.)
U.S. public schools are inundated with tests, especially reading and math.Students take an average of 113 standardized exams mandated by federal, state and local governments during their school careers. Some urban districts, such as Pittsburgh, have implemented more than 30 tests in just one grade in a single year. State teacher union surveys report that testing and preparation can occupy up to 16 hours per week. Black, brown, low-income and recent immigrant/English language learner students spend far more time on testing and test preparation than do white students.
Unfortunately, the tests measure only a thin slice of what students need to learn. Focusing on them commonly reduces those subjects to test prep. For example, students constantly skim short passages and answer multiple-choice questions rather than read real books, write reports, or engage in class discussion. Teachers put exams at the center of instruction to protect their students and schools, as well as themselves, from the consequences of low scores. Meanwhile, science, history, the arts and other subjects are cut back to carve out more time for reading and math test prep.
Attaching high-stakes to the tests causes great damage. Disadvantaged Some say standardized testing is a civil right. What about less testing as a civil right? - The Washington Post: