How Should Educators Respond to the Obama Administration's Concession on Test and Punish?
The outgoing secretary of education, Arne Duncan, now admits, "I can't tell you how many conversations I'm in with educators who are understandably stressed and concerned about an overemphasis on testing in some places and how much time testing and test prep are taking." Duncan does so as the Obama administration'sTesting Action Plan now invites states to correct its biggest education debacle, the nonstop testing that has sucked the oxygen out of schools.
The timing couldn't be better for Oklahoma, and I'm sure most other states will jump at the chance to free themselves from the Duncan/Obama imposition of the "junk science" known as value-added evaluations. On the eve of Oklahoma's deadline for determining whether to dump the quantitative portion of its Teacher and Leader Effectiveness (TLE) system, the Obama administration is backing away from its once-clear demand that test score growth must be included in holding individuals accountable.
The quantitative portion of the TLE, which Oklahoma was strong-armed into adopting, was based on the test-loving Colorado evaluation system. But, President Obama now "has directed the Department of Education (the Department) to review its policies to address any places where the Administration may have contributed to the problem of overemphasis on testing burdening classroom time."
Before the Obama administration coerced more than 2/3rds of the states into adopting valued-added teacher evaluations, around 20% of educators and their students were subject to high stakes testing. The administration gave states an offer they couldn't refuse and demanded that they create a score for virtually every teacher in the country.
That is why NCLB was destructive but why the harm done by teach-to-the-test How Should Educators Respond to the Obama Administration's Concession on Test and Punish? | John Thompson:
