Where did Obama administration’s 2 percent cap on standardized testing come from? You won’t believe it. (Or maybe you will.)
(Update: Where New York legislature got its 2 percent testing limit)
You won’t believe this. Wait. Maybe you will.
The Obama administration has issued a Testing Action Plan that it says should help reduce over-testing in public schools. That plan includes a cap of 2 percent on the classroom time students spend on mandated standardized tests. The plan says:
Time-limited: While it is up to states and districts how to balance instructional time and the need for high-quality assessments, we recommend that states place a cap on the percentage of instructional time students spend taking required statewide standardized assessments to ensure that no child spends more than 2 percent of her classroom time taking these tests. Parents should receive formal notification if their child’s school exceeds this cap and an action plan should be publicly posted to describe the steps the state will take to review and eliminate unnecessary assessments, and come into compliance. States and school districts should carefully consider whether each assessment serves a unique, essential role in ensuring that students are learning.
The 2 percent is not much less than the 2.3 percent that a new two-year studyon standardized testing says kids now spend on these mandated exams, a figure deemed excessive by the report issued by the nonprofit Council of the Great City Schools. Is 2 percent a wholesale change from 2.3 percent?
Where did the administration come up with its 2 percent recommendation? Was it borne out of research? Was it taken from a place where the 2 percent cap has been successful in freeing up instruction time, reducing test prep and allowing schools to stop obsessively focusing on math and English?
Well, no. It turns out, according to Education Secretary Arne Duncan, it came from New York State. That’s where standardized testing administration and Common Core State Standards implementation have been so mishandled in recent years that 20 percent of students opted out of the tests this past spring, and the governor, Andrew Cuomo, turned on John King, the commissioner of education who resigned late last year and this year turned up as No. 2 to Duncan. Now, King is the designated successor to Duncan when he leaves his post at the end of this year.
At a gathering at the National Press Club on Monday, a reporter asked where the 2 percent limit came from. Duncan said to ask King because New York had passed a 2 percent standardized testing cap. The New York State legislature last year passed a series of changes involving public education, including on test-taking (1 percent for local standardized tests and 1 percent for state-mandated standardized tests) and test prep (2 percent, though not for charter schools, just traditional public schools). The Testing Action Plan says:
New York has worked to limit the amount of time students spend on required state- and district-level standardized tests – no more than 1 percent of instructional time for state-required standardized tests, and 1 percent for locally required standardized tests. To support this work, New York also established a “Teaching is the Core” competitive grant which supported teamsWhere did Obama administration’s 2 percent cap on standardized testing come from? You won’t believe it. (Or maybe you will.) - The Washington Post: