Concrete victories won by the anti-testing movement (so far)
It wasn’t that long ago that many school reformers and education policymakers gave short shrift to, or outright ridiculed, parents and educators who fought the overuse and misuse of standardized tests. It was only two years ago almost to the day when Education Secretary Arne Duncan said lots of “white suburban moms” opposed the Common Core State Standards and aligned standardized tests because they realized “their child isn’t as brilliant as they thought they were.”
Now, of course, Duncan and President Obama have conceded that kids do, after all, take too many standardized tests, and states and districts are moving to dial back some of the exams while Congress may pass legislation to rewrite No Child Left Behind in a way that reduces federal involvement in testing.
A new report details the advances made by the anti-testing movement in the past year. It was issued by FairTest, the National Center for Fair and Open Testing, which works to eliminate the misuse of standardized tests, and written by Lisa Guisbond with Monty Neill and Bob Schaeffer (all of FairTest). Here are some of the findings:
*A sharp reversal of the decades-long trend to adopt high school exit exams. Policy-makers repealed the California graduation test, while Texas loosened its requirements, joining six states that repealed or delayed these exams in the 2013-2014 school year. California, Georgia, South Carolina and Arizona also decided to grant diplomas retroactively to thousands of students denied them because of test scores.* Florida suspended Jeb Bush’s 3rd grade reading test-based promotion policy. Oklahoma, New York, and North Carolina revised their test-based promotion policies, and New Mexico legislators blocked the governor’s effort to impose one.*States and districts that rolled back mandated testing include Minnesota, Virginia, Florida, Colorado, Maryland, Dallas and Lee County, Florida.*Opting out surged to new levels in New York, New Jersey and across the country – approaching 500,000 nationally – rivetingConcrete victories won by the anti-testing movement (so far) - The Washington Post:
