Education Policies Worthy of the Name 'Reform'
The month before standardized tests begin each school year, Stephen Lazar, a National Board-certified history and English teacher at Harvest Collegiate High School in New York City, tells his students that he is going to "turn into a bad teacher. ... No more research, no more discussion, no more dealing with complexity, no more developing as writers with voice and style." Instead, they practice mindless repetition of facts so they can perform well on a standardized test that, in its perverse way, Stephen says, "works."
But he knows it doesn't really work--that is, if we want to equip our kids with the skills and knowledge they need to be successful in life, college and career. When Stephen testified before Congress earlier this year, he told lawmakers that top-down, test-based accountability, which "values three hours of testing over a year of learning and development," should be replaced with more valid and useful measures of student achievement.
Stephen is one of thousands of educators, union leaders, parents and students who have called for changes to policies that essentially reduced kids to test scores and teachers to algorithms. AFT members alone took more than 100,000 actions online, submitted 20,000 comments to Congress, and met with numerous congressional leaders and staff. After all these years of test-and-sanction policies, Congress listened and acted.
In a rare display of finding common ground, Congress recently passed the Every Student Succeeds Act by overwhelming majorities. ESSA replaces the broadly discredited No Child Left Behind Act, a law whose test-punish-repeat approach has left students alternately stressed or bored, has frustrated parents, and has deprofessionalized and demoralized teachers.
Under the newly passed ESSA, high-stakes testing and sanctions are no longer the be-all and end-all in education. States still will administer standardized tests, but they can now limit the consequences of these tests and the time students spend taking them, and eliminate unnecessary or poor-quality tests. States have an explicit Education Policies Worthy of the Name 'Reform' | Randi Weingarten: