It’s Time to Kill High-Stakes Testing
Elizabeth Warren made some news in education circles this past week when she sat for an interview with NEA President Lily Eskelsen Garcia. Garcia read a question from a retired teacher who wanted to know what Warren would do to end high-stakes testing. Warren said, in part:
“This notion that it’s all about testing — that it’s all about what somebody far off in the state capital or far off in the national capital says, here’s what constitutes success and worse yet, here’s what constitutes failure — no, that’s not what education is about,” Warren said.
“Education is what goes on in the classroom; what a teacher has said is the goal. And when a kid gets there, it is a teacher who knows it. We do not need high-stakes testing.”
While I put almost zero stock in what Presidential candidates say while trying to woo voters with transparent pandering, there is the potential that sound clips like the one above can generate interesting conversations. Warren’s rhetorical stand against high-stakes testing certainly did that.
Peter Greene, who writes one of the best education policy blogs from CONTINUE READING: It's Time to Kill High-Stakes Testing - Teacher Habits
