Why Scrapping School Testing This Year Is a Good Idea
During yesterday's (insane) news conference, Donald Tump made some news on the K-12 education front:
It’s official: U.S. students won't have to take annual state tests this year.The Education Department will waive federal requirements for state testing for K-12 students, due to unprecedented school shutdowns to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus, President Donald Trump and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos announced Friday.Normally, federal law requires schools to administer exams in English and math to students in third through eighth grade, and once in high school. The results are used to examine how students are progressing and how well schools are performing.Students usually take state tests in the spring – and school closures are likely to continue through the testing window.
Now, I've got some serious reservations about giving the SecEd broad powers -- especially when that SecEd is Betsy DeVos, who has repeatedly shown she is not up to the job. But the crisis we're now facing has obviously created a huge problem for the nation's K-12 schools, and we ought to be looking at whether current federal policies are helping or hurting. That starts, to my mind, with canceling our regular springtime battery of state tests.
It's useful to step back and think about why annual testing was implemented in the first CONTINUE READING: Jersey Jazzman: Why Scrapping School Testing This Year Is a Good Idea