DeVos vows to require standardized tests again: 4 questions answered
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos announced on Sept. 3 that the government intended to enforce federal rules that require all states to administer standardized tests at K-12 public schools during the 2020-2021 school year. Nicholas Tampio, a Fordham University political scientist who researches education policy, puts this declaration into context.
1. What did DeVos say?
Since the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, U.S. public school students have had to take federally mandated standardized tests every year.
Students got a break in the spring of 2020 when DeVos announced that states could apply for waivers due to the pandemic. “Neither students nor teachers,” she explained, “need to be focused on high-stakes tests during this difficult time.”
In September, DeVos reaffirmed her commitment to federally mandated testing. “It is now our expectation,” DeVos wrote in a letter to chief state school officers, “that states will, in the interest of students,” administer standardized tests at the end of the 2020-2021 school year.
2. How is testing data used?
As a political scientist who researches education policy, I know that money is the main lever for the federal government to influence states and local school districts. For example, the federal government sets conditions that states must accept to secure Title I funding, which supports schools where many children are being raised in poverty.
Only about 8% of the roughly US$720 billion that all levels of government spend on public schools comes from federal sources. Yet federal education money is vital because it helps state and local governments boost their budgets for the education of some of the most vulnerable students, including those with special needs.
In the spring of 2019, the DeVos team threatened to withhold $340 million in federal education funds from Arizona. Why? Because the state had not complied with the testing requirements of the Every Student Succeeds Act, which replaced CONTINUE READING: DeVos vows to require standardized tests again: 4 questions answered
