President Joe Biden came into office with millions of kids learning remotely, teachers afraid of getting sick and parents balancing too much at home. Now, they also have to worry about standardized tests.
Biden’s administration surprised some schools last week by resuming standardized testing requirements after a one-year pause. The Education Department is offering substantial “flexibility” to states, but critics see the underlying order as an unwelcome stressor after a chaotic school year.
The conflict puts a new spin on the standardized testing debate, which swelled in classrooms and school board meetings during the Bush and Obama administrations. Biden, by contrast, was a sharp critic of the exams during his presidential campaign. He once told a crowd of educators he’d end the use of standardized tests in public schools and suggested it would be a “big mistake” to attach teacher evaluations to student test scores.
So the Biden administration’s decision to press ahead with testing has irked the national teachers’ unions that supported his candidacy — and left some school leaders and testing skeptics worried any 2021 test results won’t offer a complete, meaningful or fair accounting of how childhood education has really fared during the pandemic.
“We have to be really careful,” said Ryan Stewart, New Mexico’s public education secretary, in an interview. “There are some definite concerns we have with regard to validity and reliability, and we have to be measured in the kinds of conclusions we draw from this year’s assessments.”
Georgia school Superintendent Richard Woods offered harsher criticism. CONTINUE READING: Biden administration's push for standardized tests irks teachers unions, state leaders - POLITICO