Obama: Cap class time devoted to standardized student tests

And a “testing action plan” released by the Education Department said too many schools have unnecessary testing. And they have generally been pro-testing.

At the same time, the administration also extended limits on the use of the test results in evaluating teachers for at least another year.

“Learning is about so much more than just filling in the right bubble”, Obama said.

“The president has had one clear message from day one, and that’s to do the right thing for kids”, Duncan said. “That is why she is continuing to work to fix the problems caused by No Child Left Behind so that there is more time for teaching and learning in our classrooms”. And what’s also significant is that the administration acknowledges that it has played a role in what you call the mission creep of testing.

In 2001, as a US senator, Clinton voted for No Child Left Behind, George W.Bush’s wildly unpopular education reform law at the core of which was testing.

In part of this action plan, the Obama administration is signaling that they’re going to allow a lot more flexibility to states in designing these teacher evaluations.

President Barack Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan (left), at North High School in Des Moines this month.

Several districts are cutting back the number of tests they give each year, including Seattle Public Schools.

State officials used the announcement as an opportunity to tout the changes that they have already made in New York. But other states, including Kansas, have put forth proposals and been rebuffed. It sounds like it will be looking for other pots of money that can be dedicated to rethinking testing. A PDK-Gallup poll released in August found that 64 percent of respondents felt there was too much emphasis placed on standardized testing and found that regular test scores and a students’ excitement better measured a child’s progress.

Duval County schools, in Jacksonville, Fla., reduced the number of district-required assessments at the elementary school level to 10 from 23 and at the secondary school level to 12 from 29. On Saturday, Mr. Obama stated that standardized tests should take up only 2 percent of classroom time. “So we’re going to work with states, school districts, teachers, and parents to make sure that we’re not obsessing about testing”.

“We must reverse the overemphasis on testing that has become the norm for students in pre-kindergarten through 2nd grade”, he added. They’re not really tied to what we want them to be tied to, to learning in the classroom.

Obama says schools must meet three basic principles: tests should be high quality, they… “But we have to be careful, as with anything federal, that it doesn’t lead to unintended consequences”.

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said the decision to rein in testing is “common sense” and an effort supported by an overwhelming majority of Americans. “Testing should help inform instruction, not drive instruction. We need to get back to focusing on the whole child – teaching our kids how to build relationships, how to be resilient and how to think critically”. “But that’s just the first lesson”.

Could you pass a test on standardized testing?

“A test for a test’s sake is not sufficient in our schools”, he said.