Finding the sweet spot on student testing

Instead, Obama suggested no more than 2 percent of classroom time be devoted to standardized testing, which he said can free up more time for actual instruction.

The president’s announcement also followed the release of a report last week from the Council of the Great City Schools, which found that students spend between 20 to 25 hours each school year on an average of eight assessments, including federal and state standardized tests.

Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., who previously served as the superintendent of Denver Public Schools, agrees that school testing has gotten out of hand, and he says states need to better differentiate between necessary assessments and ones that serve no educational objective.

“Learning is about so much more than just filling in the right bubble”, Obama said in a video released on Facebook.

President Barack Obama’s declaration that public schools should spend less time testing students and more time teaching them won’t have a direct impact on the nation’s classrooms. “We passed an amendment to the education bill in the Senate telling states to put a cap on testing, and we’re pushing for final congressional approval of the bill, which also overhauls No Child Left Behind”. “So in January, we’ll be sending a proposal to them, and it will be doing just the amount of testing that we’re required to do and not beyond that”.

To drive the point home, Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan met in the Oval Office on Monday with teachers and school officials working to reduce testing time. That was Raleigh 9th grader Philip Sanders’ response when we asked him how much standardized testing he endured last school year.

“It allows for the teachers to teach their subject area, more or less than, instead of worrying about getting in test preparation, making sure they allotting enough time in the day to get those into proper environments; I really applaud that attempt”, President of Regis Catholic Schools Mark Gobler said.

And the action plan draws a bright line in calling for the continuation of annual statewide tests, a requirement a few testing critics would like to eliminate.

The department has data showing the number of hours spent on testing for grades three through nine.

This past spring saw the rollout of new tests based on the Common Core college-ready academic standards in reading and math. About 12 million students in 29 states and the District of Columbia took the tests developed by two groups – the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium and the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC).

-The most tests were required in 8th and 10th grade; the fewest were in pre-K, kindergarten and first grade. The lack of timely results means teachers begin a new school year not knowing where a student needs to improve. But districts can – and do – use other measures in addition to growth based on multiple years of state test results.