Kids take 112 standardized tests by high school graduation

“But I also hear from parents who rightly worry about too much testing and from parents who feel so much pressure to teach to a test that it takes the joy out of teaching and learning”, Obama said.

As President Obama called for a cap on standardized testing on Saturday, there was mention of a report that counted how many tests students take in 66 large, urban school districts around the country, including Seattle Public Schools.

I’ve asked the Department of Education to work aggressively with states and school districts to make sure that any tests we use in our classroom meet three basic principles.

The Obama administration executed a significant about-face in its education policy Saturday, calling for a cap on the amount of time students spend taking standardized tests. “What I remember is the way they taught me to believe in myself, to be curious about the world, to take charge of my own learning so that I could reach my full potential”.

Standardized tests became mandatory in 2001 for students in third grade and higher under No Child Left Behind, a law legislators voted to overhaul in July.

Monty Neill, executive director of the National Center for Fair and Open Testing, or FairTest, said the president’s call for less testing is, in itself, “totally toothless”.

The White House announcement and the new report have drawn widespread attention in the news media, including a piece by Kate Zernike for The New York Times.

The Obama administration said it still supports standardized tests as a necessary assessment tool, and there are no signs they are going away soon.

The change would revive an exam that the state phased out in August in order to help students caught between the state’s rising academic standards and the requirements for a high school diploma.

Casserly said his group found examples of testing redundancy that could be cut to create more instructional time.

Teachers unions have fought hard against one-size-fits-all tests for students being tied to teachers’ performance evaluations. That would seem to mean that annual tests in reading and math in grades 3 through 8 and once in high school (plus science in certain grades) must stand. But other tests can go, or be scaled back.

The U.S. Department of Education, led by Arne Duncan, who has announced his imminent departure, said President Obama’s 2016 budget includes $403 million “to provide additional resources to states to support the effective implementation of assessments that are aligned to college- and career-ready standards”.

A few students suffered extreme testing fatigue and failed to take any of the tests seriously, marking answer sheets without considering the questions just so they could get done with the test.

“It’s important for them to have that experience obviously for any K-12 school system”, Gobler said.

While Obama can not enforce the new policy in individual states or districts, the Department of Education has rolled out a plan that would help these local governments reevaluate their testing programs, The Wall Street Journal reports. But here is the problem: the results of these tests count so much in the federally mandated “accountability system” that states and school districts are giving students dozens of additional tests to prepare for the federal tests. States and districts responded by adding tests to ensure students were on track. “And they’re more concerned about the test scores rather than making sure the kids get a good education”. Clinton had been vague about her education plans, using language that signals she is troubled by the proliferation of testing without pledging any concrete steps to scale it back.