http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/10/24/obama-schools-test/74536886/
Wow. Big change in testing recommendations and no comments. Fascinating.
^^^No comment because it’s all doublespeak. As long as the government’s current policy (No Child Left Behind) is in place, it will drive school behavior, far more than a speech (or a video on Facebook) by the President.
Lets hope its more thn that.
Oh puhlease…who gave us the stupid standards in the first place? Who hired Arne Duncan to privatize the public schools, gut the professional, and sell it all to the highest bidders? It’s just more talk.
http://dianeravitch.net/2015/10/24/peter-greene-dont-be-fooled-by-the-latest-duncan-testing-blather/
Who gave them to us? C’mon, we were stuck with Iowa Tests, back when I was in lower school, every year, for a week. I hated it.
My issue is not with the testing. It’s whether or not the results lead to any real improvements. It’s about what actually happens during the rest of the school week. And that’s just not as simple as it can sound, in a country this large, with this much variation.
So assuming 6 hours of instruction and 180 school days, 2% is still 21 hours.
^^yes. I was speaking in wider terms of “government regulations”, not just Obama piling on what others had started. Here in PA, the legislature has taken up a bill to allow parents to opt out permanently, K-12, of the Keystone Exams. it is interesting to see what opting out has done to these rules…
No Child Left Behind was signed by Bush in 2002 and was a bi-partisan effort in Congress. I think the idea was pretty laudable - national minimal standards and some kind of accountability. Unfortunately the implementation has been sorely lacking.
On the flip side, so much distress about testing teachers…