by Dan Burns

Mar 3, 2021, 7:00 AM

High-stakes standardized testing, this year? WTF?!!

This is quoted from an article dated a couple of weeks ago. I looked around this morning, and the administration has not pulled back.

The Biden administration chose a pro-testing advocate, Ian Rosenblum of Education Trust New York, to announce the decision that states must administer the federally mandated tests this spring…

Joe Biden said unequivocally at a Public Education Forum in Pittsburgh when he was campaigning that he would end the federal mandate for standardized testing…

This is hugely disappointing, first, because it is a broken promise; second, because it imposes standardized testing in the midst of a pandemic when access to education has been grossly uneven and unequal; third, because it diverts the attention of teachers and students to a meaningless exercise.
(Diane Ravitch’s Blog)

That article also includes a very effective summary of how counterproductive standardized testing is. The link under the image is good for that, too.

There has been some mealy-mouthed stuff about delaying and/or shortening the tests, and/or not using them for anything but “tracking.” Like, nice try. There are also some who might claim that because of that this year’s tests shouldn’t be called “high-stakes.” Such people are very naive, deliberately or otherwise, about the assault on public education in this country.

I don’t know what might be going on in whoevers’ heads, to have made a call as god-damned pathetically stupid as this. There seems to be talk of a need to “establish a baseline,” or some such drivel, post-distance learning and so on. It would be much better to just listen to the teachers, after the kids have been back in school for a week or two, to find out about that.

Here’s information about an opt-out movement.