Category: testing

Eliminated, or Replaced?

High-school seniors statewide were no doubt miffed if they heard the news out of Raleigh on Sept. 5: Gov. Roy Cooper signed a bill into law titled “AN ACT TO REDUCE TESTING ADMINISTERED TO STUDENTS IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS.” The bill’s first sentence stipulates that no tests will be eliminated until the 2020-21 school year, making members of the Class of 2020 ineligible for the legislature’s largesse. We’re very much in favor of reducing the amount of time students spend taking tests, especially useless tests that are never used to target areas of weakness or make adjustments to an individual’s course of instruction. However, the law contains another significant loophole regarding NC Final Exams. Its first section reads, No later than March 15, 2020, the State […]

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Testing Should Help

A TED talk from April 2013 by “creativity expert” Ken Robinson—who has been criticized of late for being idealistic and clueless—makes a really simple point: tests should be diagnostic. He states, “Standardized tests have a place. But they should not be the dominant culture of education. They should be diagnostic. They should help.” At this writing, most students in Wake county have recently undergone the annual ritual of high-stakes testing, during which time virtually no other learning could take place at each school. There’s plenty to despise about the state-mandated standardized testing that occurs every May. Here are just a few of the common criticisms that angry parents have piled on in recent years: Testing wastes an inordinate amount of instructional time, as teachers are […]

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