Thursday, February 18, 2016

Report to BESE and District Superintendents on Standards and Testing

Please click on this link to view my report to BESE and District Superintendents on Louisiana Standards and Testing.

I believe this report which includes about a year of research on our standards and the associated testing, is a wake-up call to our policy makers. The testing tail is "wagging the dog."

Our students and teachers are trapped in an endless cycle of testing and test prep that is counter to the true goals of a good education.

The PARCC-like tests given last spring have no validity because the results cannot be compared to anything, and the teachers received almost no useful information. Many teachers have no concept of what the scale scores on the PARCC-like tests really mean. I believe that was the intent of the testing consortium.

There is no real standard for students and parents. There is no bar "set higher". There is only a tool for blaming and shaming public school systems.