Will New Plan for Testing Caps Bring End to Disastrous Bush-Obama Education Policies?
Will New Plan for Testing Caps Bring End to Disastrous Bush-Obama Education Policies?
Andrea Germanos
Common Dreams
The Obama administration on Saturday acknowledged what many parents and educators have seen as a problem for years—the excessive use of high-stakes testing in the nation's public schools.
"I believe that in moderation, smart, strategic tests can help us measure our kids' progress in school," President Obama said in a video posted to Facebook.
"But I also hear from parents who rightly worry about too much testing, and from teachers who feel so much pressure to teach to a test that it takes the joy out of teaching and learning, both for them and for the students. I want to fix that," adding, "Learning is about so much more than just filling in the right bubble."
As the announcement follows ongoing resistance, including protests and test opt-outs, to high-stakes testing, American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten reacted by saying that "it's a big deal that the president and the secretaries of education—both current and future—are saying that they get it and are pledging to address the fixation on testing in tangible ways."
"Parents, students and educators, your voice matters and you were heard," she said, and Seattle educator and outspoken education reform advocate Jesse Hagopian tweeted, "Our uprising against the testocracy is making big gains. To win the new Obama proposal we have keep up the struggle!"
Yet reform advocates were also quick to point out that the plan neither offers a true policy change nor makes up for damage already cased by this "testocracy." As Weingarten added in her statement, "the devil is in the details," and as education historian Diane Ravitch writes, the plan is really "too little too late." Ravitch continues:
You might say that the Obama administration is lamenting the past 13 years of federal policy, which mandated annual testing, and made test scores the determinative factor in the evaluation of teachers, principals and schools.
In short, the Bush-Obama policies have been a disaster.
This is a classic case of too little, too late. Think of the thousands of teachers and principals who were unjustly fired and the thousands of pubic schools wrongly closed when they should have gotten help. This administration and the George W. Bush cannot be absolved for the damage they have done to American education by issuing a press release.