Standardized test season in K-12 classrooms has been dominated in some states by widespread technical problems or by parents allowing their children to opt out. But testing officials say the rollout this spring of new standardized tests taken by computer in many U.S. public schools has been without major problems in much of the country.
The next step? Seeing how students did — and how parents and educators respond. Test scores don’t just inform parents of their child’s progress; they are used to judge schools and teacher performance, too. The new exams are expected to be harder in many states than the state assessments they replaced, but they’ve been billed as a more accurate testing of what students are actually learning.
The new exams were developed to be taken by computer, although paper and pencil tests are available. Districts have had to upgrade their Internet capabilities, buy new computers and teach keyboarding. There’s been mounting concern that students take too many standardized tests. Thousands have opted to keep their students from taking standardized tests.
Under federal law, 95 percent of a state’s students are required to undergo an annual assessment. As the opt-outs potentially put some states at risk of not meeting that threshold, Education Secretary Arne Duncan told reporters the federal government has “an obligation to step in.
The mixed controversy has caused children, parents, and teachers’ huge anxiety. Teachers are subjected to increasing pressures to prepare students for the tests, even when we know that the tests don’t assess the most essential aspects of thinking and learning. Students often internalize the judgements of the tests — as if test scores were the final word on one’s knowledge or potential.
Opponents say the tests are neither fair nor objective, that their use promotes a narrow curriculum and drill-like “teaching to the test,” and that excessive testing undermines America’s ability to produce innovators and critical thinkers.
Some parents that are refusing to let their children participate in the tests are doing so in the hopes that it sends a message that they are against the increased emphasis on standardized tests in public schools and the impact it has on their children, and teachers’ evaluations.
For a segment of parents fed up with the growing numbers of tests and the increasingly high stakes placed on their scores, “opting out” is now the popular form of protest. And in certain states and communities, the movement is gaining steam, with large percentages of parents and students sitting out required exams. With schools required by current federal law to test at
least 95 percent of their populations, the burgeoning opt-out numbers raise the possibility of federal sanctions.
But parents choosing to opt out say the current tests cause unnecessary stress and harm to their kids, aren’t useful diagnostically, and are pushing instruction and education in a direction they disagree with. The opt-out movement may force some productive conversations about how to build better, more efficient assessment systems, but he also worries about the negative effects of having so many students skip the exams.
The message is, ‘Enough is enough,’ It’s a three-part message: too many tests, too high stakes, and we need better assessments.”