From CNN:
Washington (CNN) Stressed-out students nationwide, take note. Relief is on the way.
After years of complaints from teachers, parents and students alike, the Obama administration on Saturday announced new guidelines toward standardized tests, saying kids spend too much time taking "unnecessary" exams in schools.
In a Facebook video message, President Barack Obama said he hears from parents who 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."
"I want to fix that," he said
http://www.cnn.com/...
And from the White House on Facebook:
"Learning is about so much more than just filling in the right bubble. So we’re going to work with states, school districts, teachers, and parents to make sure that we’re not obsessing about testing, that the principles I just outlined are reflected in classrooms throughout the country—to make sure that our kids are enjoying learning, that our teachers are able to operate with creativity, to make sure we are preparing our kids for a lifetime of success." —President Obama
The video can be viewed here:
https://www.facebook.com/...
One of the new guidelines is that no more than 2% of class time can be spent on or toward standardized testing. That works out to, at most, about a day every two months - which sounds similar to the amount of time spent on "bubble tests" when I was a child.
Thank goodness the President appears to be doing what he can to undo the disastrous educational effects of Dubya's No Child Left Behind program, which was nothing less than a secret, large-scale attempt to destroy public education in this country. Or, as Dartagnan described it yesterday:
Testing, or "preparation" for testing, now begins in kindergarten in the public school system. At parent-teacher "back-to school nights" the focus is incessantly on preparation for these tests, because the school's Federal funding is now inextricably tied to and dependent upon repeated testing of its student body. In some states teacher's pay has been tied to test scores. No one wants to be labelled a "failing school." As a result, more and more so-called "homework," all geared toward the state testing, is dumped on these (younger and younger) kids.
The residual fallout from George Bush's disastrous "No Child Left Behind Act," a piece of feel-good social engineering shoved down Americans' throats in January 2002 is now doing for American children what the Iraq war did for the Middle East--it's ruining an entire generation. By tying teachers' and principals' jobs to the test scores of their students, this pernicious piece of legislation did exactly what you might expect. It turned our public schools into onerous test mills, forcing teachers to teach the test and only the test, filling kids' heads with rote methodology and memorized, often useless garbage while simultaneously destroying their love of learning forever.
http://www.dailykos.com/...
________