The General Assembly is on the brink of reversing a late 20th-century education craze. Legislators may start reducing standardized testing.
In the years after publication of the 1983 report, "A Nation at Risk," by the National Commission on Excellence in Education, legislators demanded "more accountability" from public schools. Eventually, they got a series of standardized tests that would have a profound effect on classroom instruction.
Standardized tests created the need for a standardized curriculum -- or maybe it was vice versa. Either way, the combination of the two meant teachers "taught to the test" because their livelihoods depended on it.
The result has not been good. Students are taught less to think and more to memorize. And students who do not do well on standardized tests are not accurately assessed.
So, congratulations to Rep. Bryan Holloway, a Stokes County Republican, who persuaded the Democratic-controlled House to cut $2.1 million in testing funds last week. His budget amendment eliminates the U.S. history, physical science, economics and civics end-of-course tests. The money will be redirected to purchase classroom materials.
Nothing will come of this if House-Senate budget conferees decide to drop Holloway's amendment. And there is a good chance that will happen. The Democratic-controlled House budget subcommittee on education had rejected Holloway's idea. He pulled a political miracle on the floor by getting all Republicans and a few Democratic votes.
Democrats were also worried about testing. They had their own amendment that eliminated the standardized test in geometry.
While we're happy to see some standardized tests go, we're not happy to see how it is being done.
Legislators should set broad state-education policy, but they aren't the best-trained people to decide which standardized tests should go and which should stay. The state employs a great many experts who should know best on that. The legislature should direct the State Board of Education to prepare a plan for reducing the amount of standardized testing in our schools.
If the legislature were to do that, then education specialists could choose those standardized tests that really do provide accountability measures and those that are unnecessary. The state board could recommend a plan to reduce the standardized testing schedule, and thus the stress on teachers and students, while maintaining some of the benefits the tests provide -- such as an overall view of how a school system is working.
Maybe that kind of compromise will emerge. The bottom line, however, should be that some action is taken to begin to reverse the state's overdependence on standardized testing in our schools. To that end, Holloway's amendment is a strong positive.
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