Parents say they don't need state test results

Jay Matthews:

Last month, I asked whether parents and grandparents were worried about threats to annual testing caused by the national switch to the Common Core standards.

U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan had warned that California would be shortchanging students and their families if it held to its plan not to report school test averages next year. Almost everyone who responded to me said Duncan was wrong.

I proposed in that column a year's respite from reporting state test results, while teachers adjusted to the new Common Core lessons and tests. "Schools can give the new tests but use the results only for improving teaching methods, not for assessing students and teachers," I wrote.

Virginia parent Wendy Hoskins was among many who think that was a good idea. In fact, she said she would be happy if her kids didn't take the tests at all.

"Standardized tests do not give a true sense of a child's abilities," she said. "If it's so great, why don't private schools jump on the bandwagon?"

Posted by Jim Zellmer at December 13, 2013 12:41 AM
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