The U.S. Department of Education says that the correct number of standardized tests is 2% of instructional time.
In most districts, that would be about 20-24 hours of taking tests. Not prepping for them, just taking them.
That would be an increase in the amount of time now allocated in most places to standardized tests. Should children in grades 3-8 really sit for 20 hours of tests? Sounds nutty.
Peter Greene has a different idea. He says the correct number of standardized test is zero.
He writes:
Students need standardized tests like a fish needs a bicycle. Standardized tests are as essential to education as a mugging is essential to better financial health.
Is there a benefit to the child to be compared and ranked against the rest of the children in the country, to be part of the Great Sorting of children into winners and losers? No. Having such rankings and ratings may advance the agenda of other folks when it comes to writing policy and distributing money, but those benefits are for those folks– not the children. The mugger may benefit from mugging me, but it does not follow that I enjoy a benefit.
Are there standardized tests from which a classroom teacher can glean useful information? Sure– but those tests are best chosen to fit the needs and concerns of one particular teacher and one particular collection of students. A diagnostic test might help me with Chris, but there’s no reason to believe it would help me better understand Chris if it were given to every other student at the same time.
Read on.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
And that doesn’t include all the REGUALR tests teacher give – pretests, interim interim tests, interim tests, midterms, finals. Not to mention the homework, quizzes, projects, etc. in between. Good grief!
Reblogged this on education pathways and commented:
Does the Department of Education really want us to go from bad to worse?
Excellent post!
Should have given feminist Flo Kennedy credit for fish-bicycle analogy.
Her witty quip, not Greene’s.
Makes perfect sense.
I was a little slow on the uptake.
Select the one word that best completes the title of Peter Green’es blog post:
“The Only Good Standardized Test Is A __ Standardized Test”
a) Well Written
b) Common Core
c) Subjective
d) Deceased
From the very politically incorrect but historically accurate proverbial sterotype.
Cross posted a link directly Peter’s site
with this comment
When I was the cohort
http://www.opednews.com/author/author40790.html for the REAL, National standards research* one of the principles addressed AUTHENTIC assessment and Genuine EVALUATION… or performance assessment.
two things to know.
1- TO really know a student’s performance so a TEACHER can plan lessons to meet student needs for LEARNING, the TEACHER must do the evaluation.
2-The ONLY PURPOSE for evaluation of any kind… is to inform the teacher, so lessons can be planned. It also allows a teacher to explain to a parent and a child whether or not the child is learning. Evaluations /tests of any kind WAS NEVER INTENDED TO EVALUATE A TEACHER OR A SCHOOL!
3- TESTS ( quizzes and multiple choice tests) were NOT even mentioned in the standards research, as these were merely classroom devices that were available to a teacher to inform the accession of facts, and did not, in any way, evaluate a student’s ability TO APPLY KNOWLEDGE or to GAIN SKILLS.
Thus, Evaluation belonged in the classroom, for the use of the teacher.
It was the charlatan and grand liar Bush, who put forth his NCLB act
which created this testing nonsense for the sole purposes of the Education Industrial complex to show that schools ar failing … and it has left ALL children behind.and to do that THE PROFESSIONAL STAFF HAD TO BE SILENCED AND REMOVED.
How else could a multiple choice test be USED to know how a teacher teaches little Johnny, Leroy, Juanita or any child?
* The PRINCIPLES OF LEARNING…EFFORT BASED EDUCATION: Pew Funded, THESIS BY LAUREN RESNICK; Harvard and Univ of Pittsburg run –3rd level EXPENSIVE ,EXTENSIVE research of tens of THOUSANDS of classrooms across the ENTIRE NATION( so the principles must work everywhere not just in oshkosh), testing the thesis THE PRINCIPLES OF LEARNING.