Both houses of the Maryland legislature endorsed legislation to limit the hours of standardized testing in the schools.
But don’t celebrate.
The limit is 2% of instructional time.
That means that students in elementary and middle schools may be subjected to 24 hours of standardized testing! High school students may be tested for 26 hours!
How humane. A third grade student–eight or nine years old–compelled to spend 24 hours taking a standardized test.
Whatever happened to essays, book reports, research, projects, genuine exhibitions of mastery?
Why so many hours of standardized testing? Who benefits?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Who benefits is a good question. We know who benefits…the oligarchy.
Maryland strong anti-reform state. Wonder why they didn’t narrow it down more. MD is a strong union and public schools state.
Could it be something as simple as the legislators or their analysts did not calculate 2 percent? That they simply didn’t think it through?
Because they think we the parents are stupid! 2% “sounds” like so little, so it will appease the parents. We don’t have Opt-out either so parents have to REFUSE and fight with their county administration.
Our MD school was chosen for pilot testing, so our English PARCC is SEVEN hours long.
Why? Why? Why?
REFUSE….you can!
The students have been told that this test is a graduation requirement, so they can’t.
I’m a reliable Ohio Democratic voter but I’m not voting for any politician who doesn’t do something for public schools.
I’m tired of being taken for granted where public school children are treated as a back-burner issue that they’ll reluctantly address once the ed reform charter and voucher wish list is granted.
Public school kids deserve advocates in government. Whatever the ideological goals of these people the fact is we’re talking about 90% of kids nationwide who are treated as if their schools are a disfavored default to be run over on the way to wherever “the movement” is going. Democrats take us for granted based on a reputation for supporting public education that the current crop of Democrats haven’t earned. There was a time when Democrats supported public education, but that was a long time ago. The current class of politicians shouldn’t be credited with positions they don’t hold and support they haven’t earned.
I’m not asking for a whole lot. I want public employees to support the schools WE HAVE rather than some ideologues dream of a privatized system. I insist they do this.
I am with you 100%.
I campaigned, in Nov. 2015, for a Democratic state rep., in my district, because she was a public school supporter. It certainly would have helped her campaign if Democrats had brought attention to the issue, at the county, state and national levels.
Has Tim “I love public schools” Kaine told media that Walton heirs and Bill Gates are privatizing their schools? If the Democratic Party did that, it would be proof that they don’t WANT TO LOSE to Republicans.
Headline from Dayton Daily News, today, “Ohio May Drop Graduation Tests” (for this year’s graduates). The Senate Education Committee Chair said “there’s been very little push back”, about the proposed plan. One source of pushback is the ubiquitously-quoted Chad Aldis ( Fordham). Aldis, “the only member of the public to speak” at the State Board meeting, said, “The ability to graduate without any test score proof of knowledge would be a step backward…” In rare reporting, Aldis was described as a sponsor of charter schools (i.e. contractor schools).
Paying it forward, shows gratitude. A sponsor of contractor schools, who received public university degrees, had the education option available to him, because voters elected politicians, with the understanding that they would enable students of the middle class and poor, to have access to quality education, without being legacies, of elite universities or, for students, without the means to afford private colleges. With that understanding, public institutions of higher education (and, public schools that took all children regardless of deprived home lives, the effect of criminalized poverty, etc., in other words, never, cherry picking nor, counseling out kids), were created and funded.
The colonialism, prescribed recently, by a Harvard education professor, in calling for a two-tier education plan, is an affront to America. What does it say about an oligarchy, peopled with citizens who “got their’s” while denying, the same opportunities, to the citizens, who follow?