Veteran journalist Seth Sandronsky interviews Louisiana teacher and blogger a Mercedes Schneider about how the coronavirus affected state standardized testing.
Schneider makes a bold prediction that states will cut their budgets for testing due to the economic stress caused by the virus.
I hope she’s right. Up until now, state legislators have been willing to sacrifice the arts, recess, school nurses, class size, and almost everything else, while protecting the Sacred Tests.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
This is a test of the sanity of those who run state departments of education. There will be enormous budget shortfalls as a result of the pandemic. If sane, those state administrators will completely eliminate high-stakes standard testing to free up funds for actual education.
The tests are far worse than useless. They involve enormous actual costs and even greater, by far, opportunity costs. The state contracts for the testing, along, cost almost 7 billion a year. Countless billions more are spent on pretests and benchmark tests, on test prep materials, on now test preppy curricula, on salaries of people posting data walls and holding data chats, and, of course, on the computers to take the tests on, which are then not available for actual learning. Many schools have “media labs” that are often unavailable because they are being used for testing. An entire generation of students has now had humane education stolen from them and replaced with test prep (including textbooks and online courseware that have devolved into test preppiness).
Enough.
It’s time to tell the deformer/disrupter ghouls at the federal Department of Education and in the think tanks where thinking tanks to go go to hell. Which state departments of education will be headed by leaders sane and visionary enough to take this bold move? One or two will be enough. The others will fall like dominoes. Parents and teachers HATE the tests.
There is also an opportunity here for union leaders FINALLY to step forward. They have been Vichy collaborators with the testing regime far too long. Lets see some union parades of RED FOR ED teachers in their cars. No more STDs (standardized testing delirium)!!!!!
“Parents and teachers HATE the tests.” It goes without saying, so do the students.
All well said, Mr. Shepherd.
One more comment: people everywhere are bewailing the loss of the end of the 2019-2020 school year, but actual educators know that precious little happens at the end of the year in most schools now because it is almost entirely taken up with this PEDAGOGICALLY USELESS tests.
That’s the dirty, not-so-little secret that is almost universally absent from the news reporting on the coronavirus school closures.
That time was being WASTED, purposefully, anyway, EVERY YEAR!!!!!!!!!
Those not in the fight against the testing madness are collaborators. They are collaborators in child abuse.
But, but, but…do you remember when it was a standard Ed Reformer statement, “Having at least 50% of a teacher’s evaluation come from student value-added scores is the civil rights issue of our time.” It wasn’t that long ago.
Makes me sick just writing it.
Mercedes is right about a lot of things. Here’s hoping she’s right on this one.
She will be right only if enough educators insist on making it so. This would be a VERY GOOD TIME for a mass movement of educators against STDs (standardized testing delirium).
The echo chamber are proposing more testing, not less, after schools re-open:
“Laura Slover
Apr 13
Getting ready to serve all students will require high quality diagnostics to pinpoint strengths and areas for growth”
The answer to every question in ed reform is “tests, charters and vouchers” because that’s the sum total of ed reform. They say it themselves- the thing consists of two elements- “accountability” (tests) and “choice” (vouchers and charters)
They don’t offer anything else because they don’t have anything else to offer so for public school students all ed reform means is “tests”.
Good grief, how did the Greatest Generation make America #1 in the world without taking ANY standardized tests at all?
That’s been the question I’ve been asking for years!
Actually, the Greatest Generation did have a test — WW2 — and they passed it, luckily.
I just hope schools open soon. I knew public schools were important to the community where I live- it’s always been obvious- but I underestimated how important.
This town will not return to some semblance of normality until schools open.
I think Denmark has the right idea. First open schools, then worry about everything else.
I spent a long time in public education. During the more than three decades I noticed the steady creep of standardized testing. We went from very little testing to an oppressive amount of wasteful testing in about twenty-five years. Now testing has taken on a life of its own, particularly when it is embedded in instruction. We have reached a saturation point of diminished return on standardized testing which in fact yields very little useful information to guide instruction. Our young people deserve better, and the time spent on testing interferes with legitimate instruction. Our young people are the pawns of data mongers that collect and sell information. Worst of all our government refuses to protect students’ privacy. Long Island has the right idea. Refuse to allow your child to be a test publisher’s commodity.
“We have reached a saturation point of diminished return on standardized testing. . . ”
There hasn’t ever been any valid return on standardized testing since its inception. It has been a fraud all along!
It hasn’t ever even been standardized.
That’s the biggest lie of all.
For example, SAT has been undergoing change since it’s beginning.
How can anyone call it standardized when there is no standard?
If they are referring to the fact that scoring is forced into a normal distribution, that’s not “standardized”, but “normalized”.
The psychometricians can’t even get their terminology straight.
I hope she’s right. Up until now, state legislators have been willing to sacrifice the arts, recess, school nurses, class size, and almost everything else, while protecting the Sacred Tests.
This is true, but for public schools, tests are “protected” by the law from hell–ESSA. Judging from an interview this AM, Dr. Jill Biden will be one of the key advisors to her husband on education. This morning she was using the pandemic to support the need for school counselors and other social services. I hope that Arne Duncan, NCLB, And ESSA are not given credibility in any way shape or forms—if (big if) Biden is elected.