Arne Duncan's inane confusing words about excessive testing....he caused it by his own policies. [View all]

[madfloridian]

What Duncan got wrong about testing.

"Testing is still the cornerstone of Duncan's vision of teacher evaluation."

I believe parents, and teachers, and students have both the right and the absolute need to know how much progress all students are making each year towards college- and career-readiness.

Of course they do. Tests and grades have always been...always.

I am absolutely convinced that we need to know how much progress students are making – but we also must do more to ensure that the tests – and time spent in preparation for them – don’t take excessive time away from actual classroom instruction. Great teaching, and not test prep, is always what best engages students, and what leads to higher achievement.

Right again, Arne. Now stop the policies that require all this testing. He is spouting stuff so obvious.

Of course "great teaching" is better than "test prep."

SO stop the requirements that lead to "test prep".

And this one is ridiculous.

Sometimes, educators are better at starting new things than we are at stopping things – several decades of testing ideas have sometimes been layered on top of each other in ways that are redundant and duplicative, and not helpful.

Read that again. He's saying that educators are causing the testing.

Peter Greene says it just right.

You know who didn't mandate test after test after test? You know who didn't decide that we'd better have practice tests, too, since everyone's career is riding on test results? Spoiler alert- not classroom teachers. Not even "educators." I believe the correct answer is "government bureaucrats."

Amen to this statement:

Irony overload

Later in the speech, Duncan suggests that "maybe our only hope is absolute honesty and transparency." It is a great line, and one that I absolutely agree with.

This is the man who is leading our country's education policy. He is allowing reformers to use unproven tactics which are doing great harm.

He has carte blanche, and there appear to be no repercussions for anything he does or says.