Halt the Growing Menace of Standardized Tests in City Schools by Mark Weprin
September 12th, 2008
As a legislator and a father of two New York City public school students, I am deeply troubled by the news that public school students who are not yet five years old will be required to sit for exams that can last up to 90 minutes. The plan is educationally inappropriate and completely insensitive to the social and developmental characteristics of young children. Test-focused learning environments have already saddled thousands of older children; to impose the same burden on kindergarteners is unconscionable.
Even worse, James S. Liebman, the Department of Education’s accountability officer, has acknowledged that the results from the new K-2 tests might soon factor into the school grading system. Such a move would only bring to K-2 classrooms a problem that already plagues grades 3-12: an emphasis on test preparation over real learning that stems from the pressure on teachers to produce acceptable test results at any cost. Lower-grade students have made significant progress in recent years, due in large part to State-funded pre-K programs and the reduced class size initiative.
The DoE’s testing expansion plan threatens to obliterate the recent gains by bringing the reign of testing terror and the toxic environment it creates into every classroom in the city.
Because of a combination of State tests that were implemented to comply with George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind Law (NCLB) and DoE’s own extensive testing regimen, city students often take more than a dozen standardized tests each year. But the real crime taking place in our schools is that teachers, having been told that test results matter above all else, are forced to spend countless hours on mindless test-preparation exercises that lack any meaningful connection to the content knowledge today’s students will need to compete in a global economy. The emphasis on testing is turning our schools into test-preparation factories that neglect physical education, art, music and science in favor of rote test-preparation drills. New York City’s children are going to school in the cultural capital of the world, yet they have few opportunities for exploring the rich art, music and civic experiences that the city offers.
Our Information Age society demands an understanding of world affairs, analytical skills, technological savvy, maturity and poise. Standardized test preparation does nothing to foster those valuable attributes and abilities. Today’s classrooms rarely devote time to current events, yet we expect the next generation to understand an ever-changing world and to grapple with the weighty issues of our era. Education should help our children to become informed citizens, dynamic leaders and well-rounded individuals—not test-taking robots.
Even worse, James S. Liebman, the Department of Education’s accountability officer, has acknowledged that the results from the new K-2 tests might soon factor into the school grading system. Such a move would only bring to K-2 classrooms a problem that already plagues grades 3-12: an emphasis on test preparation over real learning that stems from the pressure on teachers to produce acceptable test results at any cost. Lower-grade students have made significant progress in recent years, due in large part to State-funded pre-K programs and the reduced class size initiative.
The DoE’s testing expansion plan threatens to obliterate the recent gains by bringing the reign of testing terror and the toxic environment it creates into every classroom in the city.
Because of a combination of State tests that were implemented to comply with George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind Law (NCLB) and DoE’s own extensive testing regimen, city students often take more than a dozen standardized tests each year. But the real crime taking place in our schools is that teachers, having been told that test results matter above all else, are forced to spend countless hours on mindless test-preparation exercises that lack any meaningful connection to the content knowledge today’s students will need to compete in a global economy. The emphasis on testing is turning our schools into test-preparation factories that neglect physical education, art, music and science in favor of rote test-preparation drills. New York City’s children are going to school in the cultural capital of the world, yet they have few opportunities for exploring the rich art, music and civic experiences that the city offers.
Our Information Age society demands an understanding of world affairs, analytical skills, technological savvy, maturity and poise. Standardized test preparation does nothing to foster those valuable attributes and abilities. Today’s classrooms rarely devote time to current events, yet we expect the next generation to understand an ever-changing world and to grapple with the weighty issues of our era. Education should help our children to become informed citizens, dynamic leaders and well-rounded individuals—not test-taking robots.
