The Education Department introduced in February — earlier than Cardona was confirmed by the Senate — that public college districts had to administer exams in math and English Language Arts required yearly by the federal 2015 Every Student Succeeds Act, which changed the 2002 No Child Left Behind legislation.
And as late as final week, Cardona mentioned at an training discussion board that the division was planning to go forward with its testing determination.
The high-stakes tests are given each spring as a central a part of the two-decade-old college reform motion. Testing advocates say the exams present important knowledge on how all pupil teams are performing at school. Student take a look at scores are used — not less than partly — by some states to consider lecturers and by states to consider districts and schools.
The lecturers’ letter notes that critics of high-stakes testing have warned for many years that “the high-stakes use of any metric will distort results,” and that documented penalties embrace “curriculum narrowing, teaching-to-the-test, the ‘triaging’ of resources, and cheating.”
For the previous 20 years, it says, “experts have disproven the premise that meaningful school improvement can be driven by exposure to competitive markets and corporate-style performance management.”
“Declining states’ requests for waivers of standardized testing in 2021 will exacerbate inequality and will produce flawed data in the midst of the pandemic,” the letter says.
In spring 2020, then-Education Secretary Betsy DeVos mentioned states didn’t have to administer the tests through the coronavirus pandemic, and a few districts had requested the Biden administration to present that very same flexibility this 12 months.
But a February letter from the Education Department to chief state schools officers mentioned schools shouldn’t go two straight years with out knowledge and that the tests must be administered. Schools got leeway to shorten the tests, administer them on-line or change the 2020 dates of administration.
The Education Department’s missive, signed by performing assistant training secretary for elementary and secondary training Ian Rosenblum, mentioned that accountability techniques based mostly on take a look at scores “play an important role in advancing educational equity.”
The new letter to Cardona from the lecturers takes a really completely different view concerning the want and penalties of giving the exams than does the Education Department.
“The damage inflicted by racialized poverty on children, communities, and schools is devastating and daunting,” it says. “To that end, we understand why some civil rights groups have advocated for systems that use standardized tests to highlight inequalities.
“Whatever their flaws,” the letter continues, “test-based accountability systems are intended to spotlight those inequalities and demand they be addressed. But standardized tests also have a long history of causing harm and denying opportunity to low-income students and students of color, and without immediate action they threaten to cause more harm now than ever.”
The letter was spearheaded by Jack Schneider of the University of Massachusetts at Lowell and three scholars from the University of Colorado at Boulder: Lorrie Shepard, Michelle Renée Valladares and Kevin Welner.
The different 544 signatories come from personal and public establishments of upper training throughout the nation.
Here’s the complete letter with signatories:
