Testing and Less Testing

Most folks shake a little in their boots at the sound of the word testing as the mind runs wild trying to figure out what .....testing. Today's local newspaper carries a headline touting a call by school administrators for less testing. As one who has had a career in public education my mind is turned toward the query of who is the testing for, who instituted the testing, who made the initial call, what do we do with results. What crosses my mind quickly is politicians with their allegations that schools, i.e. teachers, were not doing a satisfactory job in educating the students in public schools. Therefore, we must test to prove our point!!

On the other hand, looking at a broader picture of the entire scene we see the following. In the arena which is the school and classroom we must actually teach for mastery. So we teach, teach, teach and then we evaluate in some form to 'see' if the concepts taught were mastered! In their efforts to be more effective some where along the way it was decided that perhaps an evaluation should be done at intervals (called benchmarks) to check for gaps and progress making intervention easier rather than waiting until the end and just measuring deficits and shaking fingers at those "darned teachers!" And I might add placing blame. Personally I have always felt that a gap in this procedure is what is done with the results when benchmark testing shows deficits in understanding and mastery.

What has evolved with all of these intentions and evaluations has been an elephant in the house who has devoured the one thing of which teachers are always short.....instructional time. How do you resolve this issue?? A curriculum is designed with each teacher being charged with teaching and developing mastery of concepts in given area(s). There do not seem to be enough instructional hours within the allotted time in a school year to teach, test multiple times, remediate, and still move forward with the charge of teaching and developing the curriculum in a course of study

I have some ideas but I doubt they would be very popular since many of them involve the appropriation of additional dollars to public education. Do you have any of your own?? Most folks can think of many complaints but few have suggestions for solutions.