Re: Feb. 3 post on the Colorado Classroom blog.
While Eric Gorski’s blog post paints a fuzzy picture about the data on standardized testing, the underlying image couldn’t be clearer: School reformers are in denial about what’s occurring in Colorado’s classrooms.
The reformers have pinned their entire agenda on indefensible testing mandates, which is a colossal political blunder. Hundreds of thousands of stakeholders across the country are joining in a growing backlash against excessive testing.
In Colorado alone, thousands of citizens have joined the resistance by protesting and opting out of these tests. Even testing zealot Arne Duncan acknowledged that force-feeding testing results into teacher evaluations has created havoc, saying “I believe testing issues today are sucking the oxygen out of the room in a lot of schools.”
Education reformers and their benefactors are out of touch with reality. How else to explain Donnell-Kay Foundation leader Tony Lewis saying actual teachers in the classroom aren’t capable of knowing how much teaching time is lost to testing? And state Sen. (and Duncan acolyte) Michael Johnston resorts to citing questionable statistics to refute the actual experience of real-life educators.
The likes of Lewis and Johnston reflect an entrenched worldview that is out of touch with the lives of students and parents in Colorado. In an online survey, nearly 3,000 Colorado teachers said they spend as much as 30 percent of classroom time on preparing and administering standardized tests. In a scientific phone survey of Colorado voters and parents, fully 64 percent believe the state’s public schools are spending too much time on testing.
It’s flat out wrong to pin accountability measures to a student’s test score. Democratic and Republican voters alike believe this to be true. While education reformers prefer to ignore this reality, the citizens of Colorado have spoken loud and clear. And the people that are most impacted by this debate — parents, teachers, administrators, students — are unified. Colorado’s testing system needs a complete overhaul. We stand with them.
The reformers have set themselves adrift, desperately clinging to their life-raft of misguided allegiance to standardized testing at the expense of what’s good for Colorado students.
Kerrie Dallman is president of the Colorado Education Association.
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