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Re: “Math, reading scores slip for nation’s school kids,” Oct. 28 news story.
According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), last year’s academic scores for U.S. students either fell or remained flat. This after a 15-year-long implementation of annual standardized testing designed to improve academic performance.
It is time to acknowledge what research has long supported: standardized testing doesn’t improve student learning, it doesn’t help separate good teachers from bad, and it doesn’t narrow the achievement gap between white kids and kids of color. The only thing it does successfully and consistently is identify which test-takers are poor and which are more affluent.
While President Obama recently called for no more than 2 percent of school time to be taken up with standardized testing, the percentage that parents and supporters of education should be calling for is zero. Perhaps then the millions of dollars we are spending on designing, implementing, preparing for and analyzing data from testing can go back into schools to support teachers, counselors and other services that directly benefit kids.
Eve Cohen, Denver
This letter was published in the Nov. 1 edition.
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