So, because people had an emotional opposition to Common Core and we have a slavish devotion to standardized tests that don’t do much to educate our kids, the State of Indiana is going to use my kids and their instructional time to vet its new test questions. Super.
Claire McInerny at State Impact Indiana explains that the increased duration of the testing has to do with Indiana’s decision to drop Common Core:
Last year, a third grader spent a total of five hours and nine minutes doing ISTEP+ testing. This year, that amount jumps to 12 hours and 30 minutes. These increases are for every grade that takes the ISTEP+, not counting stress tests if a school has their students sit to complete those.
. . .
A reason for the increased testing lengths is that since the test questions are new, and this test will be used in the future, a lot of the questions have to be piloted.
These tests don’t do a thing to educate my kids, and now they will spend more time doing them. I suspect their time would be better spent playing Minecraft.
These are third graders! Have we lost our minds?
Opt-out! You have a legal right to opt-our your child out of statewide standardized testing. Download the opt-out form from Pacific Justice Institute.
I think people would be amazed how much money and time could be saved if we simply asked teachers to rate how their kids were doing. They are more valid and reliable than the tests because they see the performance all of the time. The business of 4.6 vs. 4.9 (for example) is also based on suspect assumptions to begin with, and the grade level assignments are often arbitrary and even meaningless, particularly once kids get through the middle elementary grades. From then on, it’s a vocabulary test, which is heavily influence by culture. Scam alert!