Speaking at a townhall event in Washington, D.C. President Obama said that too much testing makes education boring, and that performance should be measured in more ways than test scores:
"Too often what we have been doing is using these tests to punish students or to, in some cases, punish schools," the president told students and parents at a town hall hosted by the Univision Spanish-language television network at Bell Multicultural High School in Washington, D.C.
"All you’re learning about is how to fill out a little bubble on an exam and little tricks that you need to do in order to take a test and that’s not going to make education interesting." -- ForbesFollowing the speech, Obama pushed his ed secretary Arne Duncan to plan the next wave of Race To the Top grants which force school districts to fire teachers and close schools based on standardized test scores.
Classic administration double-talk. It's getting boring.
Mike, you must be misinterpreting what the President said. That is what the Dept of Ed is telling me about my blog post here:http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/living-in-dialogue/2011/03/obamas_radical_critique_of_tes.html
ReplyDeleteI sent them some questions to see if we can clear up the confusion. Their answers are promised by noon tomorrow.
Thanks for clearing things up Anthony.
ReplyDelete