Since 2015, Federal Law has allowed States to satisfy their math, reading, language arts and science testing with "a single summative assessment." (ESEA, Section 1111(b)(2)(B)(viii)(1): ACADEMIC ASSESSMENTS)

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All state testing could be limited to a single paper and pencil, norm-referenced multiple choice test given statewide on a single school day morning.  We call this "One Day in May." 

 

Weeks of computerized state testing (and preparation for state computerized testing) replaced with a single morning paper test.  Imagine that!

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But a test like that would not justify an expensive testing bureaucracy and support a lucrative testing industry.

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Lobbyists convinced state legislators and Governors to limit testing to "2% of the school year" rather than to One Day in May.

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We doubt they bothered to do the math.  That's 25 hours!  Enough time to take the SAT (3 hrs), ACT (3 hrs), MCAT (7 hrs) and Bar Exam (12 hrs). 

 

Not only that, but the extensive tests can't be given simultaneously, so the state testing "seasons" disrupt instruction all year long.

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And isn't it ludicrous to even have state testing seasons?

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There is an elegant alternative.  

 

Your state could buy a professionally written paper and pencil test today, give it to every student tomorrow and get an accurate measure of school effectiveness by next week. 

 

Private schools use paper and pencil tests like the TerraNova3 and Stanford10 for their yearly assessments.  They wouldn't touch the state testing system with a 10-foot pole.  Parents would never pay tuition to send their children to a school that wasted so much time and used such flawed state tests. 

 

All we are asking is that the State Department of Education give public school students the same respect and use the same tests as private schools choose to use.

 

State mandated tests have become like Communist cars.  High cost, low quality products sold to a captive consumer.  Given the choice, drivers don’t buy Soviet-era Ladas.

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Imagine what public schools could be like today without the past 20 years of lost hours, lost focus, bloated bureaucratic budgets, arbitrary curriculum changes and failed over-testing inflicted by the establishment!

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If you are sick of the testing and corporate/lobbyist/bureaucratic take-over of public education, appalled at the hundreds of millions of wasted dollars, and heartbroken for children sitting in front of a computer for days of testing and test prep, then take action right now.