College Station Superintendent Eddie Coulson had a great blog post recently in response to the accusation that school superintendents are scaring parents about the effect of standardized testing. I'm a public school parent myself and believe me when I say no one had to tell parents that a standardized test doesn't tell the whole story about our children, what they're worth and what they know.
Parents have never put much stock in the results of standardized tests and rely much more on what their child can tell them about their school day, the grades and teacher comments on daily assignments and on quarterly report cards. For parents, test day mostly means anxiety for their children because the state and national movement for years has been to put way too much emphasis on the results.
From Coulson's blog:
I happen to agree with the moms and dads in Texas who believe that state testing has become a ‘perversion’ of its original intent. Superintendents, moms, dads and business owners want schools to be held accountable; however, unlike Bill Hammond and the Texas Association of Business, they can see that testing all students every year in multiple subjects is an absolutely absurd way to assess whether students are successful or not.
Who can tell if a school is any good? School moms, dads and local businesses. They know whether the schools their children attend are worth their salt, and, my experience is that they’re not afraid to tell school superintendents exactly what they think.
Read the entire blog post here.
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