Do No Harm by Marla Kilfoyle

I'm going to engage in a rant here:

I have seen in Facebook groups, through the years, educators posting that it is good educational practice for districts to use high stakes testing (state or district) at the end of the year as a certain percentage of a students final grade in a course. In NYS, where I live, that number can sometimes be up to 20%.

As an educator, and parent, I feel this practice is not rooted in good education pedagogy. It is abusive, specifically to students who are not good test takers but who have worked hard all year long. Educators who feel this is good practice will often argue that:

1) this is what happens in college

2) we need to prepare children for the real world of failure and we can accomplish that through high stakes testing, and

3) students won't take the test seriously if we don't attach high stakes to it.

Here would be my suggestion to those educators - How about if we now make YOUR job contingent on one test, on one day? Is that fair? Does that define your value as an educator? One Test, On One Day? My bet is that most educators would not agree with that.

Well.........if it is not good enough for you as an educator, why is it good for children? Here is the reason why....testing on ONE day should not define education - PERIOD.

Stop supporting the use of ONE test, on ONE day to define the entire year of education that children receive. Support "do no harm" policies that don't punish kids for how they perform on ONE day in their life.

Test prep is not teaching and narrows learning
Testing should not define teaching and learning
Stop supporting High Stakes Testing
Students don't get the lessons of life from High Stakes Testing

College is NOT about High Stakes Testing
If students connect with you, they will perform.