The Huffington Post – Michael Lombardo
“Like any practice affecting 50 states and millions of kids, testing is neither a purely good or a purely bad thing, and there is no absolute line we could draw to define the ‘right’ amount of testing. A better question is this: are our testing policies helping every student get a great education? Everyone seems to agree that we have not made nearly enough progress in improving our public schools since the current testing regime began under the federal No Child Left Behind legislation. But it may actually be the case that some of this is because we are under testing some students in some subjects. Take, for example, reading–the most foundational academic skill, and arguably the most important. No Child Left Behind requires that every student be given a standardized reading test beginning in third grade, with testing generally taking place toward the end of the school year and results shared over the summer.”(more)