Friends,
I wrote a letter for the Action Network letter campaign “Urge Senator Lamar Alexander and the members of Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee to put an end to annual standardized testing”.
Network for Public Education (NPE) is calling on Congress to support the adoption of Option 1 in Senator Lamar Alexander’s “Every Child Ready for College or Career Act of 2015”, which has been slated for discussion in the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee on January 21, 2015. NPE supports the proposal to allow states to adopt their own State-designed academic assessment system. More specifically, we are calling for the end of the federal mandate for annual testing. We believe that every child in the United States deserves a sound education. Every child deserves a full curriculum in a school with adequate resources. We are deeply concerned that the current overemphasis on standardized testing is harming children, public schools, and our nation’s economic and civic future. It’s our conclusion that the over-emphasis, misapplication, costs, and poor implementation of high-stakes standardized tests now warrants federal intervention. NPE believes a return to grade span testing (once in elementary, middle and high school) is an important first step toward restoring standardized testing to its appropriate use in education, while still giving policy makers and elected officials a valid snapshot of what is happening in schools. If you agree, now is the time to act! A few minutes of your time today could bring about the end of standardized testing as we know it.
Can you join me and write a letter? Click here.
Thanks!
