Education secretary pushes against standardized tests

Vermont’s Education secretary sounded off again this week about standardized tests.

They have too much influence when it comes to rating schools and students, said Rebecca Holcombe, in her second broadside against fill-in-the-bubble tests this month.

A good test score should not be the goal of a Vermont education, the Education Secretary said in what appears to becoming a vocal campaign against high-stakes testing.

The goal of a Vermont public education is: “Well-educated Vermonters who can thrive in the workplace,” Holcombe said, “thrive in college and thrive in their communities.”

The secretary is preaching to at least one choir, the Vermont Education Board. Holcomb’s remarks came in an interview with the Burlington Free Press a few days after the Vermont Education Board urged the Secretary to re-examine school accountability in Vermont and move to a system that “does not require extensive standardized testing.”

The board issued a five-page resolution shredding the testing required under the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB.) The resolution stated: “A compelling body of national research shows the over-emphasis on

standardized testing has caused considerable collateral damage in areas such as

narrowing the curriculum, teaching to the test, reducing love of learning, pushing

students out of school, and undermining school climate.”

The board has been working on the statement for months. The final version was issued about two weeks after state education officials announced 97 percent of Vermont schools missed federal performance goals under NCLB.

Holcombe has no authority to change federal testing requirements under the No Child Left Behind Act. The 2002 education reform requires students in grades three through eight and one grade of high school to be tested in reading and writing. The law’s goal is to bring all students tested to proficiency this year, a goal Vermont and most states have missed.

Vermont’s state test is relatively difficult, more so than tests used in other states, so reaching 100 percent student proficiency is an especially high bar. On various education measures, Vermont often performs near the top.

However, the state’s high graduation rate has not translated to significant gains in college graduation rates. Many Vermont teens graduate and find they must pay to take non-credit bearing remedial courses even at open-admission community colleges.

In addition to the federal testing requirements, the Vermont state accountability system requires testing in writing and science in grades four, eight and one grade of high school.

Holcombe could lobby to reduce the layer of state-required tests but said this week she has no plan to do so.

It’s important to measure performance in science and writing as well as reading and math, she said.

But accountability systems that punish schools with “failing schools” labels or sanctions don’t work, Holcombe suggested.

Parents need multiple measures to see how their children are doing, and they need ask what scores are really saying. “And also ask, what are the other things that we care about?”

See the Board’s full statement at education.vermont.gov

Contact Molly Walsh at 660-1874 or mwalsh@burlingtonfreepress.com Follow Molly on Twitter at www.twitter.com/mokawa