A recent “My Turn” article suggested that assessment testing matters (Monitor Forum, April 29). However, the entire article talked about achievement testing and gave us the idea that assessment testing is achievement testing. It is not.
Proponents of assessment tests will not tell us the whole story. Assessment means that the questions asked our children intrude on their private family life and are inappropriate for elementary-age children.
The government has no business asking our children questions about their attitudes, behaviors and values.
David Murotake, a state representative and Nashua school board member, in written testimony to the Joint Legislative Committee on Administrative Rules presented a harsh critique of the Smarter Balanced assessment by Nashua teachers.
One of the more disturbing comments from a teacher was: “Seems the test was designed more as a psychological or sociological experiment, not a measure of academic learning.”
Not only has this caused parents to refuse to let their children take the assessment, we are now seeing states withdraw from the Smarter Balanced consortium.
The “My Turn” article said the questions covered language arts and math. That presents the false impression that the test was asking questions only about math and language arts. If that were the case, we would be talking about achievement testing, not assessment testing. No mention was made of the behavioral and cultural questions asked our children in grades as low as third.
We have been testing our children for years with achievements tests. It was not until the federal government saw an opportunity to do a power grab of our local education system that the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium created assessments in addition to testing academic achievement.
The federal government has passed some legislation requiring testing of our children in schools. Those tests could be achievement tests, if it were not for the fact that the state Department of Education authorized signing on to the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium Agreement.
This is an independent organization that makes up the tests and is funded with $175 million in taxpayer money. This gives the U.S. Department of Education, not parents, control over the test questions.
This funding of the consortium is an illegal attempt by the federal government to take control of local education.
There are three laws on the books that ensure that the federal government cannot take control of our educational system, and Congress has allowed the executive branch of our government to go unchecked in pursuit of educational control by ignoring these laws.
The laws that ensure state control over education are the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the 1970 General Education Provision Act and the 1979 enabling legislation that created the U.S. Department of Education as a Cabinet-level department.
The SAT has been given for years in 11th and 12th grades and has always been an achievement test. The only reason we still have SAT testing in the 11th grade is because concerned parents, who know the truth about what assessment testing really is, lobbied the state Legislature to adopt achievement testing and not assessment tests.
Because there was strong opposition to achievement testing from the state Department of Education, a compromise was reached to allow the 11th-graders to take the SAT test and not the Smarter Balanced tests.
All parents should rise up and be heard to stop this governmental intrusion into our private family lives. Parents should be concerned with the government’s obsession with testing our children.
There has always been adequate testing of our children without the intrusion of Smarter Balanced assessments, which are an integral part of the whole Common Core agenda.
We can determine the academic achievements of our children through quizzes, tests, term papers and mid-term and final exams.
Our educators are experienced with developing Individualized Education Plans for children in need of other education programs to help them achieve their full potential without performing assessment tests on them.
We need to spend this valuable time in school educating our children in academics rather than subjecting them to unnecessary assessment testing.
The U.S. Department of Education has no right to mandate that 95 percent of our children be subjected to these Smarter Balanced assessments. The city of Manchester was threatened with forfeiture of Title 1 funds if it did not toe the line on this mandate.
Imagine our government threatening to take away taxpayer dollars from the neediest students in our schools. So much for this administration being champions of lower-income families.
The driving force for developing a valuable education system should be governed by education excellence. We need to encourage our students to strive to achieve their fullest potential through hard work and industry.
Assessments do not measure the students’ knowledge and skills only. Assessments seek to profile students to put them on a certain track for a future position in life.
Large, multi-national corporations have embraced the Common Core standards and the Smarter Balanced assessments because they are tired of not having students properly educated to fill the positions in their companies. They embraced Common Core and the assessment testing because they see students as human capital.
We need to educate human beings so they can rise to their fullest potential. Our educational system has reached a low point because we have embraced every failed education theory that came down from the U.S. Department of Education since it became a Cabinet-level department.
We have implemented the failed theories of Whole Language Learning, open-concept classrooms, Outcome Based Education, No Child Left Behind and now Competency Based Education. It is time to stop embracing all of these failed theories and re-embrace strong liberal arts and STEM curriculum.
So, when you are asked about statewide assessments and whether your child should participate, just say “No” and demand achievement tests and local control of our educational system.
(Joseph Mendola of Warner is a member of the Kearsarge Regional school board.)