Ouch. Massachusetts Public High Schools Go Kaplan

Common Good's little sidebar quiz asks: How many of the 180 days of the Massachusetts high school academic year are spent as scheduled test days?

• 9 (5%)
• 15 (8%)
• 18 (10%)
• 28 (15%)

Answer below the fold....

I guessed 15 (8%).

I was wrong by almost half. The correct answer? 28 - a full 15% of the school year.

Common Good goes on to share this snippet from a Boston Globe editorial by two Massachusetts high school teachers, John Croes and Miriam Morgenstern:

“[A]n ever-increasing number of tests and retesting opportunities has been imposed upon school systems.  Consequently, testing has transformed urban schools into testing and test preparation centers.  The Department of Education requires high schools to schedule 28 days of testing, amounting to 15 percent of the 180-day school year. …  Not only do the many testing days disrupt continuity in the classroom, but the repeated interruptions throughout the school year interfere with learning and teaching.”  (Source: “Too Much Testing Cuts into Learning,” December 25, 2008)

It should be noted that this mess is the making of the Massachusetts, and not of the federal, DOE. We can't lay this one at the doorstep of NCLB. But - it's arguably symptomatic of the same testing fetish we see in NCLB.

At ground zero - the classroom - this means that, on an average of once every one and a half weeks, teachers and students have to interrupt their learning to shamble into bubble-filling rooms for state-mandated tests and/or re-tests in English, math, science, and more. As a teacher, I know that spells no good for both teaching and learning.

All this teacher can say is, "Omigod." It should be what parents and students say too - along with much more - as they demand sanity from their Department of Education. Because that doesn't sound like going to school; that sounds like going to a Kaplan Center.

Are things this bad in your district?

Image by lorenabuena