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Petition to End Testing Madness
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End Testing Madness
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A Petition for Fiscal Responsibility and Genuine Twenty-First Century Education in North Carolina Whereas overwhelming evidence shows that high-stakes standardized tests have promoted a "teaching to the test" mentality that has narrowed our schools' curriculum, reduced love of learning, driven excellent teachers out of the profession and undermined teacher and student morale, and; Whereas the state of North Carolina is preparing to launch more than 100 expensive new high-stakes tests within the next two years, and; Whereas the implementation of the new Common Core curriculum, combined with a shifting array of state and national tests, means it will be many years before credible evaluation of year-to-year student progress is possible, We call on North Carolina's legislators and state school officials to adopt the following measures, based on fiscal responsibility and common sense: • Postpone full implementation of the dozens of new state exams planned for previously non-tested subjects for at least three years, an approach that will not only increase time for teaching and learning, but will save money. • Focus instead on forms of evaluation that cover the actual work that students do throughout a school year, and that genuinely assess twenty-first century skills such as innovation, critical thinking and problem-solving, rather than test-taking ability. • Eliminate all test-based, high-stakes decisions for students, teachers and schools, until a stable set of tests has been in place for multiple years, and their measurements have been shown to be reliable. This includes decisions about student promotion, teacher pay and the A-F grading of schools. The future of our children and our state depends on public schools providing a rich, creative, engaging and rigorous education that develops twenty-first century skills. Testing will not get us to that goal. Let’s focus our time and money on what will.
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