U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. Photo by Ralph Alswang

SAN FRANCISCO – Secretary of Education Arne Duncan acknowledged serious flaws in the standardized tests that currently drive American schools, telling an audience of educational activity researchers on Tuesday that the tests are an inadequate gauge of student and teacher performance.

Speaking at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Clan, Duncan criticized "high-stakes testing where children's lives or teachers' careers are based on one test," but he said that abandoning standardized testing was not the answer. He listed a series of misguided uses of standardized tests, mentioning a school in Florida that evaluated teachers in kindergarten through second class based on how students performed in 3rd and fourth grade, and a school in Memphis that evaluated art teachers based on pupil scores in math and English.

"The solution to mediocre tests is not to carelessness assessment," Duncan said. "Instead we're supporting much improve assessment." Duncan called for "assessment 2.0," which would provide timely evaluation of student functioning in areas across reading and math, including science, advanced course piece of work, and career readiness.

His remarks surprised the somewhat contentious audition of researchers, almost a dozen of whom carried signs that read "Not in my name" or "Erase to the pinnacle" – a reference to adulterous on standardized tests – to protest Duncan's appearance at the conference and the Obama administration's Race to the Top didactics plan, the competitive grants initiative for education innovation. California has received simply $fifty 1000000 from the $iv.3 billion fund.

"Sir, Race to the Top is no less than No Child Left Backside on steroids," said an audition member in a question-and-answer session later the secretary'south talk.

Duncan had blamed the current testing ills on erstwhile President Bush's No Child Left Behind programme, only the audience fellow member said the Race to the Top program had the same pitfalls. "The superintendents I speak to, the people I speak to, say this is a high stakes testing regime that is suffocating them," said the educator.

Duncan acknowledged the speaker's concerns, but he said that teachers wanted the meaningful assessment tools that he hoped would effect from a Race to the Top contest to better assessment.

Duncan also acknowledged that the introduction of the new Common Core standards, besides as new cess tools, are going to create "a couple of inclement years" for schools. He said he had been talking at length with educators, including Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, nearly how to aid schools navigate the change. "We're trying to be very, very thoughtful about information technology. … When we get to the other side, I think the state will be in a radically amend identify, just we take to get there."

When an audition member asked if Duncan would consider a moratorium on standardized testing until teachers get upward to speed on the Common Core and the assessment tools show to be effective, Duncan said, "Nosotros sympathize this is a hard tough time of transition. We're spending a huge amount of fourth dimension listening to ideas about how to do information technology."

Duncan returned several times to the theme that the electric current testing organisation isn't working. "Schools today give a lot of tests, sometimes too many," he said. "It's a serious problem that students in this determinative time aren't getting the support they demand through accurate assessment."

He added, "It's heartbreaking to hear students place themselves as 'below basic' or 'I'grand a one.' Not enough is beingness done to track educatee growth with high-quality formative assessment." And he said standardized tests "certainly don't measure qualities of great educational activity, the ability to give private education, to collaborate, to inspire a lifelong dearest of learning."

Duncan is making several speeches in a tour around the Bay Area this week. Earlier Tuesday, he visited the Cross Cultural Family Center child care program in San Francisco to talk about early on childhood learning. He is scheduled to appear Wednesday with Rep. Mike Honda, D-San Jose, at Fremont High School in Sunnyvale to launch a new endeavor to improve early pedagogy, before going on a series of site visits. And Thursday, Duncan will speak at the Education Writers Association national conference at Stanford.

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