OVERTESTED? THEY'RE ANNUAL:

On the second day of school, instead of playing get-to-know you icebreakers, the students in Room 202 were hunched over worn test booklets filling in bubbles on Scantron sheets. At the time, Michigan, where I taught fifth grade Language Arts and Social Studies from 2010 through 2013, administered its annual tests in October. In a desperate attempt to raise its scores, the underperforming school where I worked announced that September would be dedicated solely to test preparation. What made this mandate unusual was the way it was enforced: Fearing dissent, the superintendent decreed that students would return to their homerooms from the prior year, pretty much stepping back a grade, for the first month. [...]

So who's to blame for this scenario--or any of the countless frustrating testing scenarios a teacher could tell you about? Select the best answer and fill in the appropriate bubble with a No. 2 pencil. (Even though many state tests are now administered by computer.)

A. Administrators and staff who neglect children's learning needs in favor of a "teach to the test" approach?

B. Testing companies that create confusing multiple-choice questions and have a financial stake in maintaining the testing status quo?

C. The states, which spend an average of $27 per student on testing--which encourages a fast-food approach to learning: a cheap and not necessarily satisfying or informative experience?

D. George W. Bush's 2001 No Child Left Behind (NCLB) policy, which ushered in an era of high-stakes testing by holding schools to the awesome but unrealistic expectation that all students would be 100 percent proficient in math and English by 2014, and then holding schools accountable by tying Title I federal funding to test scores?

E. President Obama waivers that release states from the strict restrictions of NCLB's Adequate Yearly Progress goals but which do ask states to tie teacher evaluations to test scores?

F. The recently introduced Common Core State Standards, which attempt to create more rigorous academic benchmarks but also come with new, harder and longer mandatory exams.

G. All the above.

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